Latest / Mythic Mind Games / 25 - Forgotten City: Golden Rule, Time Loop, Underworld Justice

Transcript

25 - Forgotten City: Golden Rule, Time Loop, Underworld Justice · Mythic Mind Games

• 0:00
  Speaker 2: There.
• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'm doctor Andrew Snyder. I'm a professor of philosophy and theology,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and I recently played The Forgotten City, which you can
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: find over on Steam. Now we're probably gonna be talking
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: about this game myself and a few others in oh
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: January February or so over on the Mythic Mind Games podcast,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: but I wanted to provide some thoughts. Well, my experience
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: with this game is really just fresh on my mind.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: This is not a formal presentation. I have no script,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I have no notes. I just want to talk about
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: some general ideas as they come to me here. Now,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: first of all, I want to say that I've really
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: enjoyed my experience with this game. I'm somebody who only
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: recently started step back into games after being pretty disengaged
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: for a number of years, about a decade or so,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and so, you know, maybe there are a lot of
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: games like this out there. I don't know, but I
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: was really impressed by a game that really puts philosophy
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: at the forefront. And let's gameplay follow that lead you.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, don't get me wrong, the gameplay is fun,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: is it's just fine. But this is not a game
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that's focused on gameplay. This is a game that's focused
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: on ideas. It's focused on mystery. But the mystery is
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: not just a matter of Okay, what's going on, but
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: what's going on is directly tied to some pretty explicit
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: philosophical idea. And I think that this is really just
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: a great medium for doing philosophy. In many ways, it's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: like you're playing a Socratic dialogue of sorts. Now, there's
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: some limitations and that you know, when you're reading a
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Socratic dialogue, you know read want to play those dialogues
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: about Socrates and his various conversation partners that you aren't
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: tied to the conversation partner, right, You are focused on
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the meta analysis of Okay, what is Socrates saying? What's
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: this conversation partner saying? And you're trying to figure out
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: what is the truth here, what is the wisdom that
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: is embedded in this dialogue? What points is Socrates making?
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: And how do I incorporate that into my understanding of
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: what is true and what is good? Or you know,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: what is justice or you know what the topic of
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: that dialogue is, And so you have that freedom to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: provide that that philosophical engagement. Now one limitation of a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: game is that it's like you are tied to the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: conversation partner, right, It's like the game is talking to you,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and you are tied to a certain role. You know,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: there are certain things that you can say, certain things
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: that you need to say in order to advance and
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: move forward, and so it's a lot more constraining there philosophically.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: But of course, even still on the metal level, you
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: play in the game can kind of disengage from the character,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: and you know, you still have the opportunity to reflect
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: on the ideas and come up with your own thesis
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and counter thesis to what's being communicated, and so there's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: some freedom there. There's also some limitations at play here,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: But overall, I do think that this is a remarkable
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: way of doing philosophy, and I think it's a much
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: more engaging way of doing philosophy than simply writing and
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: has someone read a philosophical treatise In that you know,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you really are embedded and you're meant to ask those
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: deocratic kinds of questions of what is really going on
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: here amidst all of the drama, what is the point
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: being made? But then also how does that flow through
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the drama, because even in a platonic dialogue, the drama
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and the logosts the rational discourse, they're always directly tied
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: together in pretty sophisticated ways. And so you want to
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: ask what is the point behind the drama, but also
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: how does the drama shape what the point is? Because,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: as I'm sure you've heard before, the medium is the message,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and so the drama very much matters. Now, everything else
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: that I'm going to say at this point is going
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to involve some spoilers. So if you have not played
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and so if you have not played this game, then
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I encourage you to pause now, bookmark this, go get
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the game, play through it. It'll take you, I mean,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know, depending on how quickly you put things
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: together what you're supposed to do. Five hours, six hours,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: six hours should be plenty of time to hit the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: canonical ending, right. There are other shortcuts you can hit
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: along the way that have less satisfactory endings, But to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: hit the main ending, the one that you're really supposed
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to be striving for, take it like six hours, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: so go do that and then come back and watch
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: or listen to the rest of this because a lot
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: of the fun of this game, at least for me,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: A lot of the fun was figuring out the mystery
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of what is going on. And I don't think this
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: game would be nearly as fun if I had the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: answer to begin with. So, if you have not played
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: this game, I encourage you to go do so. Don't
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: listen to the rest of this don't look up what's
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: happening in the game, just play the game. But now,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: if you are already familiar with this game, if you
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: have already played it, or you maybe have no interest
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: in playing it and you just want to keep listening.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: So in this game, you begin by getting pulled out
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: of this river by this woman named Karen, who then
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: sends you to find this other guy who seems to
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: be lost, this guy named Al, who went off to
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: explore some Roman ruins, and so you go in after
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: him to try to find this guy. And as you
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: enter into this ruined Roman city, well, you start to
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: see these golden statues, and eventually you find Al, who
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: is himself a golden statue who has obviously been or
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: he hanged himself rather well, as you venture further in well,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: now you suddenly find yourself in the glory of this
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Roman city back in I think it's that in the
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: first century. And so that's when you show up here
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: in this very Roman city and you have to figure
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: out kind of what's going on, how did you get here?
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: And as you explore the city, you start to learn
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: about this principle called the Golden Rule, which is the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: law of the land. Now, this is a rule that
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't come for anyone in the city. It's a rule
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: that's placed on them by the god of the city.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And people don't even know who this god is. So
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: some god has or gods at this point that they've
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: imposed this golden rule. And what the Golden rule says
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: is that when anybody sins, so anybody does something wrong,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: something objectively morally wrong, judgment falls on everybody in the city.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: In fact, they're all turned into these golden statues, which
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: is what you saw in the present day. You saw
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the golden statutes, which lets you know that this city
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: fell into ruin right, somebody broke the Golden rule. They
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: were all turned into these golden statutes. And this is
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: where we really start to get some of the philosophical,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: some of the ethical messaging of this game, and that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the rule is placed upon them, is well, it's that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: of a very strong sense of civic duty. That you
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: don't just have responsibility for your own ethics, your your
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: own moral framing, but you have an obligation to make
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: sure that your neighbor states in line as well. And
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: this is a pretty classical idea that Aristotle says that
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: not only are with the rational animal, but we are
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the political animal. That because we are people capable of reason,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: because we can think not only about what we want,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: but what we should want, not only what is, but
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: what should be, because we're able to communicate ideas through
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: rational discourse. Part of our nature, like what makes us human,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: is the fact that we're able to speak with other
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: people and to figure out what society ought to be.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: And so we were not made to be isolated individuals.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: We were made to be in community, in political community,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: with those around us. And this is why Aristotle says
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: in the Nicomakiy and Ethics that the point of education
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: is to help people not only to know things, but
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: help people to love the right things and to have
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: a version to the wrong things, to train the habits,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: to train our desires so that way we want what
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: is good and what is just because and that's good
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: for all of us, because I mean, if our neighbor
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: is good and just, well, now I have a good
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and just neighbor. And so self interest as well as
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: community interests, well, they go hand in hand. And you
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: see this idea carry through so much of classical philosophy,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: from the Greeks into the Romans and beyond, that we
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: are not exclusively individuals, but that we are in community
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: with each other and we should be working together to
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: create a just society. Now with this golden rule idea
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: in The Forgotten City, you get this idea but taken
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: to an extreme where not only am I concerned about
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the virtue of my neighbor, but I must ensure the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: virtue of my neighbor at all costs or if we're
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: all going to fall into judgment. Now that's it's an
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: interesting idea. And you know, one benefit of drama, of
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: fiction of any kind, is that it takes an idea
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: and it kind of brings it to an extreme level
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: in order to demonstrate its dramatic significance. But of course,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: in the way that this is framed in The Forgotten City,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: it's it's treated as an unethical system, right, like this
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: is something being imposed upon them, which I mean again
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: in this extreme example, yeah, this probably would be an
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: unethical way to run a city. But where I think
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: this game starts to go in a wrong direction philosophically,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: is it uses this extreme scenario that it's created to
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: then kind of undermine the idea of objective morality altogether.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Because as you.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Start to learn about this golden rule scenario, you know,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you're let to ask questions like, okay, well what even
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: is wrong? Like how are we going to define sin?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: And one of the first people you can ask about
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: this the magistrate. He says, well, certain things are obviously wrong.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: You can't murder people, you can't steal from people, and
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: so some things are just obviously wrong. As far as
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: everything else, we just kind of can't use our best judgment.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: And so it's like, yeah, some things are obviously wrong,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: like the most heineous evils you can think of, Like,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: we all know that these things are wrong. Beyond that,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: we just got to hope for the best because you
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: know who's to say right, who's to say what's right
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and what's wrong? You know who's to say how we
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: should navigate our lives when there seem to be these
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: victimless scenarios, right, like, if you're not hurting anybody, I mean,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: then how can you possibly be doing anything wrong?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And so we get this libertarian idea of freedom embedded
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: in this game, which seems kind of out of place
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: set in this classical setting, but nonetheless that's what they're
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: kind of pushing you towards. They're trying to undermine this
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: firm bifurcation of good and evil. And so it's not
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: really first and foremost a game about justice per se,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: but really it's questioning the idea of justice as such.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And that's where I really think this starts to go wrong,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: starts to go in a dangerous direction. In fact, much
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: later on and you descend down under ground and you
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: encounter this this permit philosopher who play Socrates with you,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: and you know, he asked you these questions like you know,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: do you know what goodness is? And you could say
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: yes or no or I don't know. And then you
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: know if you say yeah, I know what goodness is,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and they say like are you sure? And is this
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: true for everybody? And in order to progress through the
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: dialogue tree, you are forced to say, I don't know
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: what goodness is. Maybe it's all relative, like maybe there
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: are no rules, there's no no up or down. And
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: that's how you give the right answer and start to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: move forward. And by the way, I should have said
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: this earlier, but as I said, this is not planning.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Talking about ideas has to come to me. You eventually
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: come to find out that the place where you are
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: is actually the underworld. At this point, you've spoken to
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: a number of people, and you know, you ask them
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: how did you get here? And they all have.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: A very similar kind of story.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: They were running away from the fire at Rome and
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: they fell into the river, and then they can't really remember.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Member the next thing they remember, they're being pulled out
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: of the river by a stranger, and then they sort
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of end up here, which chat as you're playing, you'll
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: start to put together, Oh wait, that's how I ended
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: up here. I was pulled out of it river by
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a stranger named Karen, which sounds a lot like Karen
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: the ferymen of the underworld. And so the god in
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: charge of the Forgotten City is in fact Pluto or Hades,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: And so you are in the underworld, and after you
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: speak to this this hermit who's living underground. You go
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: further down and you find out that each civilization was
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: building its own underworld on top of a previous one.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: And so the Roman underworld is built on top of
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the Greek underworld, which is built on top of the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Egyptian underworld, which is built on top of the Sumerian underworld.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: So all these are built on top of each other.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And in order to get an audience with the God underworld,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: you have to collect these four plaques of the Romans,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Sumerians. And as you
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: assemble these plaques at the pillar as the Great Temple,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: then it opens up to you and you go through
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: these doors that are themed. And so you go through
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: the Roman door, the Greek door, the Egyptian door, in
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the Sumerian door, and the idea of play here and
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: this comes out a little bit more in your conversation
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: with Pluto or the god of the underworld, that each
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of these layers is a partial truth. And as you
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: go further through each of these doors, you're coming closer
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to the real truth that lies at the bottom of
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: all of them. And so here we have this idea
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: that mythology or maybe even religion in general, it has
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: some level of truth, but it's layered up with all
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: this drama that's been added along the way that in
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: many ways detracts from the truth by kind of hiding
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the kernel of truth in all this artificial guide that's
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: built on top of it. And so this kind of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: goes hand in hand with this idea we're going to
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: undermine objective morality, We're also going to undermine the reality
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: present in religion of any religion or religion as such
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: that it is, as the Fox says and CS. Lewis
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: is till we have faces that it's all the lies
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of poets, right. I think maybe there's some truth there,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: but the fundamental messaging of religion is a collection of
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: lies tip over time for various purposes. But as you
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: go through these doors and you find the truth behind him, Well,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: there is a reality to the God of the underworld.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: He's some kind of celestial being. Right, These people that
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the that the ancients viewed as gods, there's some kind
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: of ancient celestial beings that showed up and you know,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: decided to play some role in human affairs. Most of
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: them have gone on elsewhere. Pluto aims to do the same,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: but he's sticking around because his great love Persephone has
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: become mortal, and so he's keeping her preserved in stasis
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: so she doesn't die as part of this bet that
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: he's doing in order to I can't remember all the details.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I'll review this before we have our conversation later on,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: but basically, Hades has to do this bet where you know,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: he needs them. He needs the people that he's overseeing
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: in the underworld. He needs them to maintain the Golden
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Rule for a certain amount of time in order for
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Persephone to become immortal again and be able to take
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: her away with him. I can't really do that, might
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: be right, it's something like that. But anyways, Persephone, however,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't actually want to go along with Pluto. If you
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: know the story of Hades and Persephone, that he took
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: her really against her will, and so she doesn't really
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: want to be there, and so all throughout the game
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: she's been whispering to you, which really adds this is
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: really cool, like kind of haunting feeling throughout the game
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: as you get these little whispers that are giving you
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: cryptic hints along the way and it's really cool. But anyways,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: so she's been trying to help you to the extent
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: that she can without being detected by Pluto. And so
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: there are various ways you can go about this. I
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: believe that you can basically win a philosophical debate with
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Pluto where you convince him that the Golden Rule is unjust,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and so then he just leaves by himself. Alternatively, you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: can take your bone arrow and you can kill Persephone,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: take her crown, go through this time loop dynamic, come back,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and then basically you show him I've killed her before
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I can do it again. Out of his love for Persephone,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: he decides, all right, you know, I'll just leave her
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: be I'm going to go off and leave now. And
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: so kind of however you handle that, the point is
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: the same. The game is obviously framing all of this experience,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: or all the philosophy embedded in this story. It's being
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: framed in a way that's meant to lead to the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: conclusion that any appeal to objective morality is itself inherently unjust.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: And so it's very much trying to push you into
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: this very relativistic kind of position. It's trying to push
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: you against the idea of absolutes, which like that there's
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a big problem with that, that there's a for one thing,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: there's a logical problem with that, and that if you're
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: going to say that there is no absolute morality, then
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: what right do you have to tell me that I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: absolutely ought to be tolerant of other viewpoints. It doesn't work.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: As soon as you say that all morality is relative
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: to the individual. Well, at that point you open the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: door to just a raw will to power kind of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: philosophy where right becomes equal to what is might that
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: there's nothing to tell me how I ought to live
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: my life, including in compassion and love and tolerance and
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the various things that I'm sure the writers of this
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: game would commend to us. There's no reason why I
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: should do that, and why I shouldn't just do whatever
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: is going to suit my ends so long as I'm
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: able to get away with it. Now, I'd think that
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: that's a wrong way to live, because I'm someone who
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: does believe that there is such a thing as right
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and wrong. There are better and worse ways to live
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: our lives. And here's the thing, like, well, I do
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: have theological conviction which I believe are also rational convictions.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Like I believe in the reality of natural law. I
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: would argue that you do too. Regardless of whatever worldview
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you espouse, the reality is like, you know some ways
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of life are better than others. You know that murder
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: is wrong. You know that it's better to live your
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: life in service to others than it is to be
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: a selfish miser, always consuming and giving nothing back. You
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: know that it's better to be good to other people.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Maybe we'll even debate a little bit or maybe even
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: a lot of it as to what is actually good
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: for other people, but we are all going to agree
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: that there is such a thing as right and wrong.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: We're all going to agree that it's better to tell
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the truth, at least most of the time than it
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: is to lie. And even if you're somebody who approves
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: what most of us would recognize as radically evil, like
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: you know you're in favor of like genocide or something,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: well even still, well, I think that'd be grossly wrong.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Even if you take something that is wrong and you
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: say that this is good, well, you're still affirming something
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: regarding what goodness is. And that will debate about what
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: is good and you know why something is good, why
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: something is bad. But what we're not really going to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: disagree on is that there is such a thing as goodness.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Then there is a way that we ought to relate
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: to ourselves. There's a way that we ought to relate
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to the world around us. There's a way that we
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: ought to relate to our neighbors, which then brings us
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: back to the question of well, the questions that the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: ancients asked, the questions of.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: What is justice? What is virtue? What is beauty? What
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: is truth? What is goodness?
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Generally speaking, the great classical philosophers, some of which are
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: directly quoted in this game, like the great classical philosophers,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: for the most part, weren't asking is there such a
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: thing as justice? No, obviously there is such a thing
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: as justice. I deal with this sometimes in my on campus,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: my philosophy classes. I'll say to my students, how many
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of you prefer justice over in justice? And they all
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: raise their hand, despite the fact that if I were
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: to say, how many of you believe that morality is
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: entirely subjective and relative to the individual, And many of
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: them would raise their hand because that's what they think.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: They believe but I frame it as how many of
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: you like justice? Everyone raises their hand. Because we know
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: there is such a thing as justice. Then the question
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: is not whether there is justice, but what is justice?
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: How do we better understand these moral realities that we
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: all implicitly know by virtue of being humans living in
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: society with other humans. There's certain ideals that we know
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: that we inescapably know. Now the project of rational discourse
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: is to figure out how do clarify these concepts that
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: we already know, and then how do we execute them
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: in society around us. Those are the right kinds of
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: questions to ask. That's why I very much prefer ancient
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: philosophy to almost all of postmodern philosophy. Postmodern philosophy will
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: ask the question is there such a thing as justice?
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Is there such a thing as truth? Is there such
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a thing as real beauty? The ancient said, obviously, there
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: is such a thing as truth, There is such a
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: thing as justice. We all know that such a thing
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: as beauty, That a sunrise or a well functioning family
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: is far more beautiful than a rotting corpse. Okay, if
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: you don't agree with that, that there is some framework
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: for understanding real beauty. Then there is something wrong with you, your
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: deviant from the way that natural human experience is meant
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to be. Like you ought to recognize a sunrise is
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: more beautiful than a rotting corpse. If you don't, there's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: something very wrong with you. You need potentially to be institutionalized.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: You certainly need some kind of therapeutic or philosophical direction
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: given to you. We know there is such a thing
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: as beauty. We know there is such a thing as justice.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: We know there is such a thing as truth. We
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: know that there is such a thing as a capital
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: are reality that's inescapable, regardless of what you claim to believe. Ideologically,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: we believe there is such a thing as reality, and
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: reality makes a lot more sense once we affirm that,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And then we get on the quest of clarifying what
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: that reality is and how we live according to it,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: ourselves being real people, real human beings, living in accordance
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: with human nature at its most ideal state. And so
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: when you ask those clarifying question, well, you're moving in
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the direction of wisdom, the way that things ought to be.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: But what this game does is it moves you in
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: the opposite direction. It moves you to a fragmented reality,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: a reality that is well, it's not real, and we
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: know it's not real. Now to end this on a
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: positive note as we bring it together, I really like
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: this game as in its form. I like it, I
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: like this medium, I and very much enjoyed my gameplay,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: even though I pretty vehemently disagree with the philosophy that's
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: being put forward. I love the way that it is
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: put forward. I'm glad that this game exists, and I
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: really look forward to playing more games that operate in
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: this vein. Is this very philosophical kind of arena. I
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: think it's a fantastic way of doing philosophy and spurring
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: philosophical thought. And so if you haven't played this game,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: you're still listening to this point, make sure that you
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: do play it. I recommend playing it, even though I
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: disagree with a lot of the ideas that are being
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: put forward in it. As I said, I will be
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: having a discussion on this and sometime in the next
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: few months January February or so, and so make sure
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: that you are subscribed to my channel. Make sure you
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: subscribe to the Mythic Mind Games podcast. But that's it
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: for now. I hope you enjoyed until next time, god speed,