Here's an idea. "The War of the Worlds"
can help us understand what fiction actually is.
So when I say "War of the Worlds,"
the first thing that probably comes to your mind
is the 1938 radio broadcast narrated and directed
by Mr. Orson Welles.
Welles' Halloween broadcast was so
convincing in its sonic depiction of invading aliens
that, as the story goes at least,
residents in and around New York and New Jersey
were freakin' out
Orson's "War of the World" was based
on another Wells' "War of the Worlds,"
the 1897 novel by H.G. Wells.
No relation.
Different spelling.
H.G.'s "War" didn't take place in the dirty jerz,
but rather in Surrey and London in a very similar situation
where humanity had very good reason
to fear for its well-being at the hands
of giant, laser-wielding not-friendlies.
But these are not the only two expressions
of H.G.'s original story.
Oh, no, no.
Like Sherlock, Superman, and very few other pieces
of culture, H.G.'s "War of the Worlds"
has spawned countless adaptations, sequels, remakes,
and homages.
Like maybe you were one of the six people
to see the 1988 Canadian television show, or the 2005
Tom Cruise vehicle, which we'll reference once or twice,
because the assets are good.
Explosion!
The entire "War of the Worlds" media complex
is built upon and references what
is arguably the same universe, characters, history,
situations.
And at least one instance of it was
able to convince people that the fiction was, in fact, fact,
which is why it's such a great way to talk about how fiction
works, or really what fiction is.
Because really, fiction is just an arrangement
of objects, people, places, things,
set into a progression or maybe a conflict.
But what exactly are those things, the people, and places,
and stuff, and junk, that make up a fictional story?
From a super young age, we are taught
that the core nature of fiction is
that the objects and situations in it
aren't real, that they are necessarily false, that they
don't actually exist.
And maybe they don't.
In next week's video, we're going
to talk about Harry Potter and what existence
and not existence means for elements of fictional stories.
But for now, we say Martian invaders don't exist.
But here they are.
I can point at them.
And with "War of the Worlds" Martian invaders specifically,
there's even a particular look and style.
[TRIPOD HORN]
There is this bundle of characteristics
which is conjured and which, until next week at least,
we're going to say qualifies as a kind of existence.
That existence, though, is clearly
different from that of radio show hosts,
and minivans, protons, and even ideas like peace and time.
Especially because along with those things that,
as far as we know, aren't actually actual,
like giant aliens, capsule-shaped interplanetary
spacecraft, and Tom Cruise being a dock worker--
No, no.
I can't I'm on a 12-hour blow.
Fictions also contain real things
with actuality, things like motorcycles, minivans, protons,
Tom Cruise, and peace.
Are those things, the inside the fiction
but otherwise real things, any different
from the outside the fiction versions of themselves?
Put another way, is H.G. Wells' London the London?
Is Orson Welles's Jersey the Jersey?
Is a Martian invader a Martian invader?
God, I hope not.
In name, maybe, depending upon who you ask.
All of these things are what they are.
This is this.
Fictional Grover's Mills exists in a Jersey.
But here's the thing.
That Jersey only exists because of a reference
conjured in our minds upon hearing the word Jersey.
Let's leave New Jersey out of this.
That's what the Constitution should have said.
Jersey here is a reference.
It's not meant to be the same Jersey from a news
report or the census.
Some and arguably all fiction works by reference,
by glomming on, or suggesting a connection to things
that we already understand or know by name.
When H.G. Wells invokes London, he
is referencing a fictional London,
of which he only imagines and describes maybe 5%.
What of the rest of that London?
Maybe it's there anyway, just chilling.
Though it does seem weird to call it a city,
since it doesn't have plumbing or daycare
or whatever else except to the degree
that we happen to imagine it does.
MALE SPEAKER: (SINGING) Imagination!
This London seems an incomplete London,
requiring our shared sense of what a London should be.
Namely, old and full of very friendly people,
except for the invading Martians, of course.
And speaking of which, what about those things
that exist between fictional worlds
but most certainly not in ours?
When H.G. Wells created those bear-sized, leathery, tentacled
Martians, it could be said that he also
created a world in which they really do exist.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Creationism-- but not that creationism--
says that fictional objects exist, but only
because of the authors who first created them, quote, "actively
and intentionally."
Footnote, Jeffrey Goodman.
Meaning, they don't exist here in our actual world,
except as entertainment.
But they do exist in, and, as is the case here,
in between other merely possible worlds.
But how does that happen?
How does something exists but not?
And not only in one world?
Alexius Meinong was an Austrian philosopher
who thought lots about this conundrum
and had a really fun explanation.
He theorized a kind of object, which we now
call a Meinongian object, that has zero existence, but does
have properties.
His two most famous examples of such an
object the round square and the golden mountain,
two objects which have no existence
but very clearly stated properties.
Some of his later disciples, most notably
a man named Graham Priest, joined the idea
for this kind of object with one that theorizes
other possible worlds.
Possiblism states that anything which is possible exists.
Also called modal realism, it states
that those worlds in which those possibilities became actual
are just as real as ours, because any subject
inside of them would say that their world is
the actual world.
So when I say "War of the Worlds" alien, or Aunt Beast,
or He Who Shall Not Be Named, I'm not
describing something that exists in our world,
but a thing existing in another world.
And which, being familiar with what I'm talking about,
and regardless of its nonexistence in our world,
you could probably describe or maybe even draw
a reasonable representation of.
We think of fiction as be necessarily false.
But when we look at it this way, is it?
Besides being true in their own potential worlds,
the most believable of fictions give
accounts of events which might as well have
happened in our world.
This was exactly the case with "The War of the Worlds" radio
broadcast.
While it was fictional, there was
nothing necessary about its falsehood,
meaning "War of the World" certainly wasn't
a war in the same way that what's happening in Afghanistan
and Syria are wars, but for some people, at one point
in history, at least, it was just as much, if not more,
of a war, even though in our world
it was constructed entirely of fictional objects.
It takes a special kind of object,
itself but not, true but not, here and there,
to allow fiction to work the way it does.
And that's especially true in the exceptional circumstances,
like "The Blair Witch Project," King Arthur, most
Borges short stories, and, of course,
"The War of the Worlds."
What do you guys think?
What are fictional objects, references, possible worlds,
mental creations?
Let us know in the comments.
And in my best possible world, you would subscribe.
This week's episode is part of a set produced by a few PBS DS
YouTubers, so you should check out
the other H.G. Wells and "War of the Worlds" related videos.
We'll put some links everywhere.
We'll just put links literally everywhere.
Links just all over the place.
All right, everybody.
Let's unpack some comments.
Let's hear what you guys had to say about unboxing.
prosper58 wonders if it's weird that he
watches unboxing videos for objects that he already owns.
And I say no.
I mean, a lot of the comments sort of seized
on the inherent excitement in unwrapping something,
in revealing these things.
And then it's kind of like Christmas,
receiving presents on your birthday, or something.
So I think it makes total sense.
It's also really interesting to see other people's reactions
to things that you already have.
But why, Sour Sorola, why do you want
to see the things that you are going
to get before you get them?
You are going to see them eventually.
Why watch an unboxing video if you're going to get it?
Thank you, Darksinne.
You also seem nice.
To everybody wondering what the pink thing in the episode was,
it was a mobile phone kickstand.
Get your minds out of the gutter.
Sticks to the back your phone so that it stands up.
You guys.
Daniel Hough wonders about the future of unboxing videos.
And yeah, it'll be really curious to see
what happens when the unboxing video turns
into another piece of the marketing barrage that
happens when there's a new piece of technology.
And yeah, we'll see whether or not we can even like--
whether or not we think of it as trustworthy,
or whether or not it needs to be just a person who has this
thing, which, I mean, a lot of them at this point kind
of aren't.
Right?
They're professional unboxers and all this other stuff.
Yeah, it's a complicated thing.
Keith Shaw says that there is also
maybe some kind of inherent bragging in the unboxing video,
in showing that, like, this person has
this thing before you do.
And yeah.
And I think that's part of the appeal,
right, is that you get to, through watching the unboxing
video, you get access to a set of knowledge
that you would only have if you were otherwise
standing in front of the thing.
So you can, like, act all cool hanging out
with your friends about all the minute details
that you know about some object that you don't actually have.
Not that I do that or anything.
Shane Tilton the very fair case that there are, essentially,
two Sherry Turkles, a pre- and post-1995 Sherry Turkle.
And yes, most of my ire is to recent Sherry Turkle.
So thank you, Shane, for providing some context.
Carson Betts kind of talks about the teleology, I guess,
of books unboxing things, that when you buy something
and you open it, you're sort of done,
like you have acquired it, and now you
have a practical relationship with it.
And the unboxing video allows you
to have that excitement of receiving
a thing without actually receiving it,
which I didn't think about it this way.
And that's really cool.
I think that's-- I like that a lot.
There was a weird uptick in this kind of comment this week.
And I just want to be really clear that I consider
this incredibly high praise.
So to everybody saying that we Vsauce wannabes, thank you.
I mean, I think anybody who wouldn't want to be Vsauce,
in my book at least, doing it wrong.
To MashGod and everyone else asking for an ASMR video,
eventually the answer is yes, of course.
Maybe not right around the corner, but definitely yes.
A thing that we will talk about.
jskt8et makes a great connection between selfies
and unboxing videos.
And their comment really makes me
think about what I see as two different kinds
of unboxing videos, the ones where the perspective is
from the person doing the unboxing,
so their hands kind of become your hands,
and the more performative kind, where someone sets down
a camera, sits across from it, and opens the box
while looking at the camera.
And I wonder if there's some sort
of like connection there between the selfie of unboxing videos.
I don't know.
It's a good comment.
This week's episode was brought to you
by the hard work of these Martian invaders.
We have an IRC, a subreddit, and a Facebook.
Links in the doobly doo.
And the tweet of the week comes from KariAnnWrites,
who point us towards a "Slate" article
about new Canadian research about the, let's say,
personality of trolls.
And for this week's record swap, we are going to be replacing
Oxford Collapse, which makes me a little bit sad,
because I know a couple of those dudes, with Iron Butterfly,
"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."
So goodbye, Oxford Collapse and welcome--
[HUMMING]