So biofiction is meant to parallel biopoets and
biopoetics, where the bio in biofiction stands
for a certain scientific approach, style, language, lens.
Biolanguage
Twenty years ago, while I was
an undergraduate studying philosophy at Columbia, I wrote a paper
for Arthur Danto and Herbert Terrace that entertained the
possibility that ordinary folk intentional states and
propositional attitudes could one day be replaced (in a somewhat eliminative materialist
way) by a more scientifically informed lexicon, e.g.,
"Do you remember what you said to
her?" "Sorry, no, bad hippocampal
day."
or:
How do you feel today?" "Oh, very low on serotonin and dopaminergically challenged."
At the time it was fun and
almost absurd to suggest that one day we might speak in
such a way, yet it doesn't seem so absurd now. There are many instances in our
every day life where biolanguage is replacing
folk language. I do it in my writing; I use the
reductive language of biology (hormones, neurotransmitters,
etc.) to convey meaning about feeling states, emotions,
beliefs, etc.: Eg:
"...it was also Caleb, feeding
her hungriest receptor sites — pulling her toward a dopamine
rush she both feared and craved. And the beginnings of a
flu."
This reductive biolanguage, of
course, doesn't say more about the state
— it
only locates it or 'reduces' it physically. It doesn't even
have explanatory power; it's just another metaphoric language
that, in a Marxist/Freirean sense, has the ability to include
or exclude (one needs to know what dopamine is and does in
order to understand the above sentence; one needs to have the
tools and desire to decode it if one doesn't know what DA
is). But pedagogically, biolanguage actually does have
the potential to teach (about neuroscience, etc. — albeit
minimally); with its ultimate goal being inclusion into more
positivist "forms of life."
It's true that for most "folks"
fear is fear and male sexual jealousy is male sexual
jealousy. And it doesn't really matter to them that fear is
activated/originates in their amygdala or that sexual
jealousy is an emotion that serves to propel one into
mate-guarding behavior. And in some ways, rightly so —
intentional states are intentional states, no matter what
their etiology or label. On the other hand, at the risk of sounding
platitudinous — knowledge is power. There are probably many reasons why people should have such
knowledge. But just by dint that it opens up new ways of seeing
themselves and the world, is enough reason, I think.
I
still can imagine such a language becoming the next
folk psychology — where
utterances of desire are displaced/replaced by utterances of
neurotransmitters. Though I don't necessarily love it. I
would not want my lover to say, for example: "Oh, the cells
in my anterior cingulate and my right caudate nucleus are
firing rapidly, and my dopamine and norepinephrine levels are
skyrocketing...Oh baby!" Call me old-fashioned, but I'd
rather hear he loves me. But, who knows, perhaps one
day this could turn someone on!
Other meanings:
The term biofiction also refers to a particular kind of
autobiographical fiction.
Here is an instance of the term used in this sense:
