[MD] Art and Stories

[Krimel]

Steve:
What do you think about "not real, but true" applied to fiction?

[Krimel]
I think this extends well beyond fiction. I first arrived at this point
through reading about scripture. It is a point I think Campbell makes very
well and a point fundamentalists of every stripe seem to miss. I suspect it
applies to all written works and even to "information" in general.
Information in the Shannon sense of the term is data plus meaning where
meaning is reduction in uncertainty. Perhaps meaning is the applicable terms
here since a great many "factual" things are trivial with regard to meaning.

[Steve]
This is the sort of thing I think Neil Gaiman would say, too (about
stories)  I personally wouldn't use the words "true" or "real" for
fiction since they sound to me like direct contradictions to the word
fiction, but I really like the last bit about "making sense" as
something distinct from truth and reality which applies as well to
both fiction and nonfiction. 

[Krimel]
I have long been a fan of Gaiman. My youngest daughter tells me we are still
missing one issue of his run of "Sandman" comics. I find him far more
entertaining than profound but he certainly has mined the Mythos.

But is "meaningful" a better term than either "true" or "real?" 

As Gaiman or even Shannon might say, "Absotively."