PHILOSOPHERS - ongoing list
latest update November 31, 2007
Wasting time is what life is all about. But there is no reason to waste time
with what every philosopher has had to say. Mistakes in comprehension are expected.
Even people who read every word of a
philosopher will still misuse what he said, so don't get hung up on trying
to read everything. These are short cuts through some of the hogwash from a gamegene
perspective. Ethicists are included even though they're not philosophers
because of their historic association with the concept of value in philosophy.
Finders, marked with an F
are those listed below who have discovered elements of game gene theory.
Destroyers, marked with an D
are those listed below who have sidetracked philosophy into religious or absolutist areas.
Abelard
- Intention alone makes an action good or bad –
besides this statement being a bald assertion with no foundation
there are several problems. 1) no action need ever be taken - whether
spoken or acted. 2) An intention to care about all people could
accompany the act of harming all people and it would be a good. 3)The
intention to harm all people accompanied by actual help for all people would
be a bad. 4) No intentions means no good or bad exist.
Aenesidemus – "Ten tropes" –Skeptic -- perception
must not be trusted. There is no highest good - not pleasure,
happiness, knowledge or virtue. Perception will always be given
one's trust no matter what precepts are used to undercut them. What must be
accepted is the 'lie' of the perceptions and that actions and ideas
that result are guesses.
Aesop master was Xanthus contemp was Avianus
Agrippa
– "Five tropes" – Skeptic – 1) clash of
opinions 2) proofs are second propositions 3) perceptions are relative
twice, to subjects and to more perceptions 4) dogmatic philosophers avoid
infinite regress and resort to hypothesis without proof 5) vicious
circle of proving sensible by intelligible and intelligible by
sensible.
Akutagawa -- Rashomon
Alain – happiness is not a reward but a virtue. Philosophers
must be understood more than refuted. Religions are complimentary and
contain truth that does not progress. Argue and shock to provoke
thought, do not preach dogma. Have doubt but make a choice. -- play
a game and learn.
Alexander, Samuel
Al-Razi (Rhazes) All existence is built atomically.
Anaxagoras – Atomist, Atoms can be divided and stay the same thing
"Anaxagoras said mind is really the arranger and cause of all things"
Plato, Phaedo 97D
Andreev (Andreyev), Leonid Nikolayevich – with Kafka, Rampo,
Dostoyevsky, Browning, Chaney, Conrad, Poe – The art of dread and
humiliation brought to a wonderful level of horror with He Who is Slapped
and other stories.
Angell, Norman – Card games explain economics perfectly.
Appian – Roman historian with raw and direct view on life.
Antisthenes – First cynic
Arcesilaus – "I am ignorant even of my ignorance"
, he takes Socrates claim one correct step further.
Archemedes – The simple actions of everyday can be played in a
game of science as long as a self consciousness is directed towards it.
Aristotle
-- "The more I find myself by myself and alone the more I have
become a lover of myth." He wanted us to find the universal in
the particulars ( "the form") with careful observation, by
doing this we make a world we can reason with. .........
- see full assessment
Aurobindo,
Sri – The evolution of man in the universe has four stages. The
ascent of matter to life, mind, supermind and Sachchidanada. The
final stage has not come but will. He wanted to create the spiritual
religion of humanity. His 'supermind' is very nearly the
opposite of Nietzsche's 'superman'.
Avenarius R. -- unified inner/outer experience to "pure"
with Mach / Bogolanov (Malinovsky) "naïve" realism
Lenin, Engels
Azais
P.H. Everything works out even-steven happiness/misery
big/small universe
Bacon, Francis – Baconion Method -- He intended to replace the
citing of authorities (and guessing) with a scientific method based on
empirical ideas. It was about induction: beginning with a description
of the facts, followed by quantifying and classifying process -
finishing with an elimination of irrelevant facts. One of the first
philosophers to organize a scientific method. Although his science would have been
accurate, it was impractical. His attempt at a practical short cut
was in the form of "fist vintage" -- take a survey in
mid-stream and make a course correction.
Today the role of hypothesis and
conclusion are the means by which science is made practical and, as
always, it is within a game structure, even though it harms the
accuracy of the science.
Bergson, H. -- Mind and
material were created out of the same process at the same time. There
are no distinct things only an endless becoming. In a sense, nothing
is becoming different nothing. There are not series of states to
examine, only a continuous flux. He adds a hierarchy of up
and down between life, which is the up, and matter. The mind sees the
divisions as though they are always there, in some ways there is no
perception but actual absorption of the facts of the world . Logic,
or habit, is sleepwalking and poor logical skills are a blessing.
Free Will and conscious memory are proofs of the spirit.
Bergson was an irrational
philosopher who didn't offer arguments for his beliefs. He was a
game player in the spirit of poets and playwrights.
Bailey, S.
Bain, Alexander --
Bakunin, M.A. -- The only
philosophy is the end of philosophy
Bentham – A
psychological determinism is at work though conditioning. He wants
the social system to produce automatic people who do the right thing.
The right being pleasure and wrong being pain. For society, the
greatest pleasure for the greatest number is his aim. Punishment
should be certain more than severe. Liberty is irrelevant. His idea that
people always do what they desire is a confusion with choice. People
choose some things without desire of it. -- he is called an Utilitarian
Brandenburger, - F-
says in Co-opitition: "There is only one
big game -- extending across space, over time, down generations. But
that's in principle. A game without boundaries is too complex to analyze.
In practice, people draw boundaries in their minds to help them analyze the
world. They create the fiction that there are many separate games".
Burke
Caesar
Camus Albert
Carlyle – took history to be the most important area of study because it
signaled a divine purpose. Despite this, he was correct to dispense with scientific
pretenses regarding history and said history was to, instead, isolate 'a message' and
discard the irrelevant matter. He says, 'history is the essence of innumeral biographies.'
He correctly pointed out that historiography is successive while reality is
simultaneous - meaning they are fundamentally different and cannot be reconciled.
He called reality the chaos of being. Nietzsche correctly characterized him as
enjoying confused and noisy emotions in his writing.
He also desired the increase in general suffering.
Chomsky – Humanist who
uses the worst of Plato and Descartes, but, on the positive side, is still somehow able to see a genetic component
in language – most likely as a way for humanity to have a privileged vantage point
over other life. His scientism is an improvement over Skinner. His linguistic theory
is too narrow and unremarkable. It makes more sense using the more general gamegene
theory for learning gammer rather than there being a gammer-gene. He underestimates babies' abilities
to learn any and all rules like gammer which leads him to his theory. On the other hand he overestimates people's
ability to understand language. People don't listen to others very well so how can they
understand most of a language? He assumes correct gammer is really Correct Gammer (absolute) not
just a noise being used and tried out in a game. He then says rule use and comprehension
is so natural it must be innate, but he fails to understand that gammer is not understood but
only guessed at. Finally, while he is completely correct in his Manufacturing Consent
thesis about media manipulation by higher powers, he is quite wrong in thinking an alternative is possible
(as Machiavelli recognized).
Cicero – Called eclectic but more of a skeptic. Didn't say much that was new but he said it so well
people still listen. Finished his life on the run from Antony and Augustus and once his head was chopped
off it served as a table ornament for Antony.
Claudius – Roman Emperor –F–
See essays below on Claudius the Sceptic. Underrated by many due to superficial reasons. He was daring and
conscientious, as well as being an expert in fun and games.
The Lawmakers Dialogue
The Lawmakers Exegesis
Cortez, H
Darwin – Change through descent was his first way of framing his version of
evolution. Unfortunately his value neutral idea didn't take and even he eventually sees
the survival of the 'fittest'. Simolution eliminates this mistake. His sexual selection concept
fails the test as to why any
particular choice would be made and his natural selection idea still fails to give a motive for
surviving. He does recognize that all individuals are mutants (a deeper classification than species) and
recognizes the consciousness of all animals, so for those I give
him high marks.
Democritus – Atomist -- no quality change in matter only quantity change. I have great respect
for his science, but he influenced Socrates' ethic and can be partially blamed for that hack's
sidetracking of philosophy into the anti-knowledge of ethics.
Demosthenes -
Descartes – D –
he thinks therefore we must put up with his irrational belief in reason. A
daemon could fool him even here but he continues to 'Believe'. His cartesian doubt
was a fake skepticism that he admitted was a game in order to build a new absolutism
from the ground up. Unfortunately he failed in every way except in that he reestablished
a retooled version of Plato's idealism. He is old-fashioned and realistically illogical.
His abilities in logic and math give the best example of how success in formal logic and
math have no carry over into an understanding of the actual world.
'I think therefore I am' is the biggest wrong turn ever taken in
philosophy, Descartes' goal was fake, it was not to
have truth, but to have certainty, so he massaged and exaggerated to
no end. His reasons are baldly self contradictory and full of
misunderstandings.
He said he would consider everything that entered his head as false,
then he ignores that prescript and says he himself is the only thing that is
certain because the act of doubting reality is indubitable - hardly.
Like his friend Plato, Descartes saw an absolute separation
between mind and matter, so how could mind imply matter? Because thinking makes an 'am'.
And if one observes how many common human actions at first require great amounts
of thinking then are later best done without it, like driving, does the 'I' disappear? or does the material of our
brain do some, if not all, of our thinking without us?
"I am [I exist], and possess the idea of a being absolutely perfect, that is, of God....
There remains only the inquiry as to the way in which I received this idea from God; for
I have not drawn it from the senses...it is not even a ... fiction of my mind ... and consequently there
but remains the alternative that is in innate, in the same way as is the idea of myself.
Rene Descartes, Meditations on the First Philosophy, Part 3, 1647
"...God thus internally disposes my thought...."
Rene Descartes, Meditations on the First Philosophy, Part 4, 1647
"...whatever is clearly and distinctly known is true."
Rene Descartes, Meditations on the First Philosophy, Part 5, 1647
"...the true ideas that were born with me, the first and chief of which is the idea of God."
Rene Descartes, Meditations on the First Philosophy, Part 5, 1647
Dewy – pragmatist – ideas are instruments and truth is how well an idea benefits one
through the test of experience. His educational concepts were about playing active
learning games which students wanted to play - not spectator games that they could not see the workings of.
Dio Cassius – Through his Roman history, and especially the speeches it contains,
Dio is able to show his knowledge of theories regarding human psychology and ethics.
In his speech by Livia, who was unofficially Empress of the Roman Empire under Augustus,
Dio explains, "...there is no law and no fear stronger than those instincts which are implanted
by nature. Bear this in mind, then, and do not let the shortcomings of others disturb you,
but rather take every precaution to guard your own person and your supremacy." (Book 55, 14)
Several instances of this
attitude show Dio to be scientifically insightful and ethically ambivalent. This is especially true
with Agrippa and Maecenas' speeches on monarchy and Augustus' on having children.
Regarding the latter, it becomes clear that when Augustus pressured the knights to have progeny
his only reason for doing so was to strengthen the army and government and make his country 'progress',
at least as he saw it. But when Augustus was about to die all this is undercut because he actually
believed life was a useless joke. (Book 56, 30) Dio is able to give a cogent though modest
philosophy of life.
Diogenes – cynic. A great philosopher for many reasons not least of which is
due to his successful ribbing of Plato on the streets of Athens.
Dostoevsky – a great dramatizer of many psychological insights. There was one
insight which was most telling: he said he would choose Christ even if it could be proved that
Christ was not the truth. This shows that games are enough, that belief in something,
rather than nothing, is all you need. Despite his fanatically conservative politics, his
characters say something about
a radical's world that he also understood and accepted. This world explains what the average
teenager experiences before needing to conform (delude) themselves. His ideas spawn
nihilists everywhere.
Edogowa Rampo
– a so-called 'crime writer' who told the most exacting stories disectecting how
life itself is nature's perfect crime. The Human Chair and The Catepill
Einstien – god does play dice with the universe because he Einstein is so bored. Not only
have quantum, chaos and game theories shown how wrong he was on the dice score, but game
gene theory shows why he must be.
Empedocles – Atomist – four elements
Emerson –
Epicurus –
Erasmus – F – A catholic humanist.
Nevertheless, in his book "Praise of Folly", he succeeds
in the guise of irony in exposing an accurate account of existence. Whether the
game of satire led him to it or not, he uncovered vast numbers of insights into meaning
and its creation. His statement in the role of folly sums his exploration this way,
"...the life of man is nothing but a sport of folly...".
While he didn't accept his own observations as conclusive he still
can be considered an incidental finder of game gene theory.
Euphrates – Another poser in the manner of Socrates admired by Pliny the Younger.
Foucault, Michele - Took his only accurate observation, one about the manipulation of contexts by the 'powers that be' in order to control their respective societies, and turned it into an absurd dungheap of obscurfaction. He begins by denouncing first principles. Next, he claims no interest in judging things. Then he adds he is just an historian. Unfortunately, his whole reason for writing is to 'fight the power'. He has obvious first principles against the powerful, he judges constantly and unfairly through tone, he trolles history only to exagerate single intstances into vast conspiracies and finally he does it all with an eye to obscuring his own confusion. A waste of time to philosophy. He was another victim of Heidegger and helped spawn Derrida, Deluize, Beaud and countless other BS artists.
Fichte – the ultimate whole of the Fiche universe is a being
called the Absolute. Everything is connected and any ordinary idea
which is not connected to the whole is mistaken. The whole is self
-caused. Hegel, Spinoza, Schelling, Royce, Plotinus, Bradley, Plato,
(de)Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier – F –
Came very close to understanding that games are the activity that life must pursue given the
impossibility of any ultimate purpose in life. He influenced Nietzsche totally on this point.
Mistakes are elevated by Fontenelle to be of the utmost importance. Error is necessary
on the way to discovering utility. However, folly's greatest gift is that it stops us
from knowing our true selves and how life is purposeless. He rightly says people need
arbitrary, even false, goals just to live. Truth is counter productive. He even says all
would be lost if the truth is revealed. A philosopher only survives if he avoids giving
truth to his audience and offers instead a little deceit/entertainment.
Goethe –
Hamilton, William –
Hegel – D –
History is the progressive realization of "the
Absolute". Hegal and before him, Kant, were in the middle of a long series of
philosophers who were desperate to avoid seeing life as pointless.
While Hegal is seeing the pointlessness he was simultaneously fabricating a
new kind of religious game, one about the ultimate 'unity of Being' and how
nothing short of 'the Absolute whole' is true. Although time is
meaningless in Hegal's game he laughingly still sees progress. Marx and
Heidegger are among the many led down Hegal's silly slope.
Heidegger – D – One of the worst
influences of the last century. Anyone who likes his philosophy must explain how they possibly
can when, as a lecturer Heidegger would change his philosophy whenever anyone showed an understanding.
He called the changes an improvement of his philosophy when fewer -- in fact, if no one -- could understand him.
"Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy" (Contributions to Philosophy, p.307).
He wanted what he said to be private, for his own understanding only, and this was his adolescent "pig latin"
technique for feeling superior over others. He used his own private language just for that
purpose.
He was also an absolutist who somehow thought that the roots of words
matters to existence. His ideas are even a throw back to Socrates by his saying that thinking
is only recalling. This time he adds the absurdity: it is past writers we must recall. The snobs that love
him have no idea what he offered to an understanding of life. He couldn't even answer his own foundational
questions, the same questions children ask themselves and also don't have an answer for:
what is living all about? He offers
nothing -- just remember that. His "philosophy" never accomplished a single thing outside
giving a mystery to play with to a number of his worshippers.
Revealing Boredom, On the philosophy of Heidegger
Herodotus – History is about stories and how strange
interactions between people cause some of the turning points in
history. As others have pointed out, Herodotus does not take social,
economic or other needs into consideration with his history which is fine. This is
H's most profound contribution. History is about the games that
actually happen, not about what is practical or necessary. Events are
unexpected because they are not based on needs but on wants played
out in games. H. also seems to think birth is a mistake and death is
the happiest of occasions for all concerned.
Hobbes, Thomas – F – an underrated precursor of
Nietzsche who also saw self preservation and relative power as the goals of every individual.
This came from two connected suppositions. The first was that the deductive method in geometry
could be used to make claims certain. The second was that, like all matter, human beings
are always in motion, or changing, and so this could begin to explain human actions.
Hobbes struck on Galileo's deductive method of imagining a solution for a problem then
testing it mathematically. He thought he could use this physics game as a basis for a
new political science. As he said knowing 'will' was the key to the motion of man he set
about to imagine what motivated people. What he determined to be in existence was an
innate desire of some kind and that it is programed
into us all. This was a deliberative desire he call the Endeavour but which I call games.
Unfortunately, the desire he determined to exist was the impulsion to avoid death - survival.
Unfortunate, because, far from being self evident, as he hoped, self preservation has
billions of exceptions in the shape of self destructive behavior. Hobbes' mode for the
conduct of this desire also has many drawbacks. The main problem being his choices for
modes, appetites
and aversions. And these steer his idea of will towards self preservation. Both appetites
and aversions mix up
reason with emotions and often have nothing to do with relative power or self preservation -
as in the case of card games. In fact, these two are descriptive of game aspects.
Surprisingly, most of what he describes are general psychological truths arising
from games, though he doesn't use that word. He even balances experience with innate
knowledge as in gamegene theory. He really goes off the rails though when mentioning the
supposed need people have for peace and security and the subsequent 'contract' they
make with
political big-wigs everyday by 'knowingly' handing over full sovereignty to them.
People often want peace, yes, but there is no contract. People tolerate other's control,
and no more.
Huizinga, Johan (1872-1945)
– F –
Homo Ludens by J. Huizinga written in the 1930s.
He showed that war, law, religion, ritual, learning, art, literature, language, and
civilization were fundamentally about play. Interestingly, he claimed sports were
endangered by the excessive structuralizing of play which made sports too serious.
He tried to define play as adverse to purpose, and parallel to animal play. However,
he nevertheless concluded that all culture is play. He stopped short of saying all human
action is play, like eating, and denied it could be so.
His aversion to purpose and structure, and his belief in the normality of
'freedom' and 'innocence' within play confused his understanding of game playing.
He demonstrates that confusion when he says,"Roman society could not live without
games. They were as necessary to its existence as bread" . Frequently, when he used
the idea of play, he meant playing games. His disbelief in purpose was a confusion
between ultimate purpose and limited purpose. There is no demonstrable ultimate
purpose to any act, but to have fun, or to win, is purpose
enough for most games. Nevertheless he added most human actions to the list of games.
Huizinga, came close to recognizing the game gene, but perhaps as a
reaction to eugenics, he made two important mistakes: first he accepted the period's belief
in a rational, deterministic cosmos, and secondly he could not accept a biological
foundation to games.
Huizinga's unintentionally gave this argument for the game gene: "...a world wholly determined
by the operation of blind forces...play would be altogether superfluous. ...an influx of
mind breaks down the absolute determinism of the cosmos....in play there is
something 'at play' which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts
meaning to the action. All play means something"
See essay,
Playful - 1997
Hume, David - – F –
a logical skeptic, shows why all knowledge should be doubted.
Still had faith in some kinds of knowledge. Correctly identified that an inherited mental trick
makes causality seem real. Unfortunately, Hume did not pursue an investigation into
the nature of this trick otherwise he might have found the game gene.
At one point he is so close to finding the gamegene that he even says that it is the distractions
of daily life which gives one enough meaning to be satisfied with life. Then,
instead of asking why distractions do satisfy a need for meaning, he mistakenly turns to the concept
of 'basic needs' -- food, clothing, etc. -- to claim that it is these things that are the engine of
human growth. He fails to then ask why 'basic needs' become more luxurious and excessive and how 'progress'
and growth still continue far above even the most extravagant 'basic needs'. The error stems from
the fact that he mixes up a search
for the meaning of life with the desires of those he witnessed who seek absolute answers to that question. Due
to his false assumption he dismissed any search as nonsense. If he had only seen the search for the meaning
of life as search for a relative answer he would have seen that his own work was just such a search.
He had all the ingredients necessary to discover the game gene, he even gave the answer as to how the game gene
succeeeds where others fail, but he let the answer slip through his fingers.
"The transition of thought from the cause to the effect proceeds not from reason.
It derives its origin altogether from custom and experience."
David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748, Section 5 (end)
"It is more conformable to the ordinary wisdom of nature to secure so necessary
an act of the mind {causation] by some instinct or mechanical tendancy which may be infallible in
its operations, may discover itself at the first appearance of life and thought, and may be independent
of all laboured deductions of the understanding. As nature has taught us the use of our limbs ... she
has implanted in us an instinct...."
David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748, Section 5 (end)
"Animals, therefore, are not guided in these inferences by reasoning; neither are children; neither are the
generality of mankind in their ordinary actions and conclusions; neither are philosophers themselves, who...are governed
by the same maxims. Nature must have provided some other principle, of more ready and more general use and application....
But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it which they
derive from the original hand of nature.... These we denominate "instinct".... ...the experimental
reasoning itself, which we possess in common with the beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life
depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power that acts in us unknown to ourselves..."
David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section 9 (end), 1748
Hui Shih
believe the Chinese logician,
Husserl - – D –
Huxley, Thomas -
James , William – held that screaming will make you afraid -- more precisely that playing out a
game of being afraid (or any emotion) will create the reality of that emotion. Shakespeare in Hamlet
said something like this
before him, but it is a definite step to seeing the game gene. However, he added that whatever the process helps is
therefore true. For example, if religion makes people happy then it must be true.
This would mean that if lying make people happier than it must be true. In other words its
mixing up truth with helpful which can't be combined meaningfully.
Jaspers - called 'existentialist' -- Amazingly, he actually believed that philosophy begins
where reason ends. And this was to be done by abandoning oneself in subjectivity. However
this does make sense in one way - he says philosophy has no meaning unless we make it our
own. And he adds that is how we make all philosophers our contemporaries. Kant is the
philosopher to him so you can get an idea where he is headed. He loved Hegel and Plato too.
Help! He has a mystical insubstantial way like his three heroes. Man is the measure of all
things to him.
Kant – D – Kant wants (irrelevantly) a "happy" answer
to Hume's conclusion that knowledge is
untenable. Kant believes he gets it with his 'new' reason for living: ignore the unknowable-ness
of life by reasoning from the inside out. His idea is almost the same as Plato's idealism and
just as useless - that is, he supposes innate knowledge makes meaning certain which
incidentally justifies every assertion he makes. None of his claims are actually toward
an a priori knowledge...............
- see full assessment
Keynes J. M.
Kierkegaard – D – If you like christianity and believe in
absolutes without evidence then this is
the guy to read. If you like a guy who preaches that he knows what god thinks in the form
of knowing that everyone else doesn't 'get' god, then read this bible thumper. If you
like Heidegger and all his absolutist claptrap and want to see where he got it from, read this guy.
If you don't, don't bother with him. He is a waste of time and energy.
- see full assessment
Koffka - Gestalt
Kuhn, Thomas S. -
F
- his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
reveals , without Kuhn realizing it, parts of the game gene's function. His concepts of
Paradigm and puzzle-solving show the social aspect of games in regards to science.
Both are games in the sense that the
former is a culture's ongoing game, and the later is the specific game which is often call an
experiment. Some think Kuhn radically change science and made it realize several issues;
for example, Kuhn showed that science does not take the only road,
or even the best road, to facts. Finally, if he had not been so much a part of the American
establishment during his critique of science he might have seen that really understanding
paradigms and puzzle solving leads straight to a genetic disposition to play games.
Kuhn describes ln The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , "Scientists solve
puzzles by modeling them on previous puzzle-solutions.... As a result, the superiority
of one theory to another is something that cannot be proved in the debate".
Lalo
Leucippus
– Atomist --
Locke --
Machiavelli -- He was just trying to make a living in a tough age. He came up with
great observations knowing which helped polititions to fool people and dominate principates.
His methods revolved around games.
"...yet everyone, for all this diversity of method, can reach his objective...two men
succeed equally well with different methods." Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince 1513, p80
"The nobles . . . takes sides with the one whom they expect to win." Niccolo Machiavelli,
The Prince 1513 p32
"There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for
itself, the second appreciates what others can understand, the third understands
neither for itself or for others. The first kind is excellent, the second good
and the third kind useless."Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince 1513, p75
"...so as not to rule out free will, I believe that it is probably true that fortune
is the arbiterof half the things we do, leaving the other half or so to be controlled
by ourselves."Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince 1513, p79
"...because he cannot do otherwise than what is in character or ..."Niccolo
Machiavelli, The Prince 1513, p81
Mao – D – anyone like
Mao who can order a country as a whole to produce steel overnight without
any plan or idea of how it might happen and then ignore the millions who
die as a result (then do that kind of thing again and again) is definitely
one of the worst thinkers that ever lived. As far as game playing goes, he was an
example of how far luck and absolutism can take you.
Marx -- Believed knowledge to be inconstant, that the knower and thing to
know were always adapting to each other. He called it dialectical and claimed
it to be scientific, but also believed in progress and in helping the
poor - both of which led to his economic and social theories, and
to huge mistakes. Knowledge for Marx was about action and, I take it, about
acting even without scientific evidence. While people do act without scientific evidence
Marx fails to notice why we should act at all, or do. Not all knowledge is
knowable, nor is there sufficient knowledge accessible in life for the
most mundane decisions to be entirely predictable. (Hume pointed that out.) This is why we must desire to play games in
order to overcome this lack of certainty.
McLuhan Marshall - His religion, which he puts in the guise of technological prophecy, is the
reason why he fails as philosopher. He originates media studies, but that is like
taking credit for creating Woody Woodpecker. The great irony in the whole media studies BS
factory is that it theorizes on Skinner-like assumptions that humans are blank slates
and that somehow software doesn't need specific hardware. He and Derrida arguing about
"presence" is like two drunks arguing over which one owns the Brooklyn Bridge. All media,
including writing and speech can have "immediacy", but it depends on the willingness of people
to play that game. His concept of hot and cool mediums is useless and
wrong. Information is not defined by what is sent, but by who wants it and what game is used to absorb it.
The media was a medium of extension of our senses for him, but such BS didn't answer the more important
question, "Is it real or is it memorex?"
Montainge –F–
Influence many including Shakespeare and King James. Like Erasmus,
he saw life as a sport of folly.
"(essay title) We reach the same end by discrepant means."
"...assaulted and assayed by both those methods
can be seen to resist one,
without flinching, only to bow to the other.
Michel De Montaigne 1580
If I had not seen it I could hardly have made myself believe that you could find souls so
monstrous that they would commit murder for the sheer fun of it..."
Michel De Montaigne, On cruelty, 1580
"How many have we seen patiently suffering to be roasted or burnt for opinions which,
without understanding or knowledge, they have taken from others!"
Michel De Montaigne, In defence of Seneca and Plutarch
"What a prodigious thing it is that within the drop of semen which brings
forth there are stamped the characteristics not only the bodily form of our forefathers but or their
ways of thinking and their slant of mind. Where can that drop of fluid
lodge such and infinite number of Forms."
Michel De Montaigne, On the resemblance of
children to their fathers. 1580
"The affair cost him hardly anything, but he gets nothing worthwhile out of it either."
Michel De Montaigne, On three kinds of social intercourse, 1580
"But no matter what we may say, the customs and practices of life in society sweep
us along. Most of my doings are governed by example not choice."
Michel De Montaigne, On some
lines of Virgil, 1580
"In my day the pleasure of telling of an affair (a pleasure scarcely
less delightful than having one)...."
Michel De Montaigne, On some
lines of Virgil, 1580
We cannot be said to progress but rather to wander about this way and that. We
follow our own footsteps."
Michel De Montaigne, On Coaches, 1580
Where Nature is concerned nothing is unique or rare: but where our knowledge is
concerned much certainty is, which constitutes a most pitiful foundation
for our scientific laws, offering us a very false idea of everything."
Michel De Montaigne, On Coaches, 1580
"Time and custom condition us to anything strange...."
Michel De Montaigne, On the lame, 1580
"...the world is involved in duels about hundreds of questions where both the for and
against are false."
Michel De Montaigne, On the lame, 1580
"No occupation is more powerful, or more feeble, than entertaining one's
own thoughts..."
Michel De Montaigne, On three kinds of social intercourse, 1580
"...everyone of our actions requires to judged on its own: the surest way in my
opinion would be to refer each of them to its context, without looking farther...."
Michel De Montaigne, On the Inconstancy of Our Actions, 1580
"We are entirely made up of bits and pieces...there is as much difference between us and ourselves
as there is between us and other people...we must probe right down inside and find out
what principles make things move...."
Michel De Montaigne, On the Inconstancy of Our Actions, 1580
"We reach the same end by discrepant means...." (title)
"...assaulted and assayed by both those methods
can be seen to resist one, without flinching, only bow to the other."
Michel De Montaigne, We reach the same end by discrepant means, 1580
"...due to our weakness and those due to our wickedness. In the latter
we deliberately brace ourselves against reason's rules, which are imprinted
by Nature; in the former it seems we can call Nature herself as a defence-witness
for having left us so weak and imperfect...."
Michel De Montaigne, On punishing cowardice, 1580
"One man complains less of death itself than of its cutting short the
course of a fine victory."
"I want Death to find me planting my cabbages."
Michel De Montaigne, To philosophize is to learn how to die, 1580
Montesquieu --
Neuman, John von - F
- Concurrent with Huizinga, von Neuman likewise gets credit for pushing
the description of human activity as "games" into new territory. "Game Theory" was coined during
his period.
He and others attempted to created a mathematical system to predict human activity
by using games as a template. The assumption was that people interact as they would in any
game. The results of his mode of predictions were profound, and he was hired by the US government
to create economic and political systems of prediction. His faith in mathematical rationalism
prevented his ideas growing towards cooperative games, irrational games, games in ignorance
and chaos games (until others worked on these in this last decade). Game Theory is also limited
by being simply a metaphor and not a coherent understanding of life or a logical outgrowth from observation.
It's purpose was to cheat at games and the growth of its application to new fields is an ad hoc and gradual
realization that more and more activities can be seen as games.
Nietzsche, Friedrich --
F
-- . He came as close as nearly anyone to seeing the need for the gamegene in
life, but too many hangup's and moral imperatives got in his way. His most
grievous error relates to his famous dictum, 'That which doesn't kill me, will
make me stronger.' Not everything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger like drinking
bleech. His admiration for suffering and struggle, and his propaganda
for these attributes, made him ignore that rest and nourishment also make one
stronger. In fact everything can make one stronger or weaker depending on attitude,
luck and a myriad of factors. And the relevance of strength alludes me. If he
thinks survival is aided with strength he fails to make the case for survival
itself or for his equivalency of strength and survival (the strong often die
before the weak) . Basically, he came close but faltered at the end.
See four papers
Nietzsche and Game Gene Theory
True Values:
On The Genealogy of Morals
The Fractured Whole:
On The Birth of Tragedy
The Good of Evil
Owen -- with Hodgskin's ideas, proposed that machines undercut
labour value and displaced labourers. Proposes common property to
remedy situation. Interesting how the enclosure movement of the 16th
century was the opposite idea to this one yet it just happened
without much fuss from the theorists.
Parmenides – Atomist – matter unchangeable
Pascal – A Catholic writer who emulated the personal style and substance of Montaigne.
Pavlov -- made the mistake of thinking that learned behavior is
physiological simply because there is a physiological effect. That is
the same as saying that a good idea is physiological simply because a
machine can see my brain activity or because I am smiling. His work
(and B.F. Skinner's) led to the most extreme beliefs in the effects of
education and environment.
Plato – D – the universal essence of any
kind of thing or concept. Also mistook mathematics for reality. –
Plato misdirected the whole of philosophy by the success of his
"ideal".
Postman, Neil - This is a very confused man
who's whole aim is the domination of American values over the globe, but only the right American values --
which coincidentally correspond to those that he was taught when he was knee high to a grasshopper.
Today's American values of technological progress and ignorance of his old values must be fought
by the freedom fighters of academia. And he begins the good fight, now this is where he gets
confused, by confessing that the moral values and undeniable greatness of America are myths that are
arbitrarily made because people must have myths (he also uses words such as "narratives", "symbols",
"background", all by which he means to refer to context -- a word which he also explicity uses
most of the time). After all this he then doesn't examine "myth". If he had, he could have seen that the myths
are games like contexts.
In Technopoly Postman is able to write an entire book about many aspects of
game gene, but never stumble across it.
Instead he calls language, questions, and basically how we think
regarding things, all "technologies". This grievous error goes unnoticed. He means games all along but can't seem to get
that idea into his conscious thoughts.
Plutarch
Pythagoras – D –
did not write anything himself but had many followers who did and
they influenced Socrates and others in religious directions. He had strictures against
beans and for mathematics.
Pythagoras "Our life is like the vast throng assembled for the Olympic Games."
(Cicero Tusc. disput V,iii.)
Prichard, Harold Arthur -- In ethics he lead the idea that intuition is all humanity needs to
decide moral questions. Of course deciding who's intuition mattered caused him
many problems - as did interpreting it and eliminating all the contradictions and intentions.
In the end, this mess of an ethic survives unconsciously, as it always has, as a kind of
reinvention of the wheel situation, where everyone who panics at the realization that all ethical
systems are frauds has to fall back on their 'imaginings' about what is good and bad.
Rand, Ayn -- America's philosopher. This woman took a look at what unconsciously
thrilled her about the Republican United States and rationalized it to an original degree. She
had no idea why people survive, or why they would even want to. Rand pegs human life as a
struggle to conquer nature and she hates those who get in the way. Francis Bacon also wanted
to conquer nature, but she makes it a religion. Among philosophers, she is the most simple minded.
She thinks North America was basically empty before the US was born, that China had nothing to offer the world, that Islamic
philosophers had no part in Aristotle's revival, that capitalism
ended slavery in spirit and actuality, that confidently asserting morals is all it takes to make that
morality true, and America's
'founding fathers' are a kind of religious pantheon. Given all these absurdities, she is
still quite right to say that great people are responsible for manufactured things, not some mystical forces of
history or labour. She is also correct to say communism will fail because no one will work
unless the value they receive exceeds the work they do. But she wrongly limits the
kind of values that are acceptable to people to money and power. If people value a delusion enough
they will work for it and she is a prime example. Even the great people are the same.
She actually believe people can see objectively. I believe we can act like we do see objectively
but only to get on with our games.
Ricardo -- 1817 - value of goods are determined by the labour used
to produce it. He did not think about the possibility that value is
arbitrary and that pricing is a game of what one can live with.
Russell Bertrand -- my first closely read philosopher but for his style and political
views there is nothing in his work that is worth investigating.
Sade, M (Marquis de)
– F –
An ethicist who worked backwards from the crime he liked to commit
towards an investigation into nature. Unfortunately
when he found that crime and innate dispositions for violence are natural he forgot to notice
that unfair state punishment is just as natural.
Santayana
Scruton, Roger -1944 - still alive
Clear traditional philosopher who nevertheless calls on his own desperation when making conclusions
and ignores the theoretical implications of many of the facts he has discovered
More game gene on Scruton
Scruton Site -
Sartre
Schelling
Schiller
Schlegal - play
Schleiermacher
Schopenhauer, Arthur –F– D –
Contradictions abound with his treatise. Basically, he trips over every aspect of game
gene theory but covers over the obvious conclusions with absolute things-in-themselves-hogwash.
The attempt to observe things-in-themselves without subjective interference has been a fool's
errand for many philosophers. Schopenhauer believed he got through the conundrum through
his own subjective experience of his 'real' body. While Descartes already retreated further (to thought)
and got nowhere, Schopenhauer at least gets somewhere. But he does so with wild swings between accurate
observation and desperate wishful absolutism. He says we can only know "will", which is his take on
solipsistic choice and sense-of-self in games. He takes these, which are just a body's
manufactured false belief in its individual existence, and makes "will" the ground for everything.
He correctly sensed that choice by life in life makes the difference to life, but
he misplaces the importance of "will" - like a doctor naming a disease after just one of its symptoms.
For Schopenhauer will is made manifest by bodily actions and feelings. This is his subjective key to reality.
He believes there is a solipsistic "will to life" when he should say a "will to play games", but at least he correctly
applies it to all life. Two areas where he went off the mark were in his extension of "will to life" to inanimate objects
and in reviving Plato's 'Ideas' through art's purported ability to discover these absolutes.
See
David Berman's take on Schopenhauer's place in philosophy.
"...we, whose purpose here is to practise not aetiology but philosophy (that is, not relative but absolute
knowledge of the real nature of the world)....
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Book 2, 24, (end) , 1819
"We consider ourselves fairly fortunate if there is still something to wish for, and to strive after, to keep up the game
whereby desire constantly passes into satisfaction, and satisfaction into new desire...."
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Book 2, 29, (end) , 1819
"In the end, death must conquer, for we fell into his clutches through birth, and he plays only for a little
while with his prey before he devours it."
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Book 4, 57, 1819
"...the nature of animals and of man is subject to pain from its origin and in its essence.
If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of desire, because the gratification is immediate
and too easy, a terrible emptiness and ennui come over it...."
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Book 4, 57, 1819
"Through the knowledge which comes later he learns in the course of experience what he
is , i.e. he gets to know his character. ....I...say that he is his own product prior to all
knowledge, and knowledge comes later merely to shed light on it."
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Book 4, 55, 1819
"From the first accession of consciousness a person finds that he wills, and the connection between
his knowledge and his will remains, as rule, constant. He seeks first to become
thoroughly acquainted with the objects of his willing, and then with the means of attaining them. Now he
knows what he has to do, and as a rule, he does not strive to acquire other factual information. He moves and
acts; the consciousness that he is to work towards the goal of his willing keeps him alert and active;
his thought is concerned with the choice of means. Such is the life of almost everyone; they desire, they
know what they desire, and they strive after it with sufficient success
to keep them from despair, and sufficient failure
to save them from boredom and its consequences....They press forward with much
earnestness, and indeed with an air of importance, just
as children also pursue their play."
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Book 4, 60, 1819
Seneca--exemplifies stoic failure to do as you say and the stoic delusion of grandeur. God
'Shakespeare' - pen name of Edward de Vere –F–
Not only the greatest modern writer but an
equally great if overlooked philosopher.
The Chronicle Mirror
- On Shakespeare's models for his characters.
Patron Politics
- Edward de Vere as patron
Meta-chaos - Shakespeare and Meta Drama
Socrates –D –
The best thing to be said about him is that he understood philosophy to
be an art and that talking in a conversation can bring out some interesting points.
At the same time his belief that knowledge was innate was also close to the mark.
However even these small unoriginal points in his favour were contaminated beyond repair by his
insistence that what is brought out in conversation from the depths of some innate storehouse
is somehow the absolute truth and it comes from god..................
- see full assessment
" 'You are dense....' " (Socrates to Xenophon)
Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates, 380 (approx) BC
"Now, others have written about the trial, and they have all touched
upon his arrogant tone; so it is clear that this is how Socrates actually spoke."
Xenophon, Socrates' Defence, 380 (approx) BC
"(Socrates speaking) 'God in his kindness may even have my interests at heart and be arranging for
me to be released from life not only at exactly the right age, but also in the easiest
way possible.' "
Xenophon, Socrates' Defence, 380 (approx) BC
Socrates was so arrogant in court that he invited the jurors ill-will and more or less forced
them to condemn him. ...he both avoided the most difficult part of life and gained
the easiest of deaths."
Xenophon, Socrates' Defence, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...good men must be useful'"
Plato, Meno, 97A, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...since neither knowledge nor true opinion comes to mankind by nature
, being acquired...'"
Plato, Meno, 98D, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...virtue is seen as coming neither by nature nor by teaching; but by divine
allotment incomprehensibly to those to whom it comes.'"
Plato, Meno, 98D, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...so long as we have the body with us in our enquiry, and our soul is mixed
up with so great an evil, we shall never attain sufficiently what we desire, and that,
we say, is the truth. ...either knowledge is possible nowhere, or only after death....'"
Plato, Phaedo, 67A, 380 (approx) BC
" Socrates: '...we got it before we were born.... ...I mean everything which we seal
with the name "that which is", the essence."
Plato, Phaedo, 67A, 380 (approx) BC
Solon -- The de facto goal of life is death. Solon made a life not a happy
one until it was over \ life is defined after one's death.
Spenser, Herbert – Play, Groos, K. Lange
Spinoza – F–
Discovered first steps to game gene theory.
Taine – styles of art, study like biologists study evolution.
Riegal too. See Vischer
Taylor, Charles – Another
conventional thinker.
He misses the fact that while societies
offer conventions, it is the individual that
makes the meaning in all cases. He has no idea why that's needed (due to a useless universe)
or how that happens (through the
game gene). His ignorance and fear leads him to use the terms "background" and "forms of life"
when referring to context and games and so goes nowhere as a result.
Thuciydides--
Tzara, Tristan– F – One of
best thinkers of the last hundred years.
- see full assessment
Vico--
Vischer F T - Derives empathetic enjoyment from art similar to play.
Aesthetics. Schillar, Herbert Spencer, agree. Lipps developed it.
– F –
Voltaire–
Walsh, W.H. -1960s Historian
– F –
clear arguments surround his Philosophy of History and while he
later seems to overlook his own conclusions he does deduce that history is a "peculiar
sort of game" and for that deserves to be recognized as a finder.
Weber, Max --
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
– F –
His concept of language game and his feel for contexts as agents of
manipulation
makes him very close
to discovering the gamegene. In addition he understood that people were
solipsistic,
rule-followers who could recognize contexts and how contexts trap human
perception.
Wells H.G. -
Zeno
