Fact is fiction and fiction is fiction.* It is all about
   pragmatism and degrees of fiction and where the truths within
   the fictions are. - Kenneth Udut 11/18/2015 [need a new title]
   Fiction. We understand the stories told. How do we understand
   them if they did not happen? Our understanding of things is
   ultimately fictional. This does not mean lies. This does not
   mean untrue. But it means that facts and objective truths are
   "working descriptions" of reality that only correspond to
   reality as much as as we humans NEED or want it to, and no more.
   We have tolerances. Allowances. "Fudge factors". All a regular
   and necessary part of every science, every court system, every
   evidentiary system. The best we can hope for is accuracy and
   precision together, as neither alone is enough. But accuracy and
   precision of what? Our goals and targets, whatever they may be.
   Yet for as accurate and precise as we get, there is always a
   level further in or a level further out, or a different
   perspective we have yet to consider. We don't have the whole
   picture of anything. But what we *do have* is a working
   description of things. It's pragmatic. It gets things done. It's
   correct _enough for our purposes_. We consider this "correct
   enough for our purposes" = hard fact. Hard evidence. Such is the
   nature of fact. It's "true enough for our needs". But, it's
   ultimately still a fiction, just a very true fiction. It would
   be ridiculous to call it fiction normally, because we have some
   things that are FAR MORE fictional than facts and that is the
   arena we call fiction. Now, in things like thought experiments
   based upon movies or parables, you are utilizing a fictional
   Universe as an overlay to our Universe. Yet, are there really
   two Universe? One fictional? One fact? There's not. There's just
   this Universe. Our describatory powers must ultimately be
   fictional in nature. No two apples even exist if one wants to
   get tenacious about it. There's "two apples" for our convenience
   based upon the limitations of our cognition. We're unable to see
   thing in their uniqueness, and we're generally trapped at our
   "zoom level" of reality. So we categorize. We utilize the
   cognitive systems we have which have a built-in tendency to
   discover "patterns" - similarities, and pull them together "as
   if one" - allowing us to have such things as "two" of "this" or
   that. Our brains can't possibly contain all the uniqueness of
   the Universe. We must use patterns - we have no choice. Or we
   build thought systems that use patterns. Or we build devices
   which use patterns, which we base upon our own patterns in some
   fashion. Now, going to the "fictional Universe", how is it that
   we understand it at all? Our brains interpret the fictional
   stories as truth while we are viewing them. We place ourselves
   in those situations. They are real to us. So is this Universe
   that we are in. The difference is the degrees of fiction. We
   comprehend stories using different names, different dates,
   different "markers" than we would use in a history book or a
   science text very easily because these stories they tell are no
   different than the stories we hear about reality. This concept
   of "continuum of fiction" might sound off the wall - it's just
   something I've been thinking about for a long time but i do so
   carefully because there *is* a real Universe that we can
   objectively apprehend. We can do so only to the best of our
   abilities, either natural or artificially -but the artificial is
   still due to the machines that are also created by these same
   limited cognitive faculties. Does that mean we cannot truly
   "know the Universe"? Well, no, I believe we *can* fully know the
   Universe _to the best of our abilities_. There is no beyond-that
   us. If we cannot put it into a metaphor or an analogy to some
   pre-existing 'something' we already comprehend, it's just not
   there. In short, the map is the territory and the territory is
   the map - they co-evolve. We utilize multiple mappings
   simultaneously to create our knowledge of the territories thanks
   to our mental compressions and connections... and some maps are
   better suited than others for different situations in assisting
   us navigate the territories we're in. The cinematic Universe
   helps us navigate relationship territories; how we relate to the
   non-movie-screen reality we're also in. It functions as a
   marvelous map-of-understanding our territories. That's why they
   work so well in thought experiments. You can tell me that is a
   bunch of babble and ridiculous and I'm ok with that. I've been
   running it through it for a long time and hardly sit down and
   write it out. Definitely needs refinement and criticism.