Why imaginary worlds? The psychological foundations and cultural evolution of fictions with imaginary worlds

Abstract

Imaginary worlds are extremely successful. The most popular fictions produced in the last decades contain such a fictional world. They can be found in all fictional media, from novels (e.g., Lord of The Ring, Harry Potter) to films (e.g., Star Wars, Avatar), video games (e.g., The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy), graphic novels (e.g., One piece, Naruto) and TV series (e.g., Star Trek, Game of Thrones), and they date as far back as ancient literature (e.g., the Cyclops Islands in The Odyssey, 850 BCE). Why such a success? Why so much attention devoted to nonexistent worlds? In this article, we propose that imaginary worlds co-opt our preferences for exploration, which have evolved in humans and non-human animals alike, to propel individuals toward new environments and new sources of reward. Humans would find imaginary worlds very attractive for the very same reasons, and under the same circumstances, as they are lured by unfamiliar environments in real life. After reviewing research on exploratory preferences in behavioral ecology, environmental aesthetics, neuroscience, and evolutionary and developmental psychology, we focus on the sources of their variability across time and space, which we argue can account for the variability of the cultural preference for imaginary worlds. This hypothesis can therefore explain the way imaginary worlds evolved culturally, their shape and content, their recent striking success, and their distribution across time and populations.

What made us “hunter-gatherers of words”

“…By being truly symbolic, words are "patently false signals." They are not mere fictions (but like fiction, they require a special, safe ecology to prosper, Dubourg and Baumard, 2022). They are facts, but "facts whose existence depends entirely on subjective belief " (Knight, 2010).…”

“…The “special” nature of human words has been well captured by Chris Knight in a series of works (Knight et al, 1995 ; Knight, 2008 , 2010 ). By being truly symbolic, words are “patently false signals.” They are not mere fictions (but like fiction, they require a special, safe ecology to prosper, Dubourg and Baumard, 2022 ). They are facts, but “facts whose existence depends entirely on subjective belief” (Knight, 2010 ).…”

Mental imagery in aesthetic appreciation and the understanding of the self and others.

“…Aesthetic appreciation results from complex interactions (i.e., mnemonic, affective, and perceptual) between artistic outputs and the viewers (Gernot et al, 2018; Menninghaus et al, 2017; Onians, 2018; Rusu, 2017). Artists can create fictional worlds and characters that entice observers to join in those fantasies (Bullot & Reber, 2013; Dubourg & Baumard, 2022; Iosifyan, 2021); the stronger the vividness of the mental depictions generated, the more enjoyable those fictional worlds are likely to be (cf., Friedlander et al, 2022), at least for those with dominant visual styles of imagery. Often audiences juggle attempts to understand the possible “storylines” running through an artwork with attempts to understand the artist's intentions when creating them (cf., Marković, 2010; Pelowski et al, 2017; Pelowski & Akiba, 2011).…”

How Wisdom Emerges from Intellectual Development: A Developmental/Historical Theory for Raising Mandelas

“…Awareness of representations enables individuals to become social partners and negotiate each other’s views or intentions; it also provides a representational insight that views of reality are often mirrored in each person’s representations. Preschool children’s strong interest in the imaginary worlds of fairy tales and movies reflects humans’ emergent realization that the world may be represented by alternative, often surprising, ways ( Hinchcliffe 2006 ) and that using them helps explore their possible differences and functionalities ( Dubourg and Baumard 2021 ). Education of tolerance and empathy may capitalize on the preschooler’s discovery of imaginary worlds.…”