Why do I read fiction? Or what do I get out of reading fiction?
Vivek haldar here talks about how he doesn’t read fiction because it does nothing to him, or rather means nothing to him.
It set me thinking like a knot in my brain, or a thorn in the brain. I read it long time ago, and my first thought was am the opposite.
I prefer reading fiction. In the time since, I have held the question in my mind for some time and come up with the following possibilities:
0. Theory of mind– there’s some (scanty,debatable)evidence reading fiction helps understanding how other minds work.
Here’s the study
And I do have a tendency to retreat into reading fiction, when I am upset/confused or trying figure out what’s the right decision(usually regarding people in my life) to make.
1. I find it kinda enhances or clears my head to goad into logical thinking.* i.e: once am done reading through the fiction to completion.
2.It definitely affords a comfortable/guilt-free thing to do, without being(nay feeling) guilty of procrastination, supposedly reading is always considered a good thing(socially).
3.It could also simply be my way of dealing with the modern world’s craziness. Much like VGR refers here.
4. It helps as good practice for thought experiments and therefore makes it easier to consider alternative explanations**.
5. It definitely helps to clear out the emotional components from my decision-making/thinking. More specifically in the (alertness/arousal) scale, it helps lowering out arousal level, and therefore raising the alertness/arousal ratio. (One of my hypothesis is that rational thinking directly proportional to ratio of alertness to arousal levels).
*– Might simply be wishful thinking on my part.
P.S: The above is a rather descriptive attempt. Some of the points may and probably do have overlap with other points. The bullet point format is simply organized for communication, instead of empirical hypothesis testing.
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