A tidbit from Gil Langerak (thrown in at the end of a recent podcast I did with him):
“Words do not create reality. Words can only describe reality”.
Fiction is the making of reality within a prescribed, bounded setting. The author sets that boundary and challenges you to enter into that space. I’ve read and watched some Science Fiction where I would love to have made the boundaries more believable. Is that reality? It is a construction of reality without the necessity of verification or authentication within “the world in which we live in” (a tip of the hat to some musicians from previous decades). In this case, words do create the environment of reality. Or are they merely describing a hoped for reality?
When you come before a judge in court you are expected to describe what happened. That is evidence. Beyond that is the need to conjecture motive and to create a narrative which describes this sensibly. Once again, words create the picture of reality. Or are they merely describing the reality as it may have been?
OK, here’s the thing. Our world today is not so much about whether words create or describe reality. We are about creating words. Someone has realized that words can create a new sense and emotion and definition related to the previous understanding of a word. Take the word “gay” or even the interpretations of the word “Christian”.
So, take a step back before we deal with the question of words creating or describing reality. The real question is, what do the words mean that are being used to create or describe reality? And are both the communicator and the one being communicated to reading the same dictionary?