ANATOLY IVANOV / PROSE / 2019-07-28

PEOPLE LOVE CYCLIC AND REGENERATING STORIES AND UNIVERSES

by Anatoly IVANOV

PHYSICS / PSYCHOLOGY / SOCIETY / ESSAYS

People love cyclic and regenerating universes — reincarnation, royal / superhero families of father to son, extreme quantum fluctuation initiating a new Big Bang, etc. — because they appeal to our sense of narrative.

They also appeal to our intuition for causality seen in most phenomena at the human scale. Many of our ideas just push back the uncomfortable “something from nothing” or “nothing after something” moments like personal death or the Big Bang.

People don’t like straight-up truth. They prefer stories that conform to their worldview. Dreams and wishful thinking, fiction instead of fact.

ADD YOUR COMMENT

ABOUT ANATOLY IVANOV / PROSE

Find out more about my posting and comments policy, as well as publishing frequency and copyright issues.

TIP: To print images, enable “Print backgrounds” in your browser preferences.