Pararealities: The Nature of Our Fictions and How We Know Them

by Floyd Merrell

The objective of this study is to inquire, from a broad epistemological view, into the underlying nature of fictions, and above all, to discover how it is possible to create and process them. In Chapter One, I put forth four "postulates" in the form of though experiments. in Chapter Two I turn attention to make-believe, imaginary, and dream worlds, and how they can be conceived and perceived only with respect to the/a "real world." Chapter Three includes a discussion of the affinities and differences between one's tacit knowledge of certain aspects of the number system in arithmetic (an ordered series) and the range of all possible fictional entities (an unordered network). In Chapter Four I establish more precisely the relations between one's "real world" and one's fictional worlds in light of the conclusions from Chapter Three. And, in Chapter Five, I attempt to construct a formal model with which to account for the construction of all possible fictional sentences.

182 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1983