From Philosophical Research
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r1 "relative" [cr. 1694074224]
... in the late 2010s, the United States became highly upset over the concept of "inclusive history", as if this is some kind of violation of what history is usually about.
... It is very easy to speak of a "history" of highly specific topics, such as a history of writing, a history of music, or a history of sports played with balls. One could speak of a prehistoric "history" of every known dinosaur species in order of first known appearance, recorded in the present time inside natural objects like rock layers. ...
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r2 [cr. 2025-09-18T02:10:46Z]
A history of dinosaurs -
epigram
> stegosaurid: This is a fertile land and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land! ...
> ceratosaur: I think we should call it your grave!
> stegosaurid: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
> — _Firefly_ episode 1, "Serenity"
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r2 [cr. 2025-09-18T02:10:46Z]
what makes something history versus not history?
is the progression of different dinosaur species across time _history_?
it's arguable that the concept of "prehistory" is a formality, and all prehistory is technically history as long as it got recorded somewhere and it isn't just speculation.
hossenfelder's example - when asked if the universe is a mind, she points out that rock layers can technically remember things
important to note: by human standards, rock layers are objective. they may contain biases in terms of random undesigned events of omission, but they are not capable of intentionally omitting anything.
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r2 [cr. 2025-09-18T02:10:46Z]
> the earth was the experience of a worm
really good quote.
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r2 [cr. 2025-09-18T02:10:46Z]
this has a few funny consequences: _The Land Before Time_ is now technically historical fiction.
but there shouldn't actually be anything wrong with that conclusion. the purpose of historical fiction is generally to portray previous time periods; it does not necessarily come with any particular agenda, as much as in the hands of some writers it certainly could.
are cowboy shows historical fiction? arguably a few of them are, even if many of them are not. it mostly depends on the level of rigor they were written with.
pirates and ninjas are usually not historical fiction, even though they can be dropped down into a setting which is otherwise realistic, thus resulting in historical fiction.
dragons, unicorns, and Greek gods are not historical fiction, but considering how often they appear alongside recognizable historical periods within Europe, a young child could easily get confused if you only gave a basic definition of what historical fiction is. if you define historical fiction as "a historical scenario containing imaginary elements", a child could easily think that included dragons.
so, historical fiction doesn't contain dragons. but then what about the _Temeraire_ series? this is clearly historical fiction despite the inclusion of blatantly imaginary elements.
if somebody were to write socialist realism about a previous historical period but it was written today, would that be historical fiction? how accurate does it have to be to what actually happened? if someone were to go writing socialist realism which deliberately diverged from the observed series of events and it somehow guessed the correct way to fix Marxism, likely by accident, would the obligation to be accurate to recorded history that defines historical fiction be broken?
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=> planetclaire.tv/quotes/firefly/hoban-wash-washburne/
=> youtube.com/watch?v=e35BU1eB_5k Firefly season 1, episode 1
=> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(Firefly_episode)
;
=> 1694055056 v4.3/ marxism is spatially relative ; 4101 relative
:: cr. 2025-09-18T02:23:18Z ; 1758162198
; v5.1-5.3 scraps/ prehistory
