Here is what I had in mind in terms of a solution.
What I'm getting at is there is a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific progress at play here. Take Newtonian physics for example: there has never been a neatly packaged idea ordained from god that says 'F=ma'. Instead things like 'F=ma' is something generated out of observing the materials at hand, and out of an intellectual milieu. To put it another way, it's not like you can just unravel enough layers of reality to the point where the laws are literally inscribed there. (I'm vaguely referring to Structural Realism here.) The naive polar opposite of this picture is the "conceptual" world described in the previous comment. The nature of reality in their stories is definite, and final--sometimes they will even out right tell you. They are the God of their world, and their word is Law, etc., etc. But this is not true. You'll have to excuse the poetry but words are like holes in the page, they reveal in themselves innumerable relations to other words, chains of signification, and systems of meaning that by necessity are always connected back to the real world. Any semblance of control over what you create is illusory in my opinion. And we need to acknowledge this in how we write. Both in the characters and our creation of the world itself. There is always an error in understanding, always a misrecognition in seeing, every system has its breakdown, so we should reflect this. Writing then should evoke an openness to interpretation, systems of understanding should be challenged, and most importantly, it should be dynamic in its development.
One example I like to think of is approaching some aspects of worldbuilding as if you were being asked questions. Like you want to write about a completely different society? Okay, take a step back and consider how to approach knowing such a thing. Imagine if someone walked up to you and asked 'What is your society?' without a frame of reference I would be at a loss for words. It is pretty much impossible to answer directly. Woe is you if you are trying to create an actual alien species: 'what is humanity?' That is a question we've been mulling over since the dawn of time! Plus these nebulous concepts only really become apparent out of their everydayness when they break down (the state manifests itself through repression, or even something as simple as the exclamation 'O Humanity!')
Basically just be pretentious, ambiguous, and have a whole lot of double-meanings. At least that is what I'm trying to do. Thoughts?
deleted by creator
Here is what I had in mind in terms of a solution.
What I'm getting at is there is a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific progress at play here. Take Newtonian physics for example: there has never been a neatly packaged idea ordained from god that says 'F=ma'. Instead things like 'F=ma' is something generated out of observing the materials at hand, and out of an intellectual milieu. To put it another way, it's not like you can just unravel enough layers of reality to the point where the laws are literally inscribed there. (I'm vaguely referring to Structural Realism here.) The naive polar opposite of this picture is the "conceptual" world described in the previous comment. The nature of reality in their stories is definite, and final--sometimes they will even out right tell you. They are the God of their world, and their word is Law, etc., etc. But this is not true. You'll have to excuse the poetry but words are like holes in the page, they reveal in themselves innumerable relations to other words, chains of signification, and systems of meaning that by necessity are always connected back to the real world. Any semblance of control over what you create is illusory in my opinion. And we need to acknowledge this in how we write. Both in the characters and our creation of the world itself. There is always an error in understanding, always a misrecognition in seeing, every system has its breakdown, so we should reflect this. Writing then should evoke an openness to interpretation, systems of understanding should be challenged, and most importantly, it should be dynamic in its development.
One example I like to think of is approaching some aspects of worldbuilding as if you were being asked questions. Like you want to write about a completely different society? Okay, take a step back and consider how to approach knowing such a thing. Imagine if someone walked up to you and asked 'What is your society?' without a frame of reference I would be at a loss for words. It is pretty much impossible to answer directly. Woe is you if you are trying to create an actual alien species: 'what is humanity?' That is a question we've been mulling over since the dawn of time! Plus these nebulous concepts only really become apparent out of their everydayness when they break down (the state manifests itself through repression, or even something as simple as the exclamation 'O Humanity!')
Basically just be pretentious, ambiguous, and have a whole lot of double-meanings. At least that is what I'm trying to do. Thoughts?