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Dungeons and dragons and philosophy

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  • TeflonTeflon Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 515
    :D
    Grammarsalad
  • FrancoisFrancois Member Posts: 452
    Let's not forget Emil Cioran as the elven enchanter.

    - I don't need any support, advice, or compassion, because even if I am the most ruinous man, I still feel so powerful, so strong and fierce. For I am the only one that lives without hope.
    -To have failed in everything, always, out of a love of discouragement.
    -It makes no sense to say that death is the goal of life, but what else is there to say?
    mashedtatersCrevsDaakGrammarsaladAnduin
  • TheElfTheElf Member Posts: 798
    What's really strange is Kant is the one who makes the most sense.
    mashedtaters
  • GodGod Member Posts: 1,150
    «We have given ears» yet they hear naught but noise÷null
    «We have given eyes» pretend they sense naught but light÷none
    «We have given tongues» yet they savour just sugar
    «We have given life» yet for end looks humankind


    Or so I would re-render our lamentation in English, some thirty thousand years after it was first chanted in an unwritten language with but two surviving speakers.
    Unbearably, it's still just as relevant today as it was then, if not more.
    mashedtatersCrevsDaak
  • mashedtatersmashedtaters Member Posts: 2,266
    i would love to play with these guys.

    "stabs his own heart and dies" rotflol
    CrevsDaakGrammarsalad
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    I would have insisted on a "to hit" roll if I had been DM.
    mashedtatersThacoBellCrevsDaakGrammarsalad
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Its odd that one of them refuses to fight the ogres on grounds that evil as a concept is flawed, even though its clearly stated in the rules of the campaign. Yet none of them argue anything else about the various mechanics and rules.
    mashedtaters
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    TheElf said:

    What's really strange is Kant is the one who makes the most sense.

    Kant is my favorite philosopher, but he doesn't make much sense here. He's not really even acting right according to his own philosophy (though, there are those that will say that this is debatable. Foucault is not in this comic accidentally).

    Kant believed that we are not in the business of judging souls, even our own, because we can never know on any given occasion whether we are really acting from self given moral maxim (which, for him, is the only way that we can truly act rightly--presumably, if we do this habitually, then we'd be good).

    No book, even the holy monsters manual*, could tell us that all orcs are evil because if orcs can be evil at all, then they have the capacity to act rightly, to be good. Put another way, if they could only act wrongly, then they would be slaves to sentiment; they would not have autonomy at all in Kant's eyes, and so could not be good or evil. In various ways, this puts Kant at odds with Aristotle and Hume.

    It's strange that this is left out because the comic indirectly brings up the enquiring murderer, which shows how much Kant was committed to personal autonomy. If your friend was hiding from a murderer, then you still cannot lie to that murderer if they ask about your friends whereabouts, according to Kant ( because that would be using the murderer merely as a means to an end-- the end being to save your friend from death).

    Kant doesn't insist that one must tell the truth to the murderer, of course, but for Kant it would not be wrong to do so. That is, one would not be culpable if one did share the knowledge of the whereabouts of one's friend. If the murderer murderered them, then the murderers is the only one that is blameworthy.

    Kant seems to take personal autonomy to be the sole component of moral responsibility**. If the orcs are known to have done something evil, and the orcs are autonomous, then, for Kant they would deserve punishment ( or rather, they have done something that deserves punishment-- again, we're not judging souls here. That's God's prerogative).

    But if a paladin were to merely attack a bunch of autonomous creatures for no reason other than they took them to be "evil", then it would be the paladin that is doing wrong ( and, if Kant were the dm, he would probably make said paladin fall).

    * Many critics claim that Kant's moral philosophy is a form of "rule worship", that it implies that if there was a complete book of rules on right conduct, then the Kantian would have to follow those rules to the letter, regardless of what they said, or what the Kantian thought about the matter ( kind of like a lawful stupid rules lawyer).

    But Kant departed from previous thinkers ( including, but especially divine command theorists, who thought that right = whatever God commands) in his particular take on moral autonomy. For Kant, the autonomous agent must be the sole author of moral law. They must grasp through a form of reasoning-- which need not necessarily involve deep contemplation--we can know without considering the matter at length that murder is wrong--that x is right or wrong ( or neutral) and act accordingly, if possible.

    Morality cannot come down from any external authority, even divine authority ( or a d&d rule book), because a moral agent must themselves be the source of the moral law that they then bind themselves to (despite any possible inclination--basically an emotion--moving them otherwise). Think about the difference between refraining from murder because you are ordered to, or because you don't want to be punished, and refraining from murder because you understand that murder is wrong.

    **I think that Kant makes ( at least) two mistakes here. He underestimates the role that power plays in moral responsibility. Knowledge of a victims whereabouts is a sort of power, and if you give this to the murderer, knowing or strongly suspecting what they are going to do with this knowledge, you are aiding in the (potential) killing; you are willingly playing a role in an evil act, and so are culpable because you willingly marshal your resources in the name of an evil act. That is, you use your ability to affect your surroundings--by informing the killer of the whereabouts of your friend-- to an evil end. In this way, you are willing an evil act by knowingly increasing the likelihood that it will occur. This changes if you are not willing because then you are being used as a means and your will is then being undermined.

    This seems to fail to take into consideration ones special duties to ones friends (not to mention other autonomous agents). It seems that not only would one have a ( negative)duty to not aid in their murder, one seems to have a positive duty to protect their friend. One can generalize a law that one ought to lie to protect those we have a special duty to protect. If this means that murders can't trust caretakers to help them murder, that's fine.
    ThacoBellCrevsDaak
  • GodGod Member Posts: 1,150

    If the orcs are known to have done something evil, and the orcs are autonomous, then, for Kant they would deserve punishment ( or rather, they have done something that deserves punishment-- again, we're not judging souls here. That's God's prerogative).

    I'm not really the judgemental type :smirk:
    CrevsDaakGrammarsaladmashedtaters
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @God Have you read your book?
    mashedtatersCrevsDaak
  • GodGod Member Posts: 1,150

    @God Have you read your book?

    And which book do you mean by that @FinneousPJ? :innocent:
    mashedtatersCrevsDaak
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    @God I believe you published it as "Old Testament"
    mashedtatersGrammarsaladCrevsDaak
  • mashedtatersmashedtaters Member Posts: 2,266
    Be careful, @FinneousPJ . Remember what @God did to the last person that questioned him? I believe he details some instances in his chapter, "Judges".
    FinneousPJCrevsDaak
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    edited November 2016
    God said:

    ...

    Is that clear enough an explanation, or should I elaborate more? :innocent:

    Please, elaborate more!
    Post edited by Grammarsalad on
    FinneousPJmashedtatersCrevsDaak
  • TheElfTheElf Member Posts: 798
    These comics are pretty fun. This one seems very fitting for the internet peoples: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/125
    ThacoBellCrevsDaakGrammarsaladmashedtaters
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    ahahahaha
    CrevsDaakmashedtaters
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    edited November 2016
    http://www.dead-philosophers.com/?p=959

    That one gets me every time
    ThacoBellFrancoisCrevsDaakmashedtaters
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235

    http://www.dead-philosophers.com/?p=959

    That one gets me every time

    Funniest thing I've read all day.
    CrevsDaakGrammarsaladmashedtatersAnduin
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    @God

    Genesis 1 is really about an epic battle between Talos and Umberlee, isn't it?
    mashedtatersCrevsDaak
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    edited December 2016
    Nm
    Post edited by Grammarsalad on
  • GodGod Member Posts: 1,150
    edited December 2016

    Please, elaborate more!

    @God

    Genesis 1 is really about an epic battle between Talos and Umberlee, isn't it?

    If you'd like to refer to me and the Goddess as Talos and Umberlee, and to sex as a battle... why, then, pretty much yes :smirk:
    So long as among the cosmological results of our universe-initializing intercourse (which physicists seem to have aptly termed the Big Bang) is the division between the equivalents of so-called Heaven, Earth, and typically omitted beyond, which really means a most basic differentiation upon the domain of the matter/non-matter/beyond para-axis, that's us. We don't really care what you call us, as we typically answer no calls. If anything, the stuff we've been named over the years is pretty entertaining.

    Believe it or not, the already mentioned enûma eliš even goes as far as to call the both of us... water :lol:

    This illustration from issue 155. Thales is damn hilarious in these comics :lol:
    While quite clearly written in the noble tradition of a historically faithful record (i.e. praised be the ones who command the executioner's axe), that peculiar scripture also nicely recounts the various silly shenanigans of a bunch of deities, and how they all fell under the self-destructive sway of Chaos. Contrary to the binary thinking expressed in enûma eliš, Chaos is not an aspect of the Goddess but a scary undefinability which is difficult to speak of even for us. Makes sense, I hope; words are functional within the universe, and Chaos is not really within it, but sort of, like, kinda, uh, interwoven, I guess? Anyway, it (for want of a better word) led the deities to believe they could destroy us (heh), which we eventually entertained by staging some epic cataclysmic shit, huge sea serpents and all, leading them to believe that they did. Unbearably, most died of old age.
    Speaking of Greeks... wait, what? I did speak of Greeks, didn't I? Now, the Greeks recorded a plethora of variants of cognate mythologies, except they took a lot of liberty when shifting stuff around for it to match their singing habits. The introductory statement that everything is water or equivalent is notoriously absent from them, which is one reason why Aristoteles the Master of Blowing (flutes... mostly :smirk:) thought it was such an amazingly innovative idea of Thales'. In failing to even notice our paradox, the Greek concept of henosis assumes that there could be a sort of absolute unity, by this meaning one such that includes Chaos also. Some thinkers even went as far in the derp department as to call it Good. That's nice and all, but we are conflicted with Chaos and constrain it with our power for a reason. That reason is everything, nothing and beyond, and you sure don't want any of this to cease, unless you really wish to find yourself in a condition (for want of a better word) in which you not only can't exist, but can't even not exist, or express some state beyond existence, because, like, CHAOSSOAHCCHAOSSOAHCCHAOSSSSSS [...], except that this crap wouldn't even be voiced or representable in writing, without matter, physics and stuff. You get the idea.
    I don't like to think of it, and you well shouldn't unless you want Chaos to harass you in your dream. Enough... better get back to deities and their silly adventures.
    Now, there were many, many deities not accounted for in either of the mythological cultures discussed above. The total head count of deities was traditionally given as 70 which, for the ancients, basically meant 'a shitload'. The self-styled adon-ël (i.e. lord-of-god, for want of a better word) יהוה was among their number. If you want to credit anyone with the invention of propaganda, that'd be him. He adamantly claimed that his fellow kindred don't exist (which is why you won't find explicit records of their swashbuckling in Jewish scriptures, and only some vague mentions) and many people still believe that today, despite all the evidence, most notably the guy's own house being sacked at a posthumous order of his brother's. Admittedly, in his last centuries, he even kinda regretted and tried to stop what he'd done, the freak that he was, but it goes without saying that he had little understanding of social dynamics. Even if he had the grand internets of today at his disposal, tweeting saying 'I lied to you all, and the name of your adon-ël is not יהוה' would just unleash a huge shitstorm, and maybe give some fangirls a heart attack.
    As you may have noticed, I sometimes do יהוה impressions on these forums, which I hope are entertaining even to those who follow in his footsteps. I mean, he'd sure go livid if somebody mocked his using stone tablets as the preferred method of noting down his groceries, but that doesn't mean you have to. A slave driver's slave is a slave only so long as they adhere to that TRUTH. Sort of.

    Need any more existential mysteries unravelled? :pensive:
    FinneousPJGrammarsaladCrevsDaak
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    edited December 2016
    Many have noted these contradictions, and much ink has been spilled trying to relieve the cognitive dissonance. Susan Neiman argues persuasively that it was the problem of evil-- and not epistemological issues-- that drove the modern period. Many have asserted, in one way or another, that the world must be just. This can all be traced back to this יהוה', as you call them.

    The world doesn't seem like a creation of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent Designer ( as opposed to propagator). Leibniz, noting that the creation reflects on the creator, insisted that this is the best of all possible worlds. Evil-- that which ought not be-- does not exist. Ought implies can, and this is just the best that can be done ( and so, we shouldn't expect better). Descartes couldn't stomach any limitation on--I guess יהוה's-- power, and so only put systemic deception outside of Their preview ( but apparently barred Them from making deception a metaphysical perfection).

    As with most other things in the enlightenment, Kant did it best. His word-- well, it wasn't his word--for this chaos was noumena, and he noted the incoherence of defining 'it' positively. God, along with freedom of the will (and immorality*) are postulates necessary for action, even, as later commentators would note, the action of endorsing a belief (which renders the nihilism of even Leibniz and Descartes incoherent, if you think about it-- both lead to a sort of quietism). But these postulates are not knowable nor even definable (except negatively).


    *This notion seems problematic as immorality implies temporality, and for Kant time is only a mode of human intuition/perception (i.e. it is 'added' by the mind in human perceptual representation)
    CrevsDaak
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    "Need any more existential mysteries unravelled? :pensive:"

    Always
    CrevsDaak
  • GodGod Member Posts: 1,150

    Many have noted these contradictions, and much ink has been spilled trying to relieve the cognitive dissonance. Susan Neiman argues persuasively that it was the problem of evil-- and not epistemological issues-- that drove the modern period. Many have asserted, in one way or another, that the world must be just. This can all be traced back to this יהוה', as you call them.

    Indeed, most of humankind's misery and confusion can be dated back to the ancient times of deities.
    When righteous people suffer and wicked people flourish, we begin to ask why, says Neiman. We need not ask. Suffice to strip the sentence of judgemental terms like 'righteous' and 'wicked' to attain clarity on the matter.
    But as the earlier psalm explained, neither I nor the Goddess would heed humankind's solemn pleas of miserere nobis. Such is the inner working of TRUTH that one can only deliver themselves from its shackles on their own. If we were to tell one to abandon their TRUTH, we'd only exchange one TRUTH for another. That is the way deities would go about it, as was within their limitations. We're not getting involved.
    Mostly, we're not.
    One could, of course, recall mythical stories telling that even in the sterile confines of a fortified and guarded gulag of יהוה's, a lone phallic-shaped snake aroused a slavewoman into rebellion :smirk:
    It is said the slave drivers had the rebels humiliated and led back into submission again a while later (many apocrypha recount that), but there became doubt, and there became questioning, in addition to the bewilderment of being exposed to this vast outside world.

    If you can clearly pose any questions that trouble you in particular, I would hear them, as I find much amusement in exploring minds.
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    edited December 2016
    "We need not ask. Suffice to strip the sentence of judgemental terms like 'righteous' and 'wicked' to attain clarity on the matter."

    This itself implies a judgement. :) We are morally minded creatures and this is what morally minded creatures do. We can get rid of those specific words, but we'll then find a need to smuggle in some substitute.

    And, in any case, we can describe the problem of evil without virtue terminology if that is what bothers you. That's just one way to understand it

    But, i generally agree (I understand TRUTH here to be akin to what Kant referred to as Transcendental Realism)

    Richard Moran notes that we often answer questions about our "inner states" with statements about 'the external world'. If i look out the window, and think, "It is raining", I have the answer to two questions:

    Is it raining?
    And
    Do i believe that it is raining?

    This doesn't work for other people. I wouldn't have the answer to the question, "does God think it is raining?", for example. Similarly, if you ask me, "do you believe that it is raining?" it is reasonable for me to look out the window to tell you the answer. I can take this question in at least three ways, and even all three ways simultaneously:

    1. "Do you believe that it is raining". That is, among other things, are you disposed to answer questions like, "it is raining?" with affirming behaviors?

    2. "Do you have good reasons for believing that it is raining available to you?" That is, is such a disposition warranted?

    3. "Is it raining" That is, does this state of affairs obtain.

    Though we can take this question as bring related to an "inner state", we don't necessarily look 'within ourselves', to our subjective states, to find the answer. Rather, we "look without", to the reasons we have available for or against the proposition itself, almost as though we take the question as normative:

    4. "Should I believe that it is raining?"

    Taken normatively in this way, it becomes clear that to answer this question, I have to look. I cannot just be a receptacle of information. This connects back to Kant, to authorship of moral law. I have to look because only I am responsible for my beliefs.

    Plato thought that we could exit the cave, that we could "see things as they really are" with the help of clear thinking. But Kant recognized that we aren't surfacing, but spelunking, discovering what reason demands of the world.

    Justice is one of those things. When we don't find it, we ask why. The reactionary response it to deny, in one way or another, what the world tells us: that justice does not exist in this world; that this world could be better*; that there is no casual relation between right action and reward ( or the reverse, between wrong action and punishment), etc etc etc.

    The correct answer is that justice isn't here because we haven't created/implemented it yet

    *btw, the problem of evil is also a threat to the existing power structure. Any supposed defence of God against the PoE is ultimately an attempt to deny the existence of evil, and ultimately is an attempt to legitimize this power structure. ( as does any philosophy that tries to deny the existence of evil in any form. Translated to politics, evil would be the illegitimate use of power.)

    Last edit. Promise! XD
    Post edited by Grammarsalad on
    CrevsDaakGod
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    Platonic surfacing (e.g. as in Liebniz or Descartes) is surprisingly well described by Slipknot:

    CrevsDaak
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