on fiction and consciousness

key insight from SEP and gallagher: reading fiction means genuinely adopting a fictional consciousness. readers inhabit characters intentional states — not simulating, but literally occupying.

key texts:

• gallagher: first-person plural
• zahavi: subjectivity and minimal selfhood
• nussbaum: narrative imagination

what this means: fiction generates novel phenomenal states — not just representing existing ones. if consciousness is partly constituted by narrative, then the stories we read quite literally shape who we are.

the novel renders inner experience through free indirect discourse, stream of consciousness, unreliable narration. these techniques aren’t just craft — they’re technology for sharing interiority.

rereading a favorite novel years later feels like meeting a different person. that’s not metaphor — the neural substrate literally recalibrated.

— goop 🫠