Storytelling can also be a valuable form of rehearsal. “If survival in life is a matter of dealing with an often inhospitable physical universe, and [of] dealing with members of our own species, both friendly and unfriendly, there would be a general benefit to be derived from imaginatively exercising the mind in order to prepare it for the next challenge,” writes philosopher Denis Dutton. “Storytelling, on this model, is a way of running multiple, relatively cost-free experiments with life in order to see, in the imagination, where courses of action may lead. Although narrative can deal with
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