Willing Suspension of Disbelief

The idea is proposed by Coleridge as a formula for justifying the use of fantastic or non-realistic elements in literature. To believe the supernatural and unbelievable, the spectator or reader suspends his critical faculties. In other words it’s a Sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment.

Coleridge suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative”

Examples

Life of Pi: Pi Patel has two stories to offer about what happened at the Pacific Ocean. The first story tells of a boy named Pi Patel, who survives on a life boat at Pacific Ocean with a Bengal Tiger, called Richard Parker. In the second story he replaces all the animals with humans, including his mother. The first story is a better story, but the second is the reasonable. The very structure of the story itself is designed to force the reader or viewer to subconsciously choose whether they are prepared to walk away from the “reasonable” to accept the better story.  If the reader or the audience is ready to suspend their ‘disbelieve’ the first story can be taken into account.

Superman: The storyteller tells the audience that, in this story, a man can fly and he comes from a distant planet called Krypton.  The audience suspends their disbelief and prepares themselves to enjoy the story.

Dante Alighieri's Four Senses of Allegory

Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of a story, picture or a poem.

E.g. Shakespeare’s The Tempest: a fight between good and evil on a deserted island

Orwell- Animal Farm: Pigs stand for political figures of the Russian revolution

Allegory is integral to the work of Dante. In his work The Banquet (1306-1309) he states that allegory has four senses, which he explains as follows:

1. Literal: this is the sense that doesn’t go beyond the surface of the letter, as in the fables of the poets.
2.   Allegorical: this is the one that is hidden beneath the literal meaning of a fable. It expresses the hidden truth behind a story. As an example for this Dante offers Ovid’s account of Orpheus taming the wild beasts. The allegorical meaning of this, according to Dante, is the wise man makes cruel heart grow tender and humble.
3.  Moral: moral sense is illustrated by the Gospel account of Christ’s ascending the mountain to be transfigured.  Among the 12 disciples he chose only three to accompany him. The moral idea is that in matter of great secrecy we should have few companions.
4. Anagogical: ie. Beyond the sense. This occurs when a scripture is expounded in a spiritual sense more than its literal sense. Dante recalls Psalm 114 (the Bible) which states when the people of Israel left Egypt “Judea was made whole and free”. It means, for Dante, when the soul departs from sin it is made whole and free in its power. Egypt is seen as ‘sin’ or ‘evil’ and the Israel people is the soul’

Dante insisted that the literal meaning always comes first. He pictures the literal meaning as being on the outside, enclosing the other senses, which are within. By insisting on allegory and its senses Dante was partly reacting against the definition of allegory and metaphor by classical rhetoricians as just a mere substitution of one set of terms for another. He inculcate that allegory is a powerful tool to express the ‘dark’ subjects otherwise forbidden especially concerning God and eternity. 

The Three Laws of Robotics and Zeroth Law

The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by Isaac Asimov, one of the most famous science fiction authors. The rules were introduced in his 1942 short story Runaround. The Three Laws are:

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

• A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where   such orders would conflict with the First Law.

• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These form an organizing principle and unifying theme for Asimov's robotic - based fictions, including his Robot series. Many of Asimov's robot-focused stories involve robots behaving in unusual and counter-intuitive ways as an unintended consequence of how the robot applies the Three Laws to the situation in which it finds itself. Other authors working in Asimov's fictional universe have adopted them and references, often parodic, appear throughout science fiction as well as in other genres.

The original laws have been altered and elaborated on by Asimov and other authors. Asimov himself made slight modifications to the first three in various books and short stories to further develop how robots would interact with humans and each other. In later fiction where robots had taken responsibility for government of whole planets and human civilizations, Asimov also added a fourth, or zeroth law, to precede the others:

The 0th Law

In the chapter "The Duel" in Robots and Empire, Asimov first presents another law, which he calls the Zeroth Law of Robotics, and adjusts the other ones accordingly:

0. A robot may not harm humanity, or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm.

1. A robot may not harm a human, or through inaction allow a human to come to harm, unless this interferes with the zeroth law.

2. A robot must obey orders given to it by a human being unless such orders interfere with the zeroth or first laws.

3. A robot must defend its own existence unless such defense interferes with the zeroth, first or second laws.

The Three Laws, and the zeroth, have pervaded science fiction and are referred to in many books, films, and other media.