103 - Influential Book #3 - The Science of Discworld 2: The Globe 🐢🌎
Hey there, !
Here’s where we do some meta shit and talk about a story about stories. I’m hitting the Terry Pratchett content vein nearly everywhere I go but I won’t stop ‘til y’all are reading him!
1.
Heard of this book?
It’s been all the rage since it was released in 2014, and has grown in popularity with its sequels Homo Deus and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. It’s a great trilogy of books and lays out several fascinating concepts from the point of view of an anthropologist that’s studied humanity for his entire career (and also looks like he’s a wise old man which is probably 70% of why we believe him as well).
It’s also become one of those ‘books you read to prove you’re a book-reader and also wordly and also super “with it” in the zeitgeist of modern culture’. So of course I read it as soon as possible :D
But what if I told you that you could have read this same book, nearly 10 years earlier, in a much funnier form?
2.
Before I get to that, I wanted to highlight a key concept of Sapiens - ‘shared fictions’. A central argument through this book was the concept of, essentially, imagination and myth, that set Homo Sapiens apart from other species of human.
Early Sapiens were able to envisage the future, construct scenarios, and plan actions. Communicating these between one another meant that you could accelerate your learning through other’s experiences. Legends and myths handed down through the ages meant that you had a common bond to link yourself to, whether that was ‘real’ or ‘kind of real’ or ‘super made up’.
Over time, these ‘kind of real’ stories leads to more abstract forms - ideas, beliefs and labels - that help to reduce the overall communication burden between people. If I can give you a label of ‘Christian’ then I can assume a number of things about you, including the fact that you’ve read the Bible, you believe in God, and great - we can go on a Crusade together without knowing each other at all.
Stories and myths that we tell each other aren’t 100% true. A lot of them are lies, or maybe stretched truths, because a story can’t cover all the different levels of nuance required to get an idea across. They’re ‘shared fictions‘ that we believe in to keep the world going around (not unlike the ‘social contract’ a la Rousseau). Key examples include: money, justice, law, religion, economics and history. They’re words made up to denote an idea, which we all buy into (for the most part) and live our lives according to them.
They’re fictions, but not in the usual way we think of them.
3.
I picked up these books in the library because they were about Discworld and also because they written by Terry Pratchett (duh). In addition to that, it said ‘Science’ so nerdy Vince thought ‘what a great coincidence! Books made specifically for me!’
Book 1 covered the beginning of the universe and the world, telling the tale of the Discworld wizards creating ‘Roundworld’, an analogue to our universe. Roundworld follows a lot of weird rules (everything becomes balls; small balls become bigger balls; big things attract littler things; everything falls into each other), and didn’t seem to have any gods who were making anything, at ALL. What happens when the wizards try to meddle and make something intelligent out of it all…?
In summary, a hilarious Discworld story about the wizards trying to work out what was happening on Roundworld, interspersed with a number of chapters about the different quirks of our world and how it came to be. The two science writers Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen write some wonderful short pieces on topics ranging across the molten core of the Earth, the Big Bang, the development of life and evolution; all great first introductions into the world of science.
But the second book - ooooh, it was a killer!
Book 2 went deeper into the nature of stories, and covered a just-as-hilarious tale about wizards trying to combat the influence of elves, who were trying to take away the concept of “story” from a budding population of humans. Specifically, the wizards jumped through time trying to help Shakespeare write his plays, and recover the magic of imagination and story within the human race (as it would prevent them from progressing to the space age).
And here’s where we start getting meta.
4.
Why are stories so important?
Well, ‘shared fictions’ of course!:
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Stories are a memorable way to compare and pass experiences between people, and ensure that lessons can endure across time and through communities. They can help us build a picture of the future, and plan for it.
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But stories aren’t ‘real’ in the sense that they’re words I tell you to make pictures in your mind so that we are both kind of understanding what we’re both talking about. Like…it’s not tangibly real. Can you point to your imagination? Can you touch a dream?
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Myths and legends make it easier to explain the uncertainties of the world - the sea is angry because we didn’t sacrifice enough to Poseidon; garlic and stakes through the heart kill vampires; Bigfoot stalks the woods - don’t go there at night or by yourself - but they’re all variations of little lies that we tell to help us feel better, and more in control of our lives.
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By being able to tell stories about the world, you can tell stories about more and more abstract things around you. None if it is real anyway, right?
Stories separate us as the human race, rather than the ‘intelligence’ that we’re defined by:
“The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens (‘wise man’). In any case it’s an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee.” - The Science of Discworld II: The Globe
5.
There’s a concept called narrativium that the authors use often during the book. The key distinction between the rules in our universe (‘Roundworld’), which are immutable and unchanging…versus the narrativium that keeps Discworld going by making sure that what we think happens actually happens.
For example, we always know that the evil looking dude in a play is going to be the villain, so he’s definitely evil.
Or if a young man from a far off town arrives with a flashy sword and a tragic backstory, he’s obviously the heir to the throne, because that’s how a story works.
Dwarfs quaff beer and sing of gold, elves are wise and live in forests, trolls are big, ugly and stupid.
These are things that are meant to be, not necessarily what is.
It’s important to know the difference.
6.
Stories have power. You watch bitterly as Jean Valjean atones for his sins, whoop with joy as Elphaba helps save Oz from the Wizard, and cry with triumph that Iron Man defeats Thanos. All this, just from words on a page that your brain makes into emotions.
I’ve always loved seeing how that power can affect people.
Terry Pratchett explores this idea in a number of his Discworld stories, most notably another of my Influential Books - Hogfather. The book explores a similar idea, except with the layer of ‘belief’, which is stoked by the power of stories.
How could you know that there was some god-like figure without anyone telling you about their accomplishments? You don’t need to believe in something you’ve already seen - I don’t have to believe in grass, or clouds, or clothes, because I know they’re right there. On the contrary, someone has to tell me that there’s a higher power looking after me, and I have to believe in that story if I think it’s ‘true’ - there’s never going to be real proof for it.
Many of the stories in the Discworld use the idea of narrativium to either play into a trope, or build a subversive commentary of our world by turning it on its head. Everyone knows that dwarves quaff beer and love gold, but are there female dwarves? What about the ones that don’t care too much for beer, or are focused on their career as a police detective, or kinda like getting into embroidery?
Or maybe you have a heroic group of adventurers who help a ragtag bunch of rebels successfully overthrow an empire…except they’re old, retired barbarians who need help getting around.
Or maybe the eighth son of an eighth son, who will obviously grow up into a powerful wizard, is actually…a daughter?!
They sound like they’re just interesting ideas for novels (which, yes, they’re Terry Pratchett novels!), but they are also great ways to use existing story beats, ideas, and frameworks, to inject new ideas into the world.
Wrapping prickly ideas in a warm, hilarious doona of story - what power!
7.
This is a lot of words to say that I love stories.
I think the key point about this book was that it laid out why stories were so influential in my life. I spent a lot of my life reading books, watching movies, listening to stories, observing how people interpret situations, and expecting that that was how the rest of my life would go.
But it didn’t.
The disconnect between what’s meant to happen, and what does happen, is something that took a while for me to fully appreciate.
Our world doesn’t work on narrativium. Nothing is deserved; just because you spent weeks studying for your exams doesn’t mean you automatically get to have the top marks at school. Nobody cares that you spent 10 hours on a project only for it to be destroyed at the last minute. The meticulously laid out plan for your life can be ruined in an instant by a global pandemic that doesn’t give a shit your late 20’s are being wasted at home.
Just because you want it to happen, doesn’t mean the story of the universe is going to make it that way.
In real life, not all stories have happy endings.
8.
All this to come back to Sapiens, and the hipster-nerd Vince saying ‘omg I read this before it was cool’. It’s a really interesting concept to propel storytelling to the pinnacle of human achievement, and changed the way I thought about sharing and communicating my thoughts and ideas.
It helped me think about the best way to describe ideas when I’m tutoring - how do ideas actually stick?
It helped me think about why people don’t act the way they should, a consequence of our own stories getting in the way of reality.
And most importantly, it helped me write like 2000 words for this newsletter piece :D
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Hotpot - just in general, you should get one for home. Parents and I set one up very quickly on a Sunday night, and it was (as always) fantastic. Mum likes to make sure we’re not eating too much fake shit, so it’s a bit healthier, but it’s wonderful all the same. We usually smash out dinner quite quickly, but this one was a leisurely 2-3 hours together just chatting and havin’ a laugh. Lovely times.
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Lexicon Valley - a new podcast I stumbled across. It’s about language and etymology and the meaning behind things - a classic trivia bait podcast. The first episode was about spelling bees - why’s it called a spelling bee? Where does the word come from? It’s a fascinating ride - and it’s just started so take a look!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Life’s Stories - how do you tell your own life story? It can have a considerable effect on your life and mental state.
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Against Narratives - but narrativising your life all the time can be bad as well. I really liked this piece because it told a good story about why trying to ‘storify’ your life can be extremely detrimental to living it.
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How the Elderly lose their rights - it’s an American story, but it’s blood-boiling. Corrupt ‘conservators’ who take elderly people away from their houses, communities, and families legally, with a court order that no-one is informed about. I hated reading about this, but it’s a really good piece.