The Fiction Is That Reality Exists: A Constructivist Model of Reality, Fiction, and Literature
Author(s): S. J. Schmidt and H. Hauptmeier
Source:
Poetics Today,
Vol. 5, No. 2, The Construction of Reality in Fiction (1984), pp. 253-274
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771932
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THE
FICTION
IS THAT REALITY
EXISTS*
A
Constructivist
Model
of
Reality,
Fiction,
and
Literature
S.J.
SCHMIDT
Literature,
Siegen
1. PROSPECTUS
No
scientific
analysis
of the
theme
"The
Structure
of
Reality
in
Fiction"
can
proceed
without
a
basic
clarification
of
the
notions
"reality"
and
"fiction."
Any
discussion
of
this
or
related
subjects
necessarily
entails
far-reaching
ontological,
metascientific,
and
object-theoretical
concepts
and models
(cf.
S.J.
Schmidt
1976,
1980-1982,
1980a).
In
this
paper
I will
outline
a
theoretical
frame
within
which
these
notions will
be
explicated,
thus
avoiding
idle
metaphysical
or
metaphorical
chat.
This
theoretical
frame
is
based on the
empirical
work
of
construc-
tivist scientists
(e.g.,
Humberto
R.
Maturana,
Francisco
Varela,
Ernst
von
Glasersfeld,
Heinz
von
Foerster,
Ruprecht
Riedl,
and
others).
Since
literary
scholars
tend not to be familiar
with
construc-
tivist
epistemology
and its
empirical
foundation,
I
have
undertaken
the
following
excursus
into
biology
and
physiology
in
the
hope
that
it
will
help clarify
the
differences between
constructivist
positions
and
those which
have
been
developed
without
empirical
(scientific)
foundations in the
history
of
philosophy
(e.g.,
solipsism).
Moreover,
a
detailed account
of
constructivist
epistemology
may
help prevent
possible
misunderstandings
of
my
conception
of
literature, fiction,
and
reality.
It
must
be
emphasized
beforehand,
however,
that
the
following
discussion
does
not
present
completely
novel
thinking.
For
instance,
certain
scientists
have
at
various
times
maintained
that
meaning
is
a
matter
of
convention and
subjectivity.
But
such
assumptions,
as
a
rule,
lack
a
consistent
theoretical
and
empirical
base,
nor
has
it been made clear
what
conclusions
can
(could,
should)
be
drawn
from
them.
*
Paper
read
at the
Ossabaw
Conference
on "The
Structure of
Reality
in
Fiction,"
October
1-8,
1981.
Translated
by
H.
Hauptmeier.
Poetics
Today,
Vol.
5:2
(1984)
253-274
254
S.J.
SCHMIDT
It
is
these two
deficiencies that
I
shall
try
to
remedy.
Thus,
what
I claim for
my exposition
is
not
novelty
or
originality
but
coherence
and
consequentiality.
2.
SYSTEMS
AND
MODELS,
CONSTRUCTIONS
AND
CONVENTIONS
2.1.
The
constructivist
theory
of
cognition
can
generally
be sub-
sumed
under the
heading
of
biological
systems
theories. But at
the
same
time,
constructivist
epistemology
differs from
the dominant
structuralism
of
systems
theories
in
so
far
as
it
is
primarily
oriented
toward
functional
and
pragmatic aspects
-
which does
not
prevent
this
theory
from
having
a
structural
component,
as
well.
This orientation
is reflected in
the
general
hypothesis
of
the
constructivist
theory
of
cognition:
living
systems
are
not
primarily
defined
through
the
qualities
of
their
components,
but
through
their
organization,
i.e.,
through
relations.1
In
the
case of
the
nervous
system,
for
instance,
this means that not the
neuron
but behavior
itself
must
be
regarded
as
the fundamental
unit.
According
to
the
constructivist
view,
people
and
their
behavior can
be
adequately
described
and
explained
in
the
organismic
model.
The
structure
of
organisms,
i.e.,
the relations
between their
elements,
is
autopoietic.
The
organization,
i.e.,
the
relations which
define a
living
system
as
a unit
and
determine its
possible
interactions
and
transformations,
is
homeostatic.
Autopoietically
structured
and
homeostatically
organized
systems
with
closed
nervous
systems
are
auto-referential.
Living
systems
maintain their
circular
homeostatic
organization
by
reproducing
those
elements
which
are
dissipated
by
environmental
influences: "It
is
this
circularity
of
its
organization
that
makes
a
living
system
a unit
of
interactions,
and it
is
this
circularity
that
it
must
maintain
in
order
to
remain
a
living
system
and
to
retain its
identity
through
different
interactions"
(Maturana
1970:9).
Accord-
ing
to this
kind
of
circularity
all
operations
in
the
cognitive
domain
are
inferential.
Specifically:
-
living
systems
organizing
their
experience
operate
inductively;
-
living
systems operate
predictively,
i.e.,
they
presuppose
that
what
has
happened
once
in
the
experiential
domain
will
happen
again;
-
living
systems
possess
a conservative
organization,
i.e.,
they
repeat
only
what
worked
or
fitted
well
in the
past;
-
living
systems
are
historical
systems,
i.e.,
the
relevance
of
any
behavior
is
specified
from the
past.
1. There
is
an
interesting
parallel
here
with
what
is called the
boot-strap-hypothesis
in
microphysics
(cf.
F.
Capra 1975),
where
the universe is
assumed to
be a
dynamic
texture
of
coherent
events. No
element
and no
quality
of
an element is
fundamental.
Instead
they
all
emerge
from
the
qualities
of all other
elements,
and
the
concord
of
their
reciprocal
relations
determines
the
structures
of
the
texture.
THE
FICTION IS THAT
REALITY
EXISTS
Living systems
are
further characterized
by
their
autonomy, identity,
and
closedness.
They
are
autonomous
insofar
as
they
are
unequivocally
delimited
from
their
environment.
The
principal goal
of
autonomous
systems
is
to maintain their
autopoiesis. Organisms
maintain
a
specific
identity by
trying
to
keep
their
organization
invariable.
(An
observer
interprets
this
identity
as
individuality.)
On account
of their
closed nervous
systems,
organisms possess
a
deterministic structure: their
organization
defines
an
ambience
that the
system
can interact
with;
that
is,
its niche.
The niche
is
the
total
cognitive reality
of
the
living
system.
The
nervous
system
lets
the
organism
interact
with its own
internal
states,
enabling
it
to
construct
purely physical
relations.
This
mode of
interaction leads
to
self-observation,
which
is
the basis for
self-consciousness. In
Maturana's
opinion,
it
is
an
epistemological
clou
of
cognitive
biolo-
gical analyses
that
the
anatomic
and
functional
organization
of
the
nervous
system
provides
a
synthesis
of
behavior
but
not,
for
instance,
a
representation
of
reality.
The
cognitive
domain
of
the
living
system
is within the
system
itself:
Organisms
interact with
their
own
internal
states
as
if
those
states
were
system-independent
objects.
This
kind
of
abstract
thinking
requires
a
nervous
system
capable
of
construct-
ing
differences
between
internal
and
external
activities
of
the
living
system.
To
understand the
constructivist
concept
of
behavior,
it is
necessary
to
realize
first that
living
systems
are
permanently
affected
and
deformed
by
the niche
and
by
the
system's
own
activities. Due
to the
closedness of
the
nervous
system,
any
variation in
the
system's
state
must lead to
further
variations,
since the
nervous
system
always
tries to
maintain a
constant relation
between
its
receptors
and
effectors in
order
to
maintain the
system's
identity.
Accordingly,
the
behavior
of
living
systems
can
be
defined
as a
functional con-
tinuum
establishing
the
unit
of
the
organism
in
all
its
interactions
and
transformations.
Maturana
compares
the
behavior of
living
systems
with
an
instrumental
flight:
"Behavior is like
an
instrumental
flight
in
which the
effectors
(engines,
flaps,
etc.)
vary
their
state
to
maintain
constant,
or to
change,
the
readings
of
the
sensing
instru-
ments
according
to a
specified
sequence
of
variations,
which
either is
fixed
(specified
through
evolution)
or can
be
varied
during
the
flight
as a
result of
the
state of
the
flight
(learning)"
(1970:38).
2.2.
By
recursively
generating representations
of
its own
interac-
tions,
a
living
system
becomes an
observer.
From
this
state
onwards,
one
has
to
differentiate
between
the
living
system
as
sytem
and
the
living system
as
observer so
that
confusion
about
these two
funda-
mentally
different
domains
can
be
avoided.
Maturana
describes
the
difference
between
these
functions
as
follows:
"The
niche
is
defined
255
256
S.J.
SCHMIDT
by
the
classes of
interactions
into
which an
organism
can
enter. The
environment
is defined
by
the
class
of
interactions
into
which
the
observer can
enter and which he
treats
as a
context
for his
inter-
actions
with
the
observed
organism.
The
observer
beholds
organism
and environment
simultaneously
and
he
considers as
the
niche
of
the
organism
that
part
of
the
environment which
he
observes to lie
in
its
domain of
interactions.
[.
.
.]
Niche
and
environment, then,
intersect
only
to
the
extent
that
the observer
(including instruments)
and the
organism
have
comparable
organizations [.
.
.]"
(Maturana
1970:11).
The
system
as
system
thus
interacts
with and in
its
niche,
which is
defined
by
the
possible
classes of
interactions into which an
organism
can
enter
according
to
the
system's
structure and
organiza-
tion.
This
domain,
which
in
the
course
of
evolution
has
developed
into
a rather
successfully
operating
structure,
is called
the ratio-
morphous
domain
by
Riedl
(1980).
The
system
as
observer
lives in
its
environment
which
represents
a
domain
of
cognitive
descriptions
which Riedl calls the
rational
domain. As
everybody
knows,
the
problem-solving capacity
of
complex living
systems
is rather
weak
and
vague
on the rational
level,
whereas in
problem-solving
the ratio-
morphous
domain
is
relatively
strong
and
definite.
The
difficulty
is
that
problem-solving
strategies
cannot
be
transferred from one
domain to
the
other,
and
as
a
result the rational domain
will
never
approach
the
certainty
and
efficiency
of
its
ratiomorphous
counter-
part.
2.3.
These
biological
remarks on
a
constructivist
theory
of
cognition
have
been
indispensable
to
our
discussion
insofar
as,
according
to
Maturana,
cognition
"is
a
biological
phenomenon
and can
only
be
understood
as
such;
any
epistemological
insight
into the domain
of
knowledge
requires
this
understanding"
(1970:5).
The
problems
of
cognition,
reality,
and
truth
require
answers
to
the
questions:
What is
there to
know?
and: How
do
we
know?
So
let us now turn
to the
processes
of
perception
and
cognition.
Perception,
Maturana
emphasizes,
necessarily
reflects the anatomical
and
functional
organization
of
a nervous
system
in its
interactions,
and
not the
properties
of an
independent
reality.
Thus,
perception
is
nothing
but
a
process
of
construction.
It
does
not
(and
cannot)
reflect
an
objective
reality:
"What we
experience
is
a
set
of
outputs
of
perceptual
functions,
and
we
have
no
way
to
detect the true
nature
of
the
input"
(Powers 1976:6).
The nervous
system
can
merely
inform the
organism
about
the fact
that
there
is a
neural
signal,
but
it transmits
no information
about the
origin
or
quality
of
the
signal.
Living
systems
can
only perceive
their own
sensory
signals,
which
are
then
interpreted
in
the
system's cognitive
domain.
These
aspects
of
perception
may
be
reduced to the
following
formula: Behavior
controls
perception;
perception
is
interpretation.