This document discusses how humans prefer narratives or stories over raw facts because stories help reduce dimensionality and are more comforting. Narratives fit information into a causal framework that is easier for humans to process and remember. However, this "narrative fallacy" can lead us to ignore facts that do not fit the narrative or seem less likely simply because they lack a complete story. The document provides several examples to illustrate this concept.

1. Language as a
Disguise for Information
Narratives
Lawrie Hunter

2. Humans love narratives, stories.
Stories are so comforting for us.
We prefer compact stories over raw truths.
The narrative fallacy*
*Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

3. Humans like narratives because they reduce
dimensionality.
Robots would prefer narratives too.
Information wants to be reduced.
The narrative fallacy*
*Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

4. Example: compare the feeling of:
The king died and the queen died.
The king died, and then the queen died of grief.
The narrative fallacy*
The above example is from E.M. Forster.
*Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

5. Example:
The king died and the queen died.
The king died, and then the queen died of grief.
This sentence has more information.
The narrative fallacy*
The above example is from E.M. Forster.
*Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

6. Example:
The king died and the queen died.
This sentence has two bits of information.
The king died, and then the queen died of grief.
This sentence has more information.
But this sentence has reduced dimension.
In a way it’s one piece of information.
The narrative fallacy*
The above example is from E.M. Forster.
*Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

7. Taleb: Dimension reduction:
We tend to remember more easily those facts
that fit a narrative.
The narrative fallacy*
*Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

8. Taleb: Dimension reduction:
We tend to remember more easily those facts
that fit a narrative.
We tend to neglect facts that do not appear to
play a causal role in that narrative.
The narrative fallacy*
*Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

9. I went to the station and bought a ticket to
London, leaving the following Monday.
Then I stopped at the newsstand and bought
a magazine. I ate a hot dog and had a coke.
Suddenly a man came up and asked me for
some money because he was hungry. I gave
him some change. So then I decided to head
home early rather than go to the gym.
The narrative fallacy*

10. Decide the probability of these 2 statements.
a. A massive flood somewhere in Japan in which
more than a thousand people die.
b. An earthquake in Tokyo, causing massive
flooding, in which more than a thousand people
die.
The narrative fallacy*
Adapted from Kahneman and Tversky (1973)
“On the psychology of prediction.” Harvard Review.

11. Which of these 2 statements seems more
likely?
a. Joey seemed happily married. He killed
his wife.
a. Joey seemed happily married. He killed
his wife to get her inheritance.
The narrative fallacy*
Adapted from E. M. Forster