Knowing and Making

It probably has not escaped your notice that the Game of Thrones TV series finished this week. If you use social media at all, I suspect you also saw some anguished squawks about how awful the ending was. How the incompetent writers screwed it all up. Maybe you even signed the petition, along with 1.5 million others, to have the last series remade with a different conclusion. Personally I thought it wasn't a bad outcome, but I seem to be in the minority. Either way, why does this have such significance? I read a counterargument a few days ago: You've had 70 hours of enjoyment already – it's in the bank. You enjoyed episode 1, 2, 3, …and you can't go back and "unenjoy" them now. One bad hour at the end can't rewind the clock and eliminate the last 8 years of pleasure? Yet this feels wrong. The ending can ruin the beginning. Why should this be? A model from cognitive economics may have the answer. The theory of " cognitive goods " says tha...

You've heard it before, in one variation or another: there are only so many stories in the world. Sometimes it's six, sometimes twenty - sometimes just one - but the idea is always the same: there's a limited number of ways a plot can turn out. A few years ago, Christopher Booker picked up this idea, analysed it to death and produced an excellent book called The Seven Basic Plots . He picked out seven common story structures which, he argues, include all successful stories (others are possible but he suggests that they result in unsatisfying outcomes which do not ring true for us). His proposal comes down to psychology in the end - he makes a convincing case that specific kinds of story fit with our view of how the world should be, and therefore create a satisfying structure. It all comes down to our desire - and expectation - that people should get what they deserve. His thesis applies to works of fiction and not to real life, of course. Real life doesn't behave accord...