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Science Considered Helpful

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Interactive Storytelling (ICIDS 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 11318))

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Abstract

As the interactive narrative community continues to mature, discussions are beginning in which we debate the relative merits of differing methodologies, discuss priorities around classes of problems and look at epistemological questions that arise from what we perceive as limitations of our work. Horswill’s Science Considered Harmful initiated a conversation around the role of science in the advancement of knowledge in our field, putting forward the idea that a scientific mindset restricts our ability to progress. In this paper, I respond, arguing that science, and more generally scientific rigor and the kind of results that it produces, are well served by a discourse that makes productive distinctions between such things as science and not science. In particular, I argue that such a thing as a science of narrative exists, that scientific work is an important way to advance our knowledge of computational models of narrative and that scholarly practice around interactive narrative research does not need to be viewed as only scientific or as only artistic/aesthetic.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Of course, one might argue that not all work in the arts has exclusively aesthetic goals (for example, see [4]).

  2. 2.

    Aside from Fortnite.

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Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported in whole or in part with funding from the Laboratory for Analytic Sciences (LAS). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LAS and/or any agency or entity of the United States Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Entertainment Arts and Engineering Program and School of Computing, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84103, USA

    R. Michael Young

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  1. R. Michael Young
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Correspondence to R. Michael Young .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA

    Rebecca Rouse

  2. University of the Arts Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Hartmut Koenitz

  3. Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Mads Haahr

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Young, R.M. (2018). Science Considered Helpful. In: Rouse, R., Koenitz, H., Haahr, M. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11318. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04028-4_2

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