Abstract Thought And Why Youre So Smart

ABSTRACT THOUGHT AND WHY YOU’RE SO SMART Let me begin this post by saying flat out that when you aren’t watching at least a handful of TED Talk videos every week you’re a low-grade moron. There. I mentioned it. Angry with me? You need to spend a week watching half a dozen TED Talks then come again and tell me how proper I was. I’ll wait. But within the meantime, let’s dive into one of them for a bit of pondering over what it's we do (writing fantasy, science fiction, and horror) and what either made that attainable, or was made possible by it. Start by watching “ethical thinker” James Flynn’s TED Talk as regards to why our IQs are greater than our grandparents’: Flynn’s assertion actually feels legitimate. Granted, and not using a detailed research on my own half to both affirm or deny his speculationâ€"especially some of the “concrete” information such as that the average IQ circa 1900 was only 70 as opposed to at present’s 130, and that the principal engine of that change was the rise in summary co nsideringâ€"let’s run with it and see the place it takes us. Last week, in my Worldbuilding class, we talked about magic and know-how, and in the technology portion, went over the fact that technological advance is accelerating exponentially, and the past hundred years has not solely seen an explosion of technological advance utterly unprecedented in all of human history, but social and cultural advance has accelerated together with it. This certainly seems to go facet-by-aspect with Flynn’s examination of the rise of metaphorical, hypotheticalâ€"abstractâ€"thinking. As I contemplated this over the course of per week or so it occurred to me that one thing else was taking place throughout that same century, and that was the rise of fantasy, science fiction, and horror as well-liked genres. That’s not to say that any three of these genres had been “invented” solely after 1900â€"that’s completely not the caseâ€"however with a number of exceptions, how did these genres fare amongst the vast majority of readers earlier than this era of development in summary considering? I actually have to ask: Did the addition of what Flynn known as the “mental artillery” of abstract pondering deliver more readers to science fiction, fantasy, and horror or was it the development of that mental artillery in authors that brought more science fiction, fantasy, and horror to readers? Both? Flynn characterised the nineteenth century thoughts as “immune to classifying the concrete world,” “proof against deducing the hypothetical world,” and mentioned they “didn’t deal properly with abstractions or using logic on these abstractions.” This leads to an incapability to course of the question “What if?” But “What if?” is at the coronary heart of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. So does that mean the few authors on the market who might need been writing in those genres back then found it troublesome to penetrate those now-outdated modes of pondering? Let’s take a moment to have a look at some hard information that I assume are quite telling. Though there was science fiction, fantasy, and horror being written and printed before this rise in abstract thinking, how popular was it? Was it reaching the plenty? Here are the top ten best selling books of 1913, in accordance with Publisher’s Weekly: 1. The Inside of the Cup by Winston Churchill (not the British Prime Minister, a Christian realist novel) 2. V.V.’s Eyes by Henry Sydnor Harrison (realist novel of manners) three. Laddie by Gene Stratton Porter (romantic realist novel of affection between courses) 4. The Judgment House by Gilbert Parker (realist novel set in South Africa) 5. Heart of the Hills by John Fox, Jr. (realist political novel) 6. The Amateur Gentleman by Jeffrey Farnol (romantic swashbuckler) 7. The Woman Thou Gavest Me by Hall Caine (romantic realist novel of affection between courses) 8. Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter (realist youngsters’s nove l) 9. The Valiants of Virginia by Hallie Erminie Rives (rags-to-riches melodrama) 10. T. Tembarom by Frances Hodgson Burnett (realist melodrama of manners) Even the single kids’s guide on this listing, Pollyanna, accommodates no components of science fiction, fantasy, and horror in any respect (hence my tag “realist”). All of those books are novels, which actually requires some degree of summary considering to grasp, however all are rooted firmly in the true world and have a tendency to deal with a keenly-felt political subject of the day: class relations in America. Fast ahead to 2103, ranked by BookScan: 1. Hard Luck (Wimpy Kid #8) by Jeff Kinney (semi-realist, comedian-e-book infused children’s guide) 2. Inferno by Dan Brown (thriller with SF underpinnings) 3. Killing Jesus by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard (“historical” fiction) four. Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander (Christian memoir) 5. The House of Hades by Rick Riordan (younger reader fantasy) 6. Divergent by Veronica Roth (younger reader SF) 7. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (Christian devotional) 8. Sycamore Row by John Grisham (realist novel) 9. The Third Wheel (Wimpy Kid #7) by Jeff Kinney (semi-realist, comedian-e-book infused kids’s guide) 10. Happy, Happy, Happy by Phil Robertson (“movie star” autobiography) A century later we have one purely science fiction novel, one pure fantasy, one thriller with robust SF elements, two highly metaphorical works of Christian fiction and memoirâ€"an terrible lot of abstract thinking thereâ€"and a few enjoyable books for kids that include fantasy and SF elements aplenty, and somewhat more cynical than Pollyanna. And of course if I chose a slightly completely different hundred-yr interval, one that ended with the release of a new Harry Potter book, the preponderance of fantasy on the current listing would have gone a lot higher. Flynn mentioned, “Without the hypothetical it’s very troublesome to get ethical argument off the bottom.” An d he’s right about that, for positive. If you don’t consider me see the hypothetical futures of the science fiction novels 1984 and Dune and the ethical arguments they make. Food for thought. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: