Poetic vs Literal Truth
[Editor’s Note: the below was taken from “The Pitch” in “Love at a Reasonable Price, Volume One: First Loves”.
Bartleby’s stories will be released as they come. He may also write stories about the goings-on at WAP. Don’t believe a word of it! Well, OK,: they may end up having some poetic truth, which has real value, but which shouldn’t be confused with literal truth.
Poetic truth has more Truth and less truth: it portrays the moment of existence as it essentially is more accurately than literal truth, but it’s not appropriate to use poetic truth in historical accounts, scientific findings, or anything else that comes with the clause: “we’ve here assumed xyz framework for gathering, organizing, analysing, and utilizing information; we’re not claiming any of this is actually true or actually matters or anything Absolute like that; but we do claim it is a good tool for modeling, predicting, and/or manipulating experience within clearly defined, but of course—as we’ve bracketed off all talk of what is actually going on—, ultimately foundationless assumptions”.
That’s not to say science cannot be poetically beautiful or poetically true; merely that when and to the degree a conscious experience’s understanding of a scientific idea turns poetic, that insight is poetic, not publicly-verifiable / literal / scientific. God’s Love is real outside of assumptions about how we should take in and organize information, whereas science is real only within such ultimately unprovable and incomprehensible assumptions. However, clear / precise / literal ideas are only possible within those clearly-definable (and thus ultimately unprovable and incomprehensible) assumptions.
Everything in its place! Poetic truth for pointing towards insights about what is actually going on and what actually matters and actually should be done. Literal truth for topics that remain meaningful and interesting even when their relationship to Reality is bracketed off and removed from the discussion. [“How should I really live my life?” loses all meaning and all punch when the question of its relationship to “what is really going on” and “what really matters” is taken off the table; but even if we suspend all consideration of what is really going on, we can still demonstrate that pi is irrational, E=mc2, and Helsinki the most populous city in Finland.]
LONGER VERSION OF FINAL PARAGRAPH
Everything in its place! Poetic truth for pointing towards what cannot be precisely stated because it is prior to descriptions (aka: ideas) and reactions (aka: feelings); poetic truth for pointing towards insights about what is actually going on and what actually matters and actually should be done. Literal truth for building models to understand and manipulate pure mathematical concepts and the observed physical, intellectual, and emotional world; literal truth for building structures that don’t comment upon their own relationship to what is actually going on and what actually matters and actually should be done; literal truth for topics who remain meaningful and interesting even when their relationship to Reality is bracketed off and removed from the discussion. [“How should I really live my life?” loses all meaning and all punch when the question of its relationship to “what is really going on” and “what really matters” is taken off the table; but even if we suspend all consideration of what is really going on, we can still demonstrate that pi is irrational, E=mc2, and Helsinki the most populous city in Finland.]