1. Let us, with courage, assume there is one true history. Things happened, whether they were observed by sentient beings or nematodes or rocks. And time passed.¹

2. People like stories for many reasons (one day robots will, we're not special). Homo narrativus.

3. Let's take a short sequence of connected real events that we, the human things, want to tell each other about, but with discordant narratives. We'll think about some big stories: Man landing on the Moon, the assassination of JFK, and the 9/11 attacks. And some smaller ones.

4. Some events in our story are big, some are small, and we'll take them to be simply ordered in time giving us the example abstract depiction above.

Let's assume, and this will be a dramatic step for some, that there is one true history. And that this history could be told in one story.

1. Let us, with courage, assume there is one true history. Things happened, whether they were observed by sentient beings or nematodes or rocks. And time passed.¹

2. People like stories for many reasons (one day robots will, we're not special). Homo narrativus.

3. Let's take a short sequence of connected real events that we, the human things, want to tell each other about, but with discordant narratives. We'll think about some big stories: Man landing on the Moon, the assassination of JFK, and the 9/11 attacks. And some smaller ones.

4. Some events in our story are big, some are small, and we'll take them to be simply ordered in time giving us the example abstract depiction above.

Let's assume, and this will be a dramatic step for some, that there is one true history. And that this history could be told in one story.