ABSTRACT
This Norwegian tale illustrates the fundamental process of the virtual comprehension mode, and common contemporary errors in it. A Princess constantly tells so many tall tales, that her father the King worries she cannot distinguish fantasy from reality. So, he sets up a contest: the man who can come up with a tall tale so fantastical the Princess says, “That’s not true!” will marry the Princess and inherit the kingdom. By provoking the Princess to say, “That’s not real,” the young man violates the normal boundary between the virtual and real worlds. He uses the pragmatic mode to try to provoke the Princess into saying the specific phrase, rather than to create ever more virtual worlds. This is a common problem today when someone claims free speech but then deliberately says something to provoke a violent reaction. It is equivalent to yelling “Fire!” in a solemn courtroom,
