Dear all, The next meeting of the Serious Metaphysics Group will take place tomorrow, November 25th at 4.30-6pm on Zoom (details below). Alex Fisher (Cambridge) will present a paper entitled 'Truth in Interactive Fiction'.
Abstract Truth in fiction has received extensive debate, yet little attention has been paid to interactive fiction (videogames, role-playing games, interactive novels) and truth therein. I argue that unique puzzles are posed by what is true in interactive fiction, in which fictional truths are determined by the audience, rather than being set down in stone by the author as in “linear” fictions (novels, films, TV shows). In particular, if we treat interactive fiction as containing a singular set of fictional truths, as we do linear fictions, then contradictions are rendered fictionally true, because both p and ¬p are fictionally true in the work. I propose a pluralism about fictional truth, distinguishing different ways of being true in interactive fiction. In particular, I argue that we can distinguish between being true merely in a “branch” of an interactive fiction and being true more generally in the work itself. This allows us to maintain that whilst p and ¬p can each individually be true in separate branches of the interactive fiction, since they are not true in the same branch we cannot combine them to generate the contradiction p and ¬p. However, whilst this basic idea solves the problem of interactive fiction being rendered impossible fiction, getting the details right of which truths are merely true in a branch and which are true in the work itself proves difficult! Topic: Serious Metaphysics Group Time: Nov 25, 2020 04:30 PM London Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/91992338139?pwd=bFI2R3VJRjh3dHJtTTJJRXhjVmVmQT09 Meeting ID: 919 9233 8139 Passcode: 02947 Best wishes, Wouter _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: https://lists.cam.ac.uk/pipermail/phil-events/ Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
