Fiction isn't literal truth, but when done well it captures truths and intuitions that are difficult to explain directly. (It’s also damn fun to read.)
“Nonfiction conveys knowledge, fiction conveys experience.” - Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky helped kickstart the genre of rationalist fiction, which is about characters who solve the problems in their world by thinking, in a way where the reader could figure it out too. Not where the genius character explains it afterward like Sherlock Holmes or Artemis Fowl, but where the problem is fair and you could’ve figured it out first. Eliezer has written about this in his short online book The Abridged Guide to Intelligent Characters....