The Perspectival Origins of Narrative

The senses of any given organism inevitably fail to account for the sheer abundance of material in the universe. Even that information which the body does absorb is too much for the conscious mind to process. For evidence of this latter thesis, one need only look to the blur of one’s peripheries and their passive filtering out of sensations like the friction of clothing. Further, it has been observed in cases where vision deteriorates, that other senses become more acute to compensate for the loss. One’s body carries out a continual filtering and balancing process based on its biological limitations.

Once information is gathered and sorted, organisms act upon it to improve their position. Conscious creatures experience layered biological processes as singular essences. The sighting of a predator (itself perceived as a unit), an electric pulse in the body, the activation of the amygdala and the release of adrenaline are all condensed into singular cognitive responses: “fight” or “flight.” In animals, and often in humans, there is no conscious rationale behind each muscular movement once the decision is made, only a cascade of unconscious processes. These compressions of complexity into comprehensible inputs lay the groundwork for narrative: a medium which can only exist because of this ability to experience multiplicities as unitary concepts.

Human-constructed narratives select for significant events, ignoring the reality that all occurrences are part of a continuous strain. One unconsciously filters the “arbitrary” (that which is too small and quiet) and emphasises the “significant” (that which is obvious, and loud), allowing the mind to interrogate patterns, in spite of the world’s complexity.

Take, for example, the failure to react in time, resulting in a car crash. One may learn the lesson that they must be more vigilant, as a matter of principle. However, they are likely to ignore the seemingly arbitrary effects of having slept slightly less time than usual, or a familiar smell which made them nostalgic and drew their attention from the road. These are too specific, subtle and above all, non-agential. One puts their focus instead on the failure to look left, and their excessive speeding; identifying those causes which are obvious and rectifiable in future instances. Pragmatic, but far from a full or universal accounting of reality.

The Limits of Rationality

It is only with the luxury of prolonged safety, that one can begin to address more demanding challenges; those which do not require quick reflexes, nor vigilance. Time affords the mind an opportunity to reflect on trends which have thus far aided its survival and distil them into blueprints and schematics. This process of distillation one calls “rationality” and marks it out as one of the governors of human action.

Rationality, like any drive in the body, attempts to dominate the others. Given the material and sociological conditions of civilisations, which have benefited from many rich harvests of intellectually-derived inventions, it is no wonder that rationality has gained ascendancy. Generation after generation have castigated those whose dominant drives are bestial, and praised those who act within the bounds of rational discourse. As with a society that has known nothing but tyranny, the hegemony established around the rational drive eventually appears as the default. Its apologists and advocates, who are beneficiaries of this state of affairs, eventually argue for a transcendent, divine order as a post-hoc justification. A legitimisation of power. By making rationality separate in essence from the other drives, they must thereby disassociate it from the body to avoid complications; this is the basis for a system such as Cartesian dualism.

The first misconception that arises under this system, is that rationality is capable of discovering objective, non-perspectival truths. This fails on any concrete basis because the mind cannot account for everything on the infinitely large and infinitely small spectrum of resolution; neither a comprehensive charting of the universe nor of atoms. Even if science could totally remedy this shortcoming on the level of sense perception, through devices, the human mechanism of emphasising only certain causes in a chain (given in the car crash example) demonstrates that one would still be forced to value specific data points more highly than others.

The second misconception is in assuming that complexity, from which rationality is itself a product, has an intrinsic value: a puzzle piece may have many slots, yet on this account find no coherence with the whole.

The Antidote to Complexity

From the standpoint of the human perspective, as knowledge of a thing increases, it becomes more complex. Such a claim is counter-intuitive, yet anyone who has engaged, even superficially, with scientific discourses, will recognize this phenomena. A tree, at a glance, is a solid object which emerges from the ground. A tree, observed through the scientific lens, is a network of cells, enabling a series of life-preserving reactions and processes to sustain themselves. Or, going deeper, a series of atoms, compressed together in different arrangements.

A particularly astute reader might also notice that by mere description of a tree’s construction, one is forced to contend with language and definitions. In this case, there is the assertion of “life-preservation” as a function of a tree. Pedantic as it may be, this concept itself requires a working definition of “life.” So, speaking empirically, an object which is unknown is simple, and any attempt to describe the object imbues it with additional known complexity.

The Dunning Kruger effect is in some ways the expected result of this relationship with objects. The theory suggests that the less one knows about something, the more they believe they know of it. Whilst the specialists observe exponentially expanding complexity of phenomena (the tree analysed scientifically), and attempt to navigate it, the laymen oscillate between total unawareness and intuitive speculation. This allows the latter group to stop at the surface and therefore at the most simplistic view. It should be noted here, that a specialist is a laymen in every field outside of their study. Specialisation then is not necessarily a reflection of courage in the face of complexity and can easily become a useful tool for justifying one’s more intuitive, straightforward beliefs.

An Escape From Analysis

Religions once acted as an antidote to the intellectual, scientific and logical approach to solving life, standing against the specialised study of knowledge. They imbued objects with sufficient explanations and descriptions to discourage deep investigations through empirical study. One took for granted that the lightning strike was delivered by Thor, and the tides brought in by Poseidon, expressing no great interest in their naturalistic explanations. Thereby the intellectual exercise could be directed entirely on that which served survival, such as crafting and technology.

The irony is that some religions eventually destroyed their own primary function. They allowed the intellect to struggle with the mechanisms underneath divine actions, and formulated methodologies to more accurately understand the natural world. In doing so, they produced the very fields of study which would undermine them. Anthropology, psychology and astronomy would reveal the artificial and erroneous aspects of belief, leading to a decrease in faith. Left with a void where once was assumed knowledge, it became necessary to replace these explanations. In Western canon, science stole away the task of imbuing information into objects. The information replaced was more actionable, able to be distilled into strict and unchanging “laws.”

However, science was not concerned with softening the world to satisfy narrative sensibilities, but the presumption that truth would set humanity free. It tried to remove any idea that did not adhere to strict logic and data, and transplant its own truths into the body. Scientists, of all people, should have known the risk of such a procedure…

The Communal Need for Archetypes

As Carl Jung identified, replacing beliefs is not a simple matter. Just as a body rejects foreign organs, the psyche rejects foreign ideas. For proper integration, one needs both practical explanation and psychological cohesion. He proposed that archetypes, symbolic motifs taken from the deepest wells of the psyche, are integral to human orientation. By superimposing the archetypes onto one’s narrative representation of the world, one transmutes the cold inhumanity of nature, which science brings front and centre, into the warmth of meaning.

One can perhaps account for the superficial skins and imagistic similarities amongst archetypes by comparison to the communal function of living creatures. Bird calls are first and foremost evolved as a means of identification. It is only in primates and some rare species that one sees the origins of complex informational exchange, culminating at the current apex in humans (at least as far as has been observed). Seen as communal mechanisms, archetypes enforce the weight of collective narratives and universalise one’s experiences. One becomes better equipped to assure their community of the Truth, since they are able to dress information within the proper codes and symbols. Every idea then, finds itself at the behest of aesthetics, being accepted only if it resonates sufficiently with the receiver’s worldview. Even now, with all systematising and science, a medley of erroneous ideas find purchase through rhetoric alone. Why? Because the most universal argument is the most convincing, yet reality resists all universalisation.

Sublimating Reality to Transcendence

The ambition to force actual complexity into a stable and simplified representation is at first in service of pragmatism, aiming to reduce an overwhelming number of options to only the most useful. Evidently, when one is choosing between career paths, it serves them to narrow the options by personal aptitude and interest. However, this process of simplification is eventually transmuted through human thought from a series of operations to a single object of desire.

Many philosophers have fashioned themselves the unveilers of true forms, and thought knowledge and rationality the best tools for this inquiry. Instead, they discovered the crudest, most unwieldy forms, hidden from the senses and bound up in the clumsiness, and verbosity of the intellect. Namely: perfect forms, numbers, things in themselves.

To understand the allure of these formulations, one can look to aesthetics. When a great many faces are super imposed, they produce a more or less universally pleasing subject. So too, the perfect form of a circle takes all of the things that resemble circles (again, these only exist by result of grouping unequal things), and places all of their conceivable averages into a concept. It was likely Plato’s inheritance of language, and captivation with the beauty of its constructs, that seduced him to make the concept more real and important than the crude instance.

Much of the philosophical canon has been an exercise in harmonising the empirical, pragmatic, teleological and ontological into singular concepts. Free Will, The Transcendent, The Good… these are mere chimeras and reifications of what is merely useful. They serve to make behavioural prescriptions align with “objectivity” and, in turn, motivate desirable behaviours. Under this style of philosophy, moralising inevitably becomes unnuanced and prone to pathologizing.

Conclusion

It is only by a return to the dangers of nature and physicality, or through an overly reductive worldview that one regains the psychological comfort of simplicity in itself. Since both of these approaches are at least nominally undesirable, one must instead accept that they will never account for the full spectrum of complexity. In practical terms, this means arguing for one’s position on its own merits, without recourse to totalising concepts or transcendental values. It means recognising the context-dependency of language. It means losing the blind reverence for pure rationality and “dispassionate” science as if they are able to answer all of life’s question. The challenge has been set.

Twilight marks the transition between day and night, during those moments when the light still glows, yet darkness is creeping in. Meanwhile, Reveries describes a flight of fancy or musing, outside of the bounds of strict rationality.

Together these words invoke an ideal image; creativity and logic breaking against each other as the rational meets the irrational. And the discovery of new ideas as the sun sets on my prior convictions. Being an artist and philosopher, it is within this tension that I feel most at home.

At least, that’s what I’d say if someone asked. Truth is, I just like the name!

This piece will contain spoilers for both seasons of Andor, up to season two, episode nine.

Introduction

Andor is an excellent series. It breaks partially from the aesthetic mold of Star Wars, but justifies this decision by amplifying the franchise’s most important themes. It explores the emergent power of collective movements, carefully restricts the options of characters to serve the oppressive atmosphere, and questions the straightforwardness of moral doctrines. However, at no point does the series advocate for nihilism.

Andor contains various analogies for real world ideologies, whilst rarely making caricatures of them. The lack of criticism levied toward the show on political grounds reveals that, generally, audiences can embrace alternative perspectives so long as they are not being overtly mocked or belittled in the process. Andor is thus an endorsement of artistic resonance and sophisticated commentary, over political posturing.

Andor’s Place in the Star Wars Franchise

The most obvious way Andor respects the original vision of Star Wars is that it never questions which of the two sides is the antagonist. The Empire is clearly the villainous side, if for no other reason than it takes the comically evil Emperor Palpatine for its tyrant. The rebellion, with its compassionate counterfigure in Mon Mothma, differentiates itself as the heroic front standing against the authoritarianism of the Empire.

However, there is a departure from previous content, which is likely one reason why fans intuit a betrayal of the Star Wars vision. Both sides of the conflict contain a spectrum of morally grey characters, all melded and influenced by circumstance. This shift complicates the superficial reading of the story as depicting a simple fight between pure good and pure evil, though wading deeper, one still finds a definite moral prescription.

Morals in Andor are primarily translated through the characters’ own feelings about their role in the story. Even though Luthen Rael and Saw Gerrera are psychologically scarred by their dark actions, they are shown to have achieved self-acceptance, derived from the faith that they are supporting the right side. Syril Karn, conversely, is torn apart by his actions on the eventual discovery that his end was a destructive and evil regime. These states of good and bad conscience transcend the minutia of independent actions, arising instead out of the totalizing narrative tension or harmony surrounding one’s self-image.

The series, by positioning sacrifice and fate as central tenets of the rebellion, broadly affirms the controversial idea that “the ends justify the means.” However, it is clear that decisions which break moral codes in service of a desired end are not meant to be light decisions and can have undesirable consequences. This is reflected in the discord that these actions cause in character relationships; such as between Mothma and Rael. By introducing a Machiavellian pragmatism, Andor breaks the straightforwardness of the original trilogy, where absolute virtue reigns supreme.

The series rarely debates how one determines which side to fight for, when to abandon a movement and other questions of this nature. It is this restraint which allows its themes to be more thoroughly interrogated. Whilst the narrative is elevated on this account, there is a danger of inflaming and bolstering real-world movements, without proper interrogation of their ends. This is no strike against Andor, only a recommendation that audiences supplement the show with other content; content which interrogates all factions with equal vigor.

The Unified Rebellion and the Disharmony of the Empire

In Star Wars, the rebellion illustrates the power derived from a group feeling of solidarity, arising out of a mutual goal or unifying narrative. Andor brings the power of group feeling to the fore, by contrasting the collective will of the rebellion against the singular will of the Emperor. In broader lore, the Sith rule of two helps to cement this individualist/collectivist dichotomy. Whilst the rebellion has its figureheads, they are the symbolic emergence of the rebel factions’ will. Democracy, a system of governance positively portrayed by the Star Wars franchise, was born out of this very principle by Jean-Jacques Rousseau: that politicians should enforce the general will of their constituents.

Further, the rebellion is, on paper, fueled by wilful cooperation. Most sacrifices are made intentionally on the part of each individual as a tribute to the movement. The elimination of allied liabilities, such as Mothma’s childhood friend Tay Kolma, are kept in closed circles. Far from a perfect system, the rebellion at least maintains the illusion of consent.

Meanwhile, Emperor Palpatine imposes a singular will over his entire project and becomes a terrifying, looming threat for each member of the ranks. Few Imperials are doggedly committed to the cause, for they are too distracted by their atomized and punishing incentive structures. Instead of enthusiasm for the success of the Empire's vision, individuals become hyper-focused on their own mission goals and career ambitions. Thus, the Empire self-cannibalizes with its staff competing amongst each other for scraps, and avoiding accountability.

A Hard-Won Truth Cuts Deeper than a Thousand Lies

The most important message of Andor, and Star Wars in general, is the need to resist tyranny. This is poetically stated in Karis Nemik’s manifesto:

Andor season two delivers one of the actionable steps towards this goal through Mothma’s speech, in which she states that keeping the “objective truth” alive is the most crucial weapon against the Empire. It is the rallying cry to unite the galaxy against a common enemy, and spark courage in the resistance. Yet, there is a narrative complication... This very speech is made possible by Rael’s espionage, sacrifice of allies, and manipulations. The Ghorman massacre, intentionally spurred on by Rael, becomes the basis of Mothma’s speech to expose the evil of the Empire. There is an irony in building such a speech about the importance of truth on foundations of deception, yet this leads into a far richer critique.

Mothma acts as the catalyst for a rebirth of the rebellion, strategically positioned to be as innocent in the affair as possible. It is no coincidence that as Rael’s act is ending, and his power almost spent, the rebellion has become a more disciplined and united front. The group feeling of the rebels is on an upwards trajectory, thus the eerily Palpatine-esque operation of Rael is less necessary - a fact that does not seem lost on him. By staying mostly in the shadows, he ensures that the rebellion can evolve into a natural and organic movement, in contrast to the suffocating Imperial ranks.

Following Mothma’s speech, the galaxy is encouraged towards open action and a more explicit expression of discontent with the Empire; finally with the hope that imperial resources can be spread thin by galaxy-wide efforts. The many sacrifices and dangers which enabled this event reframe the very concept of truth; it is not merely a moral preference, but a hard earned prize. The series shows that in order to allow the most important truths to win out, many must sacrifice themselves and their comforts. They may even be forced to become hypocrites through their deception. Mothma’s speech then becomes the culmination of every victory, every sacrifice, every means to an end which threatened to undermine the rebels’ narrative. An orchestrated bombshell of truth, detonated in the Senate with catastrophic results for the Empire.

Conclusion

Andor does not sugarcoat the fight against tyranny. It suggests that moral doctrines and idealism can only be achieved by polite society because those in the shadows fight dirty to preserve that right. This theme is uncomfortable, and a perhaps unintentional artifact of showrunner Tony Gilroy’s parallelizing of real world rebellions. This discomfort, and invitation to debate, is what transmutes Andor from casual entertainment into a vector for engaging with important ideas.

Ultimately, Andor tells the story of rejecting apathy and the value in sacrificing oneself to a worthy cause. Individuals may have influence on the events of the story, but they are unable to transcend powerful, unseen forces: both the mysticism of the force and the sociological factors which bloom out of human psychology. Those who stand idle feed the Empire and enable its power, whilst those who actively embrace their circumstances with courage are the most dangerous threat to its dominion. This is the message at the core of Star Wars.

The Sacred Origin of Truth

In ‘The Genealogy of Morals,’ Friedrich Nietzsche questioned whether science, in particular, had ever seriously considered the value of truth. By his estimation, it had passively adopted the desire for truth from the religious attitude which preceded it:

Nietzsche’s aim was never to denounce truth on principle, only to ensure that one be aware of the drives which move them towards this end above all else. One way he problematised the simplistic view of truth - as equal to the good - was in highlighting the dangers of pursuing such an end. For example, that it risks disorientating one’s worldview or stifling their ability to act decisively. And suggesting, conversely, that lies or oversimplifications often had a more immediate and positive effect on the psyche.

Defining Truth

But first, it is important when speaking of such an elusive topic as truth, that one stops to consider its definition. This specificity may seem pointless, yet it is often the disagreement over meanings which propagate fruitless arguments. Here, I allocate the following definition to truth, based on its typical use case:

An accurate description of phenomena, in accordance with a specific system of understanding.

Note that truth, in this definition, is referring to the description of phenomena and its context within the internal rules of the system, not the phenomena itself. The utility and justification underpinning this clarification will be seen ahead.

Is truth created or discovered?

Language is a human construct and as such, the very structure and concepts can contain certain suppositions about the world, be those accurate or otherwise. One idea embedded into language is found in the way that people speak on truth and lies. One “discovers” truths, whilst “making up” or “inventing” lies. Take the sentence: “he made up a truth.” It is illogical within the bounds of English, because one assumes that truth cannot be created by words alone. There is also a particular emphasis on the truth, often taken as a reference to some metaphysical object which exists beyond the bounds of thought.

Adopting the typical usage of language, if I am holding a pen and speak the sentence “I am holding a pen,” my language appears only to state what is already true. Truth then, does not manifest when I utter the sentence, but in the moment that I pick up the pen. So, is this a metaphysical truth, or a pragmatic one? Is there an essential concept of truth, which manifests independently of any human perception? A critique of mathematics begins to answer this question.

Mathematics does not itself depend on ‘if: then’ relationships with the world, instead able to operate in a vacuum, using a set of agreed upon rules which are established at the outset. When I add two numbers together successfully, the understanding is that the answer was already preconfigured by the logic of the system, and nothing about this requires or is affected by correspondence in reality. However, if one does indeed attempt to project mathematics onto the world, Nietzsche’s concept of unequal things rears its ugly face:

One defines a set of atoms as a single unit; for example a bell pepper, and then for every instance of an object which shares the sufficient characteristics of that pepper, one ascribes the same designation. So, a pepper, plus another pepper, becomes two peppers. This is a practical approach because for humans, it serves to divide by physical separation and patterns; to know what can be interacted with, what can be used for creating and what is a threat. A pepper can be moved independently of its surroundings, and people are not bound to the earth. Thus units and categorisations are made of these things. This is to say that, whilst the motivations behind these division are informed by experience and psychology, the divisions themselves are arbitrary.

For an example of an alternative, imagine a pastiche of reality with no directional lighting or movement, only flat colours. One would likely describe each of those aforementioned bell peppers in this reality as a large unit of red (the edible segment) and a smaller unit of green (the stalk). Indeed, they would unlikely be able to differentiate the peppers from their surroundings as independent objects. In short, utilizing the colour-based system of division to describe those same two peppers, would result in four things rather than two, or perhaps one tapestry of many colours. Here, even though the language system hasn’t changed, the human experience of the phenomena effects how many distinct things exist. Who is to say that this mode of division is more “arbitrary” or less “correct” in an objective sense?

As an interesting and pertinent aside, in the Russian language, shades of blue are commonly divided into two distinct colours, demarcating the light and dark versions. Researchers found that “Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colors when they fell into different linguistic categories” (source), showing that the truth one discovers can be subtly altered by one’s system of understanding. This reaffirms the premise that any known truth is mediated, bound to language, practicality and human intuitions about the world.

Dividing infinite truths

The necessary dividing of the world suggests that people create the conditions and relevant context for truth seeking, then reap the fruits of this labour. This does not mean that truth exists only as a result of these systems being created:

That something is true is not contingent on one’s being conscious of it. Many unknown things are true by the specific configuration of language that one uses, and the fact that they are unknown is no strike against their truth value. For example, a great many things are and were true millions of years ago when no subject was present to systematise them. Just because no-one was actively watching, would not negate the truth claim that a volcano erupted. However, this would be but one truth - a human truth.

The reality is that truth is infinitely common, for the world can be divided by infinite metrics (all contingent on the observer’s capacity to understand the world): colour, shape, atoms, mass, radiation, concepts not known and concepts which shall never be known. In this way, the very practice of truth-seeking begins in chaos and essentially infinite complexity, so the mind is forced to make it smaller and better ordered. This necessitates losing information, in the same way as a file might be compressed at the expense of resolution.

Jacques Derrida said that one understands concepts by narrowing down and removing everything which is not the concept. A simple example being that “up” is contingent on being all that space which is not already registered under the concept: “down.” Likewise, I propose that one understands truths by eliminating every truth which is not the truth - whichever truth fits most securely in the established framework of understanding. Therefore, language, far from creating truth, actually has a limiting effect upon it, but in this way makes it more comprehensible to the human mind. Other factors, such as social conventions, also make dictates over what can be called truth. In short, language, the will to be understood, utility and the finitude of human life, all constrain truth seeking.

A valuation of Truths and Lies

This transition from truths to human truths is a necessary simplification, yet it comes with a perk. Since human truths necessarily correspond to established structures, they obtain a symbolic aura of scarcity; just as the gold standard once made the value of money more stable. There are of course truths which are common, such as those of mere observation and description, but their purity and rarity increase with utility, specificity and work-done. Though it is not as literal and definite as in the gold example, the psychological value of scarcity in truth should not be underestimated. In contrast, lies are not seen as restrained by this same scarcity and can be developed en-masse. One needs not even their sense organs to produce them, and even sanity is no true barrier. When one discovers a lie, as they might discover signs of counterfeit, they immediately understand that it has less value, or else attempt to deceive their own mind into re-entering the delusion. This to say, that a statement which is true in one universe, would have intrinsically higher value than that same statement in a universe where it is a lie. The words do not themselves contain the majority share of value, but the correspondence to reality, in accordance with the system used.

So why would one lie? That which a lie loses in value of scarcity, it recoups in utility and flexibility. If one is able to create the illusion of value, by convincing others that it is really a truth, it becomes a powerful tool. A truth is sturdy, demanding that humans adapt to its conditions. Lies invert this equation, themselves adaptable and serving human whims. This also occurs internally, where the mind is able to “reason” its way into a lie for psychological benefits. Then, one is able to craft the world to their own ideal, yet by the same stroke becomes dependent on the lie. This is a dangerous wager, for it allows the mind to idle.

To return to Nietzsche, he understood the value in useful lies, but I think that he recognised that a useful truth was generally favourable if it were properly integrated. Assuming the premise that there is indeed scarcity in truth, his own methodology of valuation seems to compliment my argument:

Applying the Correct System

Given that truth is so expansive, one may apply whichever theoretical system they like. This meaning that anything can be true, simply by changing definitions or the margins of division. I could for example, change the definition of human to include anything up to six legs and increase the world’s population by a significant margin. However, this would render language useless in trying to make sense of the world.

A system’s role might then be seen akin to that of a military scout. The scout must make accurate AND practical assessments of an enemy’s movements and numbers. In reporting back to their generals, they may make a series of true claims, yet not all will be equally valuable in this context. For example, the scout could explain that he saw “ a hundred thousand strong legion,” or “an army,” (both technically true), but the former is clearly the correct resolution of information and will positively affect the decision making of the strategists. It is a scarier truth, but nonetheless a useful one.

This creates an incentive to be critical of where systems may not be optimized or properly used to benefit people, whilst cautioning against any tampering with the foundations of systems without very good reason. Many people are either dogmatic over language, math etcetera, or conversely, fail to respect these systems’ integral roles in human flourishing. As with everything, a balance must be struck.

The Perils of Truth

Granting all the above caveats to what one means when one speaks of truth, and returning to my original definition, there are clear advantages to truth seeking. For a start, human truths have consistently been put towards tangible, sophisticated results, such as computing. There is also a greater cohesion achieved on the interpersonal level when people minimise deceit towards each other, and the aforementioned value that truth obtains in scarcity is also important for healthy psychological function. However, I have not yet addressed the dangers of truth in full.

There are certain ideas which are terrifying, for they so fundamentally damage the foundations of one’s worldview, like a flood rushing into a city. Take true, for just a moment, the idea that one might not have free will in the traditional sense - that one will always be driven by a will which occurs spontaneously from subconscious mechanisms and which can only be superficially inhibited by proper frontal cortical function. For those daring, read here:

The inevitable conclusion of not having free will is that the current justification for making people personally responsible collapses, and must be rebuilt by some other means. Given that notions of personal responsibility and free will underpin the majority of western morality and legal justice, this truth has monumental implications. Only this taste, I will give to reveal the bitterness of truth, for it is more than sufficient to make my point.

The Philosopher’s relationship with truth

For the majority, myself included, it would be impossible to face all of the truths that are discovered, but nonetheless many truths are valuable resources.

Of the five descriptors Nietzsche listed in the previous passage, dilution, sweetening and muting at least allow for some administration of truth, without blatant deceit. For example, one could seat truth in a helpful philosophy or context, being honest about the truth, yet sprinkling a layer of sugar upon it. Albert Camus’ famous phrase: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” and supporting philosophy is an exemplary illustration of this approach. It recognizes Camus’ “truth” that the world is not intrinsically meaningful, and rather than letting one drown in the existential dread which follows, he explores how one might cope and thrive in this worldview.

By instead creating a lie, unbound from principals of scarcity, one pushes back the problem onto future generations, just as modern people have inherited the falsifications of their ancestors (not to be ungrateful for the many impressive developments of technology, culture and infrastructure that have also been inherited). Lies, no matter their utility and sweeter taste, must never be revealed in their true nature, lest they become untenable. By integrating truths where lies would otherwise be necessary, one might absolve later generations of these burdens. However, one must also respect the dangers for the modern day of presenting too much truth, with too clumsy a hand - this I see as the core defect of many intellectuals today, who confuse their own acceptance of truth for a universal. The delicate balance, then, is not for every generation to take as many truths upon themselves as they can find, but for truths to be gradually and carefully introduced into the zeitgeist. This way, people build on foundations of concrete, rather than sand.

The Witch’s Bounty is a short story made up of three parts, written by (Publication: ). A couple of months ago, I saw him post a note about collaborating with visual artists on a fantasy piece and I reached out, intrigued by the idea. I produced cover art for each part and offered some creative feedback, whilst he crafted the world and narrative. The following pieces contain light spoilers for the story, so it is recommended that you read it first.

I have outlined the steps and process that I follow to produce illustrations in my last post:

This post will be focused on the experience of working on the collaboration and the decisions which were made in the development of each piece.

My Experience

Often when I (digitally) paint a splash art illustration, I either make the design choices as I go along, or I produce a character design in a static pose first. The creative energy that goes into this decision making and preliminary planning can be draining. Thankfully, gave me plenty of references for the clothing and appearances of all the characters in the story. Alongside the narrative content itself, this made the whole process much more comfortable, allowing me to focus on creating effective compositions and lighting without getting stuck in the micro-details.

consistently kept me updated with his progress and was great to work with. His writing is well paced, vivid in its imagery and creates a world which feels fleshed out, even within the limited word count of this story. There was a mutual respect for the circumstances of each of our situations, allowing us to negotiate deadlines and organise the project in a way that worked for both of us. I look forward to seeing how his writing evolves over time and his future endeavours!

Notes on Each Part:

Part 1

Part one was where I set the ongoing style and colour decisions for the future pieces. Having been given an outline of the following two parts, I was also able to make decisions about how subdued the action would be. As can be seen on a broad overview of the three parts, the first is a scene setter, the second marks a rise in tension and the third is the explosion of the tension which has been building.

Part 2

You may notice that the part two piece was slightly less refined than the other two parts. I was feeling the pressure of time and other demands vying for my attention during this part of the project. It was an unfortunate lull in the process, but it allowed me to ensure that the third part was ready on time, with restored quality.

Part 3

Part three was the composition I had most fun with as it allowed me to lean into dynamic poses and action. I had also, by this point, managed to get on top of other responsibilities, giving me more free time to invest into the rendering stage (refining).

Conclusion

One of my favourite parts of this project was working within the limited parameters of the story and character; fellow creatives will know that it is often limitations that foster creativity, for the alternatives are boundless options and the paralysis of indecision. Overall, I think the writing and artwork complimented each other well, and I am glad to have collaborated in bringing this story to life!

Context

Here’s something a little different from my usual posts; I recently began a collaboration with (aka ‘The (Side) Quest’), creating a three part story about a man named Nathander who ventures out into the forest near his hometown to capture and expose a suspected witch. My part in the collaboration is the production of cover art for each of the sections, in line with the characters and events. This post will give a little insight behind the process of the first part.

is a writer and storyteller, aspiring to become an RPG designer. His writing is efficient, striking a great balance between fleshing out the world, without losing sight of the characters’ experiences. It has been great collaborating so far!

Process

The following will outline some of the process. I didn’t capture every single stage because I wanted to maintain a flow state.

Designing the character

The first step was to develop a character concept in line with the description of the main character provided in the outline. This ensured that my vision and that of were mutually realised, and as a reference for the full artwork.

Composition Thumbnails

Whenever I am creating a complicated piece, I make time to produce a series of very rough sketches and lighting scenarios. This stage allows me to test ideas quickly, without having to exhaust time on those with little potential.

For this part of the story, Nathander is pursuing a man named Hadwin, whilst taking precautions to remain unseen. I therefore leaned into a lighting setup which placed Nathander in the shadows and at a distance, with a pair of exceptions for the sake of experimentation.

Composition Sketch

Once I have selected the best thumbnail, considering both the preference of the collaborator and which composition compliments the story best, I begin to sketch a more complicated rendition. In this case, the sketch remained quite rough, since I was trying to be time efficient.

This stage is important for making sure the composition elevates the storytelling and draws the eye to intentional focal points. I had Nathander turn his head to look and placed his target approximately within the golden third (a way to divide up the canvas and draw attention to specific elements), in order to immerse the audience in the hunt.

Greyscale Block-in

Greyscale is a process of blocking in the lights and shadows without any colour. This allows me to focus my attention entirely on the composition, simplifying the process. I add some minor rendering to create a focal point on the face, but try to avoid spending too much time on details.

Ambient Lighting Overlay

In order to ensure that the colours are coherent, I layer in a blue overlay. This helps me to ensure that everything feels like it is in the same environment. Any time I add new colours, such as for clothing or skin, I try not to deviate too far from the cold, blue tone. This part isn’t an exact science by any means.

Full Artwork

The last stage is to continually refine the existing elements during a process called rendering, until the final result is realised. It also involves making decisions about how detailed certain sections are. I purposefully refrain from adding details into the background elements and increase the detail on the character in order to emphasise the focal point even more than before.

This piece was really about showing Nathander’s competency in hunting; close enough to keep track of his target, but not so close as to be easily spotted or heard. You can read the full part one here and be sure to check out ’s other work

The True Story of Bloodborne

Bloodborne (2015) depicts a Victorian-era city elevated with all the grandiose architecture of the FromSoftware house style, and artistic choices which make the city feel that bit more claustrophobic and unsettling. The areas are filled with disease, beasts and Invisible horrors, all setting an oppressive, hostile tone. It is a depiction of a nightmare.

The game has been circling my mind since I played it around a year ago. I could feel that there was something in its connective tissue, which transcended the mere aesthetic, and I believe I have now been vindicated in this belief:

There is an excellent YouTube series called ‘An Agony of Effort: The True Story of Bloodborne’ by Charred Thermos (Alias). He reveals, through no shortage of evidence, that Bloodborne is based on the medical practices of the 1700s and 1800s, integrating heavily the works and life of a real patient of The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, William Ernest Henley. And further, that it takes inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson who, amongst other works, wrote the story of Jekyll and Hyde. Thermos’ hypothesis, which is backed up throughout all of the videos in the series is that:

It is because of this accompanying material and the precision by which the game interrogates its themes, that I felt compelled to engage with the real histories. The videos demonstrate that many of Bloodborne's characters are conduits for real people or ideas. This adds a level of intrigue to what might otherwise be a reel of dry facts and biographical information. Simply, Bloodborne imbues actual history with a more visceral weightiness. It also averts the risk of becoming too distasteful, as might occur if it were to visualize explicit depictions of surgery. The result is that important history is brought into the purview of a wider demographic.

Another example of how entertainment can contribute to discourse is in the film Apocalypse Now (1979). It is another piece of media which is not only fantastic in its own right, but encourages a subsequent analysis of its critiques of the Vietnam war and human nature, as well as a reading of the materials which inspired it. These, it honours in the following frame:

The curiosity I now have for reading ‘The Golden Bough’ (1890), in particular, is greater than it would have otherwise been if I simply decided to investigate anthropology for its own sake; there is now a contextual grounding and sense of familiarity. Similarly, Bloodborne encouraged me to explore the stories of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, which I have found to be both engaging fictional works and interesting prompts for philosophy:

Vibes versus Statements

Bioshock (2007) is a game which tackles the work of Ayn Rand and tends to argue against her philosophical prescriptions; the story is set in an underwater city which operates by Rand’s principles of objectivism and, by the time the player arrives, the place has become a ruin. There are debates on whether Ken Levine successfully captured Rand’s actual philosophy, and I am not yet well-read enough on the subject to comment, but the premise still stands: Bioshock is now a part of the discourse of the Randian worldview, even if only as a cursory overview of the broad themes.

Bloodborne, as described in the previous section, provides a rather cynical view of the medical practices of the Victorian age. One of Bloodborne’s primary questions appears to be whether the mass dissection of dead bodies, for knowledge, was worth the price paid. The game’s visuals are enough to make the horrors of the situation clear, yet its thesis is more explicitly surmised in the following in-game line:

The game encourages the audience to ask whether the knowledge that one can derive from a corpse is worth paying for with the potentially immoral aspects of the process, and the most certainly immoral acts that it incentivised - selling corpses became a lucrative business in the realm of surgical study (including in Universities), which lead to a cycle of body snatching, kidnappings and murders. Whatever conclusion we arrive at on the overall morality of such a practice forces us to reflect on modern scientific practices and consider whether our predecessors will look back in abhorrence. Bloodborne is thus elevated to a critique of both history and a caution for the modern day, making itself relevant in a broader dialogue.

In contrast to these more effective examples of rhetoric is What Remains of Edith Finch [WROEF] (2019). It is a poignant story about a girl who revisits her family home, to discover the secrets of a family who all seem cursed to pass away in tragedies. It is popular from a purely aesthetic standpoint, but its somewhat disjointed structure and lack of specificity has lead many to conclude that there is simply no real message. It is therefore a story which is felt, yet retroactively diminished in the analytical stage. There is also no clear context in which the story can be discussed. One might suppose that WROEF would be useful in the discourse of the philosophy of mortality, yet its seemingly contradictive narrative blurs the lines. I personally left the story not knowing whether one should try to make peace with death or enter a constant struggle against it, for neither approach seems to bode well for the family.

What differentiates Bloodborne and Bioshock as videogames is that they are not merely inspired by their influences, but form part of a discourse; something akin to secondary sources. They are practically thesis in their own rights and form a marked divergence from large swathes of games which are more interested in immediate fun and “vibes”.

The Interplay of Media and Study

Making a dynamic of media and discourse is where video games can begin to thrive as genuine tools of interrogation. If there is one thing that games seem uniquely adept in creating, it is familiarity. People often elude to, or state, a feeling of nostalgia and homeliness in games after a certain amount of playtime. This is especially peculiar, because it can be extended even to horror games, such as those in the Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises. What if we were to transmute this sense of familiarity which is gained in the play space into adjacent, yet far more useful subjects? In theory this could offset the high price of time and attention, already spent on a game, with an enhanced learning experience. This interplay would also solve another problem, which requires a brief preface:

My good friend and I had a podcast episode together, in which we suggested that media consumption should be seen as a type of diet. One cannot consume only a single thing (neither videogames, nor books, nor films, nor articles) and expect to feel good. Instead, the combining of different ingredients is what cultivates health. One is better to relish the experience a videogame provides, and subsequently integrate their insights into a broader context, rather than to replay the same game or jump to another one. This is far easier when the videogame is not seen as an escape from studying and real world tasks, but in service of them, although it is, of course, a dangerous line to tread. The successful integration of this practice is where I intuit to be an optimal positioning of videogames. Just as one reads William Shakespeare’s works and later analyses the themes in order to deduce important insights about human nature, we might do the same with videogames, infusing them with genuine purpose. I would be raising none of these points of utility if videogames were consumed at healthy rates across populations. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.

Making Healthier Videogames

Between my personal philosophy and the research undergone in my other works so far, I have reached the conclusion that videogames cannot exist first and foremost as entertainment, without severe consequences for large swathes of the population. As I see it, there are two viable and actionable approaches going forward. Either, games are somehow made to consume less attention (which I primarily see resolved by easily accessed time-limit settings), or that they meet the fair exchange rate, giving the player something which is proportionately valuable with their attention.

By taking videogames more seriously as forms of rhetoric and engaging with their real life history and academia, we can encourage the development of higher quality products. Effectively we would be stipulating the parameters of a health code which ensures that videogames are not intentionally or unintentionally violating our wellbeing. This may scream “red tape,” but my suggestion is one of conscientious consumer decisions, rather than regulated bureaucracy. The world values health far less than it ought to, and videogames are not exempt from that discourse. Their impact (when played too long) spans the whole spectrum of harm, from mental health, to the physical decline of the associated lack of exercise, yet the onus is almost always placed on the individual to resolve these issues. As with everything, a balance must be restored and the encouragement of game developers to produce thesis-based, and/or historically grounded works appears to be a good avenue for change.

Emergence is a process of new qualities, arising out of quantity. Specifically, qualities that do not necessarily exist in a single individual, but do appear in the collective interaction of many individuals; one ant roams aimlessly, whilst a million ants build a sophisticated and complex nest. The emergent quality of a bee hive is clear: efficiency. The emergent quality of water is clear: adaptability. The emergent value of humanity can be both, or none of these things. What differentiates them is the ability of the mind to reflect, to stipulate the terms of emergent behaviour, through morality. Only, there is one huge caveat: humanity is in a constant struggle between the world of the collective and the world of the individual:

If all people became emotionless utilitarians - a swarm intelligence - no doubt they would transcend every standard of quality, at least when seen from above. They would embody intellect, unburdened by “petty” morality. Yet, they would be no different from ants or automata; an ant does not (as far as is understood) look upon its entire nest and celebrate that the project has been a success. By destroying the individuality amongst people, the most evaluating known species would be transformed, and no-one would remain to assess the emergent project of humanity as “good!”

How the Unknown Effects Morality

For the proceedings, the following premise will be assumed: for any outcome to be made intrinsically valuable in a metaphysical sense, a sufficiently intelligent and capable observer must deem it so. The function of an omnipresent and omnipotent god might be seen as such; an infinite observer, who can bestow value after humans return to dust and proclaim that none of the project was in vain. The ‘omni-’ prefix is probably the most salient power of some religions, exempting arguments for internal contradictions. No being, in this context, has the power to overthrow the god and then hold its own morality in higher esteem.

Howard Philip Lovecraft's works reflect this fear of a new moral authority and the defining trait of the genre he built, cosmic horror, is based on the fear that one is in the same position as the aforementioned ants. Lovecraft focuses heavily on the intrinsic horror of the unknown, but there are more subtle implications for morality. Just as people look upon tiny insects and judge them by their own values, another might appear from the cosmos and cast the same judgement over them. But by what metrics? If by practicality, one might be able to negotiate with an eldritch horror of these stories, asking for more years to divine a suitable moral system, or presenting it with well-preserved scripture. If, however, it judges people by the sophistication of their consciousness, the story could go rather differently. Just as one sees ants as not quite conscious enough for consideration, a higher consciousness being (literally or metaphysically) could judge humans by the same metric.

This strikes at a core idea. One dreads losing the ability to compete in the game of moral arbitration, or to be involved, yet woefully unaware of all or some of the rules. Even in the case of belief in the the dominion of a god or gods, the rules can be identified through stories and scriptures, through natural phenomena and dreams; one can take comfort that they are acting in accordance with a moral framework, even if they have not created it. The introduction of a new being, with its own unique perspective, complicates matters. It would encourage one to take a closer look at their own assumptions, down to the very fundamentals.

Morality, to be clear, is really the pursuit of ‘intrinsic value as expressed by agency’. Things without agency are amoral. For an example, when water arrives at a waterhole and nourishes animals, one identifies its adaptability as valuable, but they do not call it moral. Water has no agency. Likewise, a volcano erupts, destroying its surroundings, but no-one can call this an immoral act, for no agent has acted. Even where a divine agent has caused the eruption, the volcano becomes only a tool, an extension of the arm. Most modern people extend this amorality to the entire animal world (perhaps sometimes excepting for pets where the words “good” and “bad” are of frequent use). Animals seem to have some agency, but not enough to hold them accountable. If a person were mind controlled, most would also be willing to accept the victim of the control as amoral as well; after all, they have been robbed of agency. These are all relatively simple intuitions. Now consider that if someone has severe damage to the brain, people are far less likely to blame them, rather than the injury, for any proceeding behaviour, but the cracks begin to show. How about a genetic defect, or trauma? Once agency is viewed as a scale, the boundaries of clear (or non-arbitrary) moral culpability begins to break down.

Following this line of thinking, the complexity of morality in a boundless universe becomes clear. The less significant humans feel against the broader expanse, the less they will believe in their categorical separation from other animals and the more they will begin to see morality as agential (actors) rather than categorical (humans, animals, things). Further, the larger the universe, the more likely that there exists such creatures previously referred, of higher consciousness, intellect, and agency. Creatures which are less prone to vices and addictions, less participatory in self-deception, and more physically capable.

Facing the Abyss

Against such terrifying prospects that humans might not hold the key to objective morality, there is a tendency towards regression. To destroy the philosophy of millennia past and to employ cold rationality in deriving solutions.

The authoritarian, for example, cannot conceive of how humans might transcend the individual and achieve nation-wide, or even humanity-wide goals, without wrote emulation of what has been seen in nature. They conclude that the ends justify the means, that ants who live no life at all or are sacrificed for utility are an acceptable expense in a broader project. Just because other species function effectively as a collective, with little expression of the individual, it does not proceed that humans must become homogenized and mechanistic to achieve proportionately grandiose ambitions. Though in many ways humans are similar to other species, they are not the same. Just as a monkey is not the same as an elephant.

Humans can afford the short term inefficiencies of individual error, for it is offset by huge leaps which occur when unique minds are allowed to flourish. Not to mention that independence of mind seems to enrichen the human experience from a purely aesthetic view. These conditions for flourishing are not simply good nutrition, health, safety and a steady accumulation of shared knowledge, but sustainable moral practices. Progress must be anchored by the checks and balances of moral science, else it becomes self obsessed - Progress for the sake of progress - an objective which has already given birth to atom bombs, barbaric experiments, and now the more nefarious aspects of the digital age.

Unifying Principles in an Uncertain Time

As humans advance towards an age with less certainty in themselves as the only moral agents, and discover more about the universe, they will need to find new ways to orient their actions. The scale could tip too far, forcing people to become like ants (or machines), or completely break apart into nihilism. My opinion is that humans should take an active role in the study of morality as a science, not a self-referential and circular doctrine. Yet, they should insist that it be held to the standards of a true science, which purports itself to the evidence. And further, recognise that all claims of morality arise out of a goal, with the quality of that goal and the methodologies for reaching it, far more essential than the specificity of the conclusions drawn in its pursuit. Faced with novel, terrifying discoveries about the universe, religion strains to remain firm and to integrate such findings. Highly personified gods, such as those seen in Norse mythology might be forced to compete in a literal war against new findings, in a curious phenomena of religious power-creep. Meanwhile, the more vaguely defined ‘omni-’ type gods inevitably run into the threat of being logically disentangled. A science can instead evolve with the changing landscape, so long as it does not itself become dogmatic and sure of its own infallibility.

Many are terrified that a consistent… Neigh; Objective morality, cannot exist and thrive without asserting the existence of a metaphysical world. This may be true, but it is not necessarily as scary as one immediately supposes; most humans want their species to prosper, whatever form this might manifest in each individual’s imagination. This goal appears to be democratic in its purest form; the one axiomatic principle around which all other ideas can be oriented. Under this objective, such essential ideas as: one must not murder, nor steal, nor cheat, would still almost certainly be the correct means. Only, they would not derive correctness from some essential fact in the metaphysical realm, but by the result of studying psychology, behaviour, animals, history, religion and countless other relevant topics. This is not easy, but much of the groundwork has already been laid: I will discuss the ideas of moral reasoning which I find most promising in future writings.

The age in which humans now live is one which demands a rationale behind beliefs (well-reasoned or not). Many refuse to accommodate this demand and plea for others to let intuition or divinity retake the wheel. For better or worse, this seems no longer to be a reasonable expectation. Knowledge has everywhere been a tool of both liberation and constraint, depending on the manner of its use. Morality is not dissimilar in this respect. Now it must, and indeed is, assuming the form of a science in order to survive… One must vote on whether it will serve the human experience, or see everyone as ants.

We have free will. It’s self-evident… Right?

I had thought to abstain from this topic, but I think its widespread propagation is imminent with the popularisation of neuroscience (often through self help study) and even quantum physics. A certain degree of preparedness appears to be necessary. The subject may even have made its way into our ideas about the world already, as will be explained. Since this is a delicate idea, I shall attempt to provide a careful and actionable guide through the topic, starting with a brief context overview of the kinds of implications it might have.

This is a clearly a complicated subject. I do not expect readers to understand it on a first pass - I certainly did not. Thus, I have left some further resources from experts in the relative fields at the bottom of the page.

The Side Effects

Robert Sapolsky, who in myriad ways I admire, for his eloquent transmission of information and advocacy for the moral applications of science, makes an erroneous step on the implications of not having free will. This being, his suggestion that the loss of belief in free will shall only be thought about once a month or so, before we forget that it isn’t there. This appears to be because he confuses his experience of the principal with the possible reactions of others. I know that for many, free will is the driving force of self worth and moral calibration. How, if one’s character is so greatly comprised of such an assumption, could they forget about it when it formed a crucial link in their world view? He also thinks that the feelings of being proud, or ashamed of one’s achievements are misplaced, the reasoning for which will become apparent. Sapolsky believes a conversion to this manner of thinking would provide a net good, but I am not sure it is so black and white.

Dr Daniel Denett refers to a study which showed that people who had read an excerpt that points to a lack of free will before being given the ability to cheat in a game, would subsequently be more likely to do so than the other group who had read content in favour of believing in free will. Assuming the study was reliable, there arises a deep issue in introducing such an idea to the general populous. I do not believe in the suppression of truth. If it is indeed that free will does not exist, or even that such an idea be of strong competition with other theories, it should be made known. However, it should also be accompanied compelling reasons not to let it lead to a fall to nihilism or irresponsibility. Rather than accepting outright Sapolsky's assessment that things will ultimately head in a positive direction, we should instead indulge the very real risk that this is not going to be the case, or indeed that it has not been entirely the case thus far.

Luckily, not everything is doom and gloom for the ‘no free will’ worldview. It appears that the ‘no free will’ argument is very practical in domains of empathy and accountability, for reasons that will become evident. Examples of these areas are: determining laws of insanity and addressing rehabilitation. It also lends us some very powerful new contextualisations and answerable questions, which might never have been discovered had not for the particular concerns that such an assumption brings about.

Getting Definitions Right

This is a final warning to those who do not want to risk uprooting their most firmly held perceptions. It is not too late to head to another of my posts. You’re free to go… Or are you?

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In debates between biologists, and physicists, and philosophers, there seems to be a trend emerging. Definitions keep getting muddled, and amidst the confusion have arisen two concepts of free will which are not as closely related as they appear.

As a start, it would be apt to form a definition of free will’s use in discourse, as best I can approximate it. Mariam Webster’s definitions of compound words are influenced by common parlance and might entrench implicit conclusions about the term, so I will instead use their conceptions of “free” and “will” separately to construct a more fundamental definition of “free will”.

I would add that “will” tends to be a more strongly engaged version of the word “desire”, the former more heavily contextualised by its interplay with action. The two shall nonetheless appear relatively interchangeably, so as not to exhaust one or the other.

Non-determinate Will

The first definition of free will and the most debated is that seen above, and requires that we have the ability to form a will indeterministically. Free from biological imperative, destiny, nor any other restraint. Arthur Schopenhauer had this to say:

This means that to have free will, one must be allowed to desire whatever they want. However, they cannot desire whatever they want, because they are limited by their preference, which in itself is a desire of seeking higher value; to have one thing more than another. The conceptual incoherence here is the point. For free will to work, one would have to be presented with every desire of an infinite list of possibilities and pick one both indifferently (free from an existing desire), and intentionally (which cannot be done without a value judgment). This idea makes the production of a non-determinate will impossible, but it might not rule out some type of scale of determination: what is the creation of a will determined by? And, does that determinate factor allow room for some degree of free will?

Biological phenomena make our understanding of free will more complicated, but less abstract. One such phenomena is the infamous case of Phineas Gage, who had a severe injury to the prefrontal cortex (which regulates decisions) and subsequently lost many inhibitions. The localisation of one part of the brain as being able to modulate how our wills manifest in reality makes it very difficult to separate the concepts of will and organic matter. This argument against free will is then dwarfed by the deterministic worldview, which, by using principles of quantum physics, posits that the future already exists through the lens of time as another dimension in the spacetime continuum. I won’t pretend to understand every mechanism, but the upshot is that our actions are already recorded and we are bound to play them out, like a film. If we can only follow one path, determined by the universe, how then can we be free to will indeterministically?

In order to reconcile these troubles, one might have to conclude that there is a divine spark in them, which embodies the “I” in “I am”, or their essence, and allows them to be free to will anything, even within these observable frameworks. Even if this were true, it raises the same questions of free will, only dictated more heavily by divinity than biology or physics. I will add here that one might be content to accept this divine contextualisation for their life, allowing that a deity or higher realm is a worthy master. The other option is to default to randomness, accepting that there will be more and less likely desires arising in us, yet that no specific will occurs until the die is rolled. This is the same story as in the previous concepts, but now a person is simply dictated by a die and capitulates to the doctrine of randomness instead.

Internalised Will

The second definition is proposed by compatibilists, who (generalising) believe that the ability to localise decision making to processes inside the body is free will. Then, the only way in which one does not have free will is by physical restraint; one wishes to travel the world, but is confined by a prison, and thus their will cannot be actualised. They might also concede that a believed or actual threat of violence could be seen as a negation of freedom. Really, this group of thinkers are creating a distinct concept, which might be seen as the freedom to pursue the will as action, once it has arisen. Their philosophy is the more practical for orientating ourselves in the world. by my estimation, since it can be described empirically. However, it is certainly the less compatible - ironically - with the most semantically sound definition of “free will”.

What Compatibilists do tell us, is that the will itself is not always the most important element in freedom. We may be unable to break free of the bondage of determined timelines and biological diktat, but we can consciously interact with self limitations, social limitations and systems to craft more fulfilling, impactful experiences for ourselves and others. In short, an experience based model.

How free can we be?

If it is true that in any moment, we create the decision that our current experience and biology are destined to, it encourages us to adopt a broader vision of our lives. We will inevitably make grand decisions, but each of those will be avalanches from the build up of smaller decisions. Our sum experience in that moment.

One of the main approaches I have seen recommended as part of living with this belief, or rather dis-belief, in free will, is to appreciate what one experiences, but not to think that they could do any differently. This passivity does not seem healthy to me, but the experiential framework is useful; everyone loves to compare life to a rollercoaster, so let’s run with the analogy.

Analogy parameters: The rider is the being of conscious experience and attention. The carriage is the total self: personality, and knowledge, and subconscious. The tracks are the timeline of life in a deterministic universe.

Would you prefer a rickety carriage, or a sturdy one? Perhaps one with regular safety inspections and maintenance. If there really is no free will, it is still in our best interest to try to make our carriage, at least in appearance, comfortable and secure. This ironically requires some hard work and study; we must be effective engineers of our own character and we can only do so if we are competent in those aspects of life that resonate with us. Maybe, we’ll even become efficient enough to go help (or advise) someone else in repairing their carriage.

Here’s another way to contextualise this idea. How many of us are existentially devastated that we did not hatch from an egg, or that we didn’t simply appear from thin air? I would wager only a minority. This points to the conclusion that we do not on average spend a great deal of time worrying about the fact that we did not create ourselves. However, in the free will debate, one feels differently; that is, they are upset at the very nature of the birth of a will. Once one accepts that they have not created their will (if that is indeed their conclusion) they can choose to engage in the interactive experience that the will allows us to participate in.

Inevitably one shall find invisible barriers arising in the external world: emotional (such as shame), preventative (such as laws), cognitive (such as perceived or actual entrapment by, a disorder) and so on. However they shall also be restricted by ability: physical ability to traverse, ability to generate wealth, and practically anything else that opens up, rather than constricts new experiences. Each of our simulations has a different configuration from birth and grows or shrinks as we expand our control, or have control imposed on us. We could sit back and let those barriers fluctuate on their own, refusing even to explore what is available to us, but we would have wasted the opportunity and potential of experience granted to us.

This venturing out is what might be called exposure. In my previous article, I posited that fiction is a necessary accompaniment of the intellect. If we truly accept that we have no free will, we need a new framework, a new fiction by which to contextualize our actions. The best I can suggest right now, and Sam Harris seems to agree on this point, is to punctuate life with exposure. Exposure to stimulating ideas, activities and challenges. All those things that build character and allow one to make those grand decisions with more knowledge of themselves and the world. It is an experience-based model, which isn’t intrinsically passive.

A Hierarchy of Desires

It is often that we see will in the way that one might traditionally identify attention. A single will becomes one’s focus, and absorbs them entirely, until they desire something else. However, like attention, which can be affective and scattered, many disparate wills seems to exist in a constant hierarchy, from which the brain selects what it considers the most valuable in any moment.

At the top of this hierarchy, but also least accessible, is what I shall henceforth name the ‘essential will’. This is the will to morality and orients every other will. It has no concrete answers only a vague desire for a better world, for a worse world, or simply to step back with indifference. For all intents and purposes, it doesn’t matter what someone’s hypothetical worlds look like, only that someone desires a value between “better” and “worse”. Other subordinate wills arise, some aligned to that essential will, others disharmonious. Each time that one chooses a will to mobilise as a physical action, or even chooses to not act, their essential will rewards them with harmony (content), or discord (guilt). The complication arises in that there are communication errors when travelling from the essential will to actions, and from the world back to the essential will. A very good person at their core, can act recklessly by miscalculation of the consequences of their actions, or the world’s trials and tribulations can simply turn them bitter.

The essential will seems to be the deepest morality: It is the source, from which cascade myriad solutions and ideals, which are procedurally linked. For example:

“I want a better world (Essential will). Ergo:

1. I want humans to be in harmony with nature

2. Ergo, I want animals to be protected from unnecessary harm

3. Ergo, I want corporations who abuse animals to be punished

4. Ergo, we should also punish supporters of such corporations

5. Ergo, all thinking and philosophies that encourage support for those corporations should be suppressed

6. Ergo, we should disparage and berate anyone who’s ideas might support those ideas

7. Ergo, we should introduce laws to censor speech in order to strengthen this suppression”

Some readers might be in utter agreement with this progression. I think it is fair to say that many would agree with the first two or three progressions from the essential will, and then find the proceeding ones increasingly untenable. The issue is that the moment that one of these conclusions is falsified or even sub-optimal, it introduces a poison which dilutes into all of the subsequent conclusions. I believe that this is the rationale behind much of the polarization of the modern day. Not the pervasiveness of evil essential wills, but confused actions and misinterpretation.

Bojack Horseman is a surprisingly profound interrogation of this actualization of the essential will. “Surprisingly”, given that it takes place in a world of anthropomorphic characters and comic scenarios. [Spoilers ahead] A scene that always stuck with me was in the finale when one of the main characters, Diane, tells Bojack that she doesn't believe in the “deep down” of being good, that actions are the only real gauge of goodness. I disagree with this assessment in a holistic sense, but agree with the practical implications. I believe that the process of actualization means setting principles that logically and optimally follow from the essential will and sticking to them to the best of one’s abilities. However, to do this successfully, we need to be in control and intelligent about our decisions.

Agency is Important

It is counter-intuitive. The less we believe that our actions are within our control, the more we act out to distort the external world. We try to externalise our will so that it becomes a shield from contrary ideas. And in doing so, we experience less and become more defensive; or, we collapse even further inside of ourselves, and become passive observers to our own lives. A society that does not believe in personal responsibility shall inevitably turn to their power structure to enforce their will on others, or disengage. Apathy and authoritarian thinking are two expressions of the same, usually subconscious, lack of control. Antidotes to this are best measured by how much they increase agency: the degree to which one is in conscious control of their actions.

Given the incohesive effect that a feeling of helplessness in a population creates, there are strong arguments for working more intimately with one’s preference, one’s character, one’s presence. Everyone should test the bounds of their control over the will, to assess where the actual or illusory barriers arise. To be compelled to do something, and to do opposite, merely to feel the triumph over one’s most immediate desire. Our wills are fragmented into processes, which make us creatures of habit in daily life, and in hard times, creature of instinct. These are reactionary, and therefore less conscious; a direct reduction of agency. So, how do we turn this around?

Intellect as Agency

Nietzsche posits that morality and intellect are almost inextricably linked. I would go one step further, to say that intellect is the agent that brings the essential will (morality) in line with actions. To run on pure instinct is mechanistic. It is playing out a program and leaving it to go on until it corrupts or the hardware breaks down. It is riding a rollercoaster whilst the carriage rusts and breaks apart. The cortex (intellect) is the only aspect of our conscious brain that can make real time edits to this program as it runs - this is that selection from the hierarchy of wills previously observed. We have several options: we could surrender to determinism or biology, and let our cortex become lazy and nonchalant; we could self-impose more stringent rules on it, such as a strict morality; or, we could let it be dominated by emotions. Either way, the cortex, with its conscious decision making, is the leader who has the last say on the body’s trajectory. In some sense it forms the inner voice we speak to when dealing with things. The questions that all of us must ask of it are: “Do I trust this leader to weigh up the emotional information, the instinctual drives and make the best decision for my body and future?” And for those with a chaotic mind, “How can I make this leader listen to me?”

To return to the compatibilists with their useful distinction between internal will and its correlation with action, there does seem to be some causal chain of desires being modulated by systems in the brain. This chain may arise from a first, uncaused decision (inspired by the metaphysical concept of the unmoved mover) in the body, and yet set in motion the subsequent diffusion of action. Or, it may be the result of a gazillion convergences of fate in a determined universe. Either way, at some point we are given intellectual agency over causation. From either of these determined or undetermined standpoints, we can assert that we have at least illusory agency over internal processes, for we have anecdotal and empirical evidence.

Personality vs Disorder

One of the important insights that the ‘no free will’ conclusion grants us, particularly in the biological, social and legal domains, is that of accountability. As a result of recognising that we may not be wholly responsible for our actions, certain criminals are allowed an insanity plea, which is based on their comprehension of the law and morality: whether they can identify that their actions are breaking the rules, or in cases where they successfully identify the rules, whether they are actually capable of following them. In cases where it is evident that the convicted was compelled to act in a certain way because of injury to cognition or a disorder, they are not punished in the traditional sense, but are instead given psychiatric interventions. It seems that many of these cases are of an instinctual will bypassing the measures of the brain that would typically modulate that will into acceptable behaviour. This is something like the Id winning out in the Freudian war for the ego, for those familiar.

With the rise of self-diagnosis of disorders, there have arisen several concerns. For example, that the diagnosed disorders will be taken less seriously on account of misdiagnosis of less severe cases, or that those who are suffering most will be disrespected. What, in my estimation, is of graver concern is that self-diagnosis can lead to reduced responsibility and agency. For clarification, I see agency as the degree to which one is consciously in charge of their actions.

I have some stakes in this game. I used to suffer from intense social anxiety and once it was given some credibility by a doctor, I began to use it as an excuse to extricate myself from social situations, to blame it on awkward conversations and generally to become disassociated with all of the things that might have improved the condition. It was only when I identified what I was doing that I began to reframe my language and take actionable steps towards improving my social connections. This was extremely challenging, but over the long-term, it had a profoundly positive effect on my life. My mistake was in drawing the line between the condition and my personality too soon, losing some of my adaptable personality and agency to the realms that I believed to be in the control of the disorder; simply, I gave away territory to a region that I considered separate from me… A part I was not responsible for. This is not unique to me, I have heard many others proclaim joyfully that those elements that they were unhappy with are really just symptoms of a condition that they have been diagnosed with and thus they can indulge in avoidance behaviours guilt free. I am sympathetic to this, but concerned by the broader implications.

Mental disorders are currently on the rise, with suspicions that it is heavily related to digital media habits, which are themselves becoming more commonplace. With this rise in diagnosis, both medical and self-directed, we are quite rapidly increasing the total amount of agency and responsibility that is at risk of being abandoned across populations. I am not so naïve to conclude that there are not disorders that are so cognitively entangled that they are almost impossible to overcome. What I hope is that at a societal level, we become more careful with where we draw the line between disorder and the domain in which we can be more proactive. We may or may not determine our wills, but it would be wise not to obstruct them without good reason.

Conclusion

Free will seems only to have become such a contentious issue, because it has been built into the fabric of our propositions about morality and justice. It is a red herring in a sense. By allowing “free will” to assume a concrete definition, there can arise a coherent discourse, where debaters do not spend more time talking past one another than actual solutions. Further, non-philosophers can be spared the effort of pontificating over the manner by which wills come about. They can instead accept the frameworks and models which are designed to remain harmonious with both conclusions: “free will exists” or “free will doesn’t exist”. Thus far I have these general guidelines: increase exposure to experiences that build character, be more conscious in order to increase agency and ensure that the essential will is as best aligned with the consequence of actions as possible.

As ever, this is an open discussion. If you have some unique insight or critique, please share it below in the comments.

Additional Resources

Bird’s eye view:

• Sam Harris’ excellent summation of the whole discourse Highly Recommended

• Quick fire summaries of different positions

• Robert Sapolsky and Alex O’Connor offer deeper insights

Determinism:

• Is the future predetermined?

• Can Free Will be saved in a determined universe?

It can be disturbing to have a brain… It brings about the anxiety that all of this consciousness we feel is predicated on the wellbeing of one biological clump of matter. So we reach out for kinder truths; that the brain is really just a mechanism of a higher power; a bridge between the spiritual and our tangible reality. Gilbert Ryle’s ‘ghost in the machine’ theory, argues that the body and mind are altogether separate categories, and to ask “ok, but where is the mind?” When looking at an organic body, is to have committed a categorical error. The mind, he asserts, isn’t a part of the body as any biological component is.

All of this intrinsic desire for something divine may be the plan of a deity, or deities, to ensure that we never forget where we came from, or may arise spontaneously out of the implacable feeling of their presence. But what if the mind’s proclivity towards fiction (1a) were just a necessary condition for our intellect to function properly?

Disclaimer for the rest of this piece: I am not a trained psychologist. I am drawing heavily from research and Dr Robert Sapolsky’s lectures found here. This is first and foremost a philosophical investigation.

Spandrels for Churches, spandrels for Minds

A spandrel (in biology) is a component of an organism which supports a directly “chosen” evolutional trait. They are so named after the triangular areas that extend out of the pillars in churches and other buildings. These are by-products of design, resulting out of the primary objective: the load-bearing utility of the pillars. These triangular areas would often be decorated in order to make them seem intentional in the grander scheme of the building.

The chin is an example of a spandrel, developing not as a useful and selected-for mechanism in itself, but to permit the human mouth to fit in line with the face (more or less), instead of the mouth extruding out into a muzzle. So, why might one suppose that fiction is a spandrel of intellect?

Human intellect has many practical applications such as effectively organising actions with positive results, but it permits much introspection and doubt - to such an extent that it can lead to existential dread. A dread so profound that an entire genre of horror was born out of it. Many functions that serve our survival of body, threaten in other ways our survival of mind. This can be based on the disparity between the complexity of questions we can ask and our limited capacity to answer them, especially as individuals. It can also be based on trauma; the ability to comprehend the moral conflict in an act we commit, observe or become victim of. Thus, in this line of thinking, a by-product is born: the healing aura of fiction.

Every time that the mind is injured it begins to rationalise using narrative frameworks, to justify the events of a life in a way that serves the unfolding plot and allows the intellect to be unburdened of emotional disturbance. Rarely, if ever, is this a truly accurate accounting. A person steals from another and creates an idea related to their victim’s higher economic status: “I need it more than them” or “they were probably a greedy person anyway”. And vice versa, a rich person refuses to do charity out of some preconceived notion about the impoverished and their lack of determination to rise above their circumstance. Sometimes a fiction becomes so elaborate that it begins to reconstruct memories or amplify their potency increase its territory in the mind. This is more evidence for the fiction as by-product of intellect and not the other way round, for the mind enraptured too greatly by fiction (common to Schizophrenia) is more susceptible to catatonic and socially incompatible behaviour. These can result in severe or fatal harm to oneself or others.

To clarify my presuppositions going forward:

• Intellect (the pillar) develops “true” assumptions about the environment or other organisms and produces actions based on those assumptions. This assumption is influenced by emotions, observations etc.

• Fiction (the spandrel) serves to contextualise this truth in a way that makes action easier.

Throughout the rest of this piece, I will take the ‘fiction as a type of spandrel’ premise as an accurate description, for brevity. I am most certainly open to discussion on this matter:

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Fiction as compensation and healing

Carl Jung believed that dreams serve us in a compensatory manner, warning us to the oversights and discrepancies between our actions and unconscious (to adopt Jung's lexicon). Let us note here that this too is compatible with the theory of fiction as a spandrel, for the fiction of a dream in Jung’s theory provides a connective arc between the realms of consciousness, rather than being a behavioural end in itself. This theme of dreams as psychological, or genetic correction for issues brought on by behaviour seems to ring true in many aspects of nature. For example, according to Dr Robert Sapolsky, animals such as vultures will eat foods that are parasitic (behaviour), and in order not to dissuade potential mates, will direct greater organic resources to the enhancement of their aesthetic characteristics, this being a stronger orange colouration of their face (see 25:00 of the video below). This is effectively a biological proclamation to mates that despite their less than sanitary diet, they have a powerful immune system and can afford to lose resources on purely aesthetic features. This is relevant because it shows that their biological systems correct for environment and their social dynamic.

Hyperdiffusionism asserts that all civilisations arose from one origin civilisation, but it is generally considered inaccurate. Rather, evidence points to many separate civilisations arising from geographically and temporally isolated zones. This same feature of organisms across the world to adapt and behave in uncannily similar ways is seen time and time again. Plants found in specific altitudes and climates will appear almost as aesthetic duplicates of each other, despite thousands of kilometres of separation, yet be wholly distinct in taxonomy. Religions in desert regions tend towards monotheism, whilst tropical regions favour polytheism. Human languages produce lots of overlapping grammatical rules. The patterns that we observe in these phenomena suggest that nature is far more predictable than we might suppose.

Therefore, we could assume that the organic mechanisms that give rise to humans are at least in part able to “anticipate” the behaviours that bring about civilizational development and progress. Thus, those mechanisms have granted us a mind that is complex enough to understand and feel, not only for our kin, which is seen in many animals, but for our communities. What nature likely did not anticipate is that we would extend that communal empathy and kinship to humans across the planet, and to animals, and even to the fictional characters we developed. We are beings who are designed to be effective in communities, yet as a defect, or a blessing, are now aware of an entire world of, for all intents and purposes, conscious beings. That is all subtle pain, taken in until it reaches intolerable levels and the system disassociates.

If indeed, the biology that orients the brain has some predictions about the potential downfalls and outcomes of intellect-driven behaviour, fiction suddenly does not seem so out of place, so… other-worldly, as once we might have suspected.

Religion vs Fiction

It is noteworthy that religion has arisen in almost, if not every successful nation. Many developed countries are now facing higher levels of depression and other mental health issues. Just recently, the UK was placed second on a list of the unhappiest countries. One might preach that it is a collapse in religion that has made the UK fall so low, but correlation is not causation, and the variables are extensive. The damaging effect of technology on mental health cannot be understated, and where children, adolescents and young adults generally have more free time, it is very easy to become a slave to addictions and fear of lost potential.

It might be the case that religion was the best solution before, but I very much doubt that we would fair better in the long run if we successfully made a return to it en masse. It appears that not religion, but narrative, is the real through line of societal cohesion. The narrative of religion is one approach, though there can also be the narrative of nation, monarchy, science and ethics. Religion only seems to win out in these areas because it makes itself most impervious to scrutiny, by purporting itself to be unknowable by nature. Where a society needs fiction, which by the nature of spandrels is veritably true, it logically proceeds that civilisations would take ideas that they deem moral and decorate them so that they slot in seamlessly to their truth complex. This is ostensibly the use of religion. The dressing up of intellectual, sense and emotional data in a package of (ideally timeless) stories and analogies.

Now for the most controversial part: What if most, if not all religious projects were doomed from the start by a defect of our minds to confuse a fictional by-product with an actual truth value? Let us concede at least, that the vast majority of religions are incorrect in their assertions of the nature of divinity, if it exists in the first place, by view of their contradictions with others. There are countless examples then, of religions diluting truths with fiction, simply because there is no line drawn between the two domains. If I assert that murder is wrong and unicorns exist, where ought you draw the line between fiction and truth? I could write a story about a unicorn, killed for sport, and one might conclude that it was wrong to kill all the unicorns, for why else would they be absent from the world. If I instead label my story as fiction, the distinction becomes clear, and my “true” assertion that murder is wrong is divined, with no reason to believe that it has anything to do with the nature of the subject being harmed.

In the modern day, we find ourselves lacking a unifying narrative. There is a left and right narrative, a religious and atheist narrative, a capitalism vs everything else narrative. Yet no one is content to say that the narratives they deliver are just that: a necessary by-product of the intellect(s) trying to communicate a correct action or principle.

Fiction as a Guiding Hand

Fiction in its most applied form, becomes a communicative tool, embellishing dry, rational concepts with a dramatic flare. Moral messages become a compelling invitation, when embedded in a well executed narrative structure. This may seem like a reason to abandon the previous notion of fiction as a by-product of intellect, but this is not so clear to me. The moral message, concept, or idea which the intellect wants to communicate, seems to be the load-bearing beam, whilst the fiction represents the decorated spandrels. Would it not be more efficient, more concise, if we didn’t need the fiction? Perhaps. However, nature did not make us machines, and there is something attractive about this curious necessity.

Fiction also allows our intellect to chart a path in the external world, before we venture it. Science fiction in particular, has notoriously been the the domain of prophets; in one moment it imagines a dystopian vision of the future, then that future is realised in often disturbing ways. The fiction is necessary for the following reasons, amongst others: it invites the audience to engage with ideas they would otherwise find unpalatable, it allows the author to test the boundaries of thought, and it nestles the author’s truths in an emotion, which are more likely to excite action than a reel of facts alone.

The practical application of this idea is to reframe from fictions as true in themselves, to fictions as connective frameworks or homes for the truth. We should be honest when we engage in narratives, and wary of those who do so deceptively. Reading a fictional story, we agree that the characters are not “real” in common parlance, but nonetheless find them compelling.

Whenever someone speaks of Lord of the Rings, or Macbeth, or Dune, and derives some essential truth about the world or human nature, it is not made less by the knowledge that these are fictions. If anything, they inspire in such a way that one wishes to elevate the virtue of themselves or humanity, by emulating the victories and learning from the failures in the story. This might actually, when embraced fully, be more compelling than the religious invitation, because it does not imply that we are straggling behind a perfect being; which is inaccessible on account of our moral failings. Fiction in its purest form is more akin to a mentor than an authority.

Further, those stories which do not deny themselves and proclaim “I am a fiction”, do not limit their own potential by self imposed truth requirements. They make the statement “I am I! I need not the veil of deceit or self aggrandizing truth claims to justify myself”. The more time any given fictional piece lays itself bare for what it is, whilst remaining relevant, the more assuredly it can be used as a reliable compass for truth. Shakespeare survived on the merits of his writing, whilst most religions survived in large part by dogma and the sword. Religions, now losing their statutory power, will be tested on their narratives alone, but only if the followers of those religions do not insist on the truth value of their texts; to do so will indubitably result in them being disregarded as relics of primitive thought, and many, evidently, are not. I think it a better approach that the faithful allow atheists and agnostics to read religious stories for their implicit lessons, not for their wrote truth.

Conclusion: A Radical Age of Fiction

Current creatives who wish to contribute to the pursuit of truth should strive to produce the best possible interrogations of ideas and the best possible arguments for or against behaviour. They should not assert the truth value outright, but leave it implicit in the story. And as audiences, we should weigh the quality of advice, before being confident to follow its guidance. Simply:

As we develop the skill of critique, we will see more clearly in the rhetoric of those who wish to deceive, that they are not pursuing truth or our interests. How ought we improve this skill?

We should treat fictional stories more seriously, as once we almost universally did with religions, thereby restoring our ability to grapple with moral complexity and novel ideas. Although religion once satisfied our desire for narrative and moral lessons, I do not believe it will survive the course of time, for better or for worse. For the sake of decreasingly religious populations, we should explore new ways to fill those gaps left behind, before they are instead satisfied by those who deal only in self-interest and deception. Entertaining, superficial fiction holds a monopoly on attention in the modern day, and its relationship with us is one-sided: high demand for attention, low return on fulfilment. It would be in our best interest to redirect some of that attention to more challenging stories: more diligent explorations of how we orient ourselves in the world and our relationships. However, we must be wary of our mind’s proclivity to confuse those fictions too with our reality.

I will write more on this topic, exploring the ways by which we turn fiction into a healthy fuel for the mind and speculating on how it can address the void that will be left if religion loses its last foothold.

Videogames should not be games first, nor second. Perhaps not even third…

Over the recent years, we have become increasingly entangled in the Attention Economy, a notion which is gradually being acknowledged. However, this rising economy has been in effect for a long time. It may well be the most damaging aspect of human life in the modern age; it opens the gates to all manner of social and political upheaval and causes direct psychological harm to individuals. Many factions have recklessly weaponised the findings of behavioural sciences in order to squeeze out every last drop of attention possible, though we most often point fingers of blame at this practice in gambling and social media.

As a result of this brazen assault on the human psyche, we have not only the quantitate sum of time lost to addictive behaviours, but myriad attention deficit disorders. The antidote? Self-help, one of the fastest growing non-fiction genres. Individual responsibility is empowering and one antidote to the issue, yet addiction is the greatest barrier to individual responsibility. It is like being faced with a locked box, with its own key inside. One might notice a problem here…

A systemic issue

In the Lord of the Rings book (extremely minor spoiler for those who have seen the films) Faramir never sees the ring. He explicitly refuses even the temptation. In my opinion, this is far more effective than in the film where Faramir simply restrains himself, even after seeing the ring. The book version teaches us that the external world warps us and that we would be wise not to pit our self restraint against temptation needlessly. Even Frodo fails in this internal battle. Practically, this means that when we discover a broad societal trend with temptation as its driving mechanism, that insisting on personal restraint may only go so far:

A neutral state, where the person puts a “healthy” (to be defined) amount of time into an activity, is when the temptation surrounding the thing is equal or less than the amount of self-restraint they have at any given moment. Addictiveness is effectively just the state where “temptation” consistently has a higher value than “self-restraint” throughout a person’s days. This by extension gives two broad access points in addressing an addiction. To increase one’s self-restraint, or to reduce temptation. Temptation is a composite of the object of attention, negative emotion, dopaminergic release etc. All of these mentioned elements are difficult to address, yet one of them is not constrained to the individual: the object of attention. This could be a game, or a film, or even work. By making this element less tempting, it echoes out and reduces the total temptation for everyone.

The following is a hypothetical case study. It is intended to demonstrate logic rather than science, and will take great liberties in order to demonstrate the concept:

Five different people are put in separate rooms with 1) a dry educational book that is necessary for their studies and 2) an object that is entertaining. Two are feeling many negative emotions (contributing highly to temptation for a leisure activity), the others only a slight malaise. On the first day, all are given a very intriguing object such as a TV with all the usual streaming services (high temptation value). All five choose the TV rather than studying which they know they ought to do. The next day, each has defaulted back to the same level of negative emotion that they had the day before. This time the product is less interesting, a TV with only a few channels and none of those exciting (low temptation). The two people who are incredibly down, even then continue to indulge the coping mechanism, because their negative emotion only seeks respite. However, the other three in this scenario are finally able to resist the temptation and read. By reducing the temptation in the object of attention, they muster up sufficient self-restraint to counter the coping mechanism and change their focus to something more productive.

There are of course many factors beyond negative emotion in determining whether someone gives into an addictive behaviour. Additionally, by removing one object of interest, it may well be replaced with another of higher temptation, but this approach at least offers a pathway out and a chance at choosing a favourable activity. Now let’s discover where videogames fall into this sum:

Just how addictive are videogames?

Videogames have thus far remained relatively comfortable from criticism in the addiction space, indeed their overindulgence has not yet been recognised by the American Psychiatric Association as a disorder. Rather they are placed in with a broader category:

“[The] committee considered adding video game addiction to the most recent diagnostic manual but ultimately chose to wait for further consideration (…) Video game addiction falls into the category of Internet gaming disorders (IGDs), which have been strongly correlated with motivational control issues and are regularly compared with gambling”

- Shabina Mohammad et al. .

Videogame addiction has stayed in the domain of occasional studies and concerning headlines, whilst the prevalence of the “one more game” meme throughout the gaming community clearly indicates a large problem.

This may all be making me sound like a technophobe, but as someone who has studied videogames, been part of many circles of chronic gamers and struggled with this addiction, I have seen first-hand how much of an impediment to a fulfilling life they can be. My hope is only that we ethically guide this medium and be conscientious of its effects.

A worrying aspect of videogames is that their addictiveness seems to be most heavily defined by excessive use. It ranked as the most prevalent issue in the assessment of addictive gaming, across all types of gamers. This means that even without the direct health issues which make substance abuse so obviously dangerous, videogames are able to rise to similar concern by virtue of their long-term stranglehold on attention. Again, although the APA has not yet listed it as an addiction in its own right, it is being strongly considered.

It also appears that the overall problem is being diminished by virtue of definitions. One study placed the bar for moderation as up to 3 hours:

“49% of Americans game in moderation, spending no more than 3 hours gaming in a row. Only 6% of Americans report regularly marathoning games for more than 13 hours”

- Travis Petersen

If three hours at a time is when we consider videogames excessive, in a world where many are struggling to find time for all of their commitments, there may be a discrepancy between what scientific bodies deem problematic and the practical truth. And if we can place “only” before twenty one million game marathoners (6% of the US population), it raises questions about our definitions of health and addiction.

It would also appear that of those who regularly play videogames, the percentages shoot up from the comparative global studies. This is practically self evident, but it is of grave concern when one considers that videogames are ever manoeuvring themselves towards mass appeal and mass distribution, increasing their reach gradually from a once predominantly male demographic. I do not think videogames should be an exclusive club, but they should ensure that they have strong ethical foundations before turning efforts towards expansion. Unfortunately, it appears that this is already in effect:

“There were 2.69 billion video game players worldwide in 2020. The figure will rise to 3.07 billion in 2023 based on a 5.6% year-on-year growth forecast.”

- Nestor Gilbert

Gamification

Behavioural Psychologists have identified that people respond favourably to games and forms of play. This has lead to a practice known as Gamification, which employs game-like features in non-game environments. Our minds are wired to anticipate rewards when trends arise, so if each time that we press a button, we receive a coin, our brains create a behavioural connection to encourage the repetition of that action. If we keep receiving rewards (even better if it is based on probability), then those networks are bombarded with affirmative information. Ever, the biggest competitors in the attention economy seek a greater monopoly on the minds of a global population and this concept of gamification has become one of the most effective tools:

The Prism

Why Everything is Becoming a Game

I. The Happiness of Pursuit…

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2 years ago · 2518 likes · 230 comments · Gurwinder

“Gamification is not just a fad; it’s the fate of a digital capitalist society. Anything that can be turned into a game sooner or later will be.”

- Gurwinder

The world is gamified to such an extent that to enter a domain of gameplay is to make ‘Inception’ out of the already existent games that play out in life. That is to say, that when we play a videogame, we are playing a game within the already gamified structure which superimposes itself into every element of our lives. The Inception film warns about escapism through the plane called “Limbo”, the most desire fulfilling, yet mentally imprisoning aspect of the dream world. Its principal danger is that it can make one forget that they are in a dream. Given the subtle ways in which our lives are gamified, it can become very difficult to discern what is structured and what is based in the relative randomness of life. This dichotomy might be a part of why we find life so overwhelming; we must constantly be assessing whether we are engaging in someone else’s game. The following video is in Spanish, but in essence Oscar Garcia explains that even the colouration of cookies is a way in which life is subtly gamified.

Videogames, in this context can become very attractive, because the player knows what they are dealing with. This is a game of consent on the surface. Our brains have a proclivity towards, and have been infinitely (for all intents and purposes) conditioned into liking gamic structures.

Whilst the player is highly unlikely to confuse themselves with their character, as the “immersive” tag often implies, the resulting behaviour of hardcore gamers is of a kind which makes the distinction mute. The player may not literally think they are Yasuo from League of Legends, but they may still damage their relationships through obsession:

“Harm scores were consistently higher for parents of children with problem gaming than parents with children in the at-risk and non-problem groups (…) This pattern of results was also observed among partner respondents”

Carolin Szász-Janocha et al.

Dependency on a substance or product allows the medical industry (especially in the US) to churn out immense profits. Whilst in some cases we are able to choose which products we purchase and consume, for-survival goods present too grave an option. This is because the monetary value of the product is directly correlative with one’s will to life (with adjustments for debts imposed on one’s family). Dependency is therefore a metric of monetary value. Videogames are not dealing with real life or death in the immediate, but they do play on the already existing game-orientated minds of the population.

The ethical landscape

It is ethically problematic for game developers to be enablers of those who are already being manipulated from all angles. Sometimes an enabler encourages an addiction to consolidate their control over the person they are enabling, but often it is done of compassion. Trying to help someone who is struggling by giving them what they want, rather than what they need. At worst, addictive videogames represent the development of the strongest drug possible and selling it to the already addicted. At best, they are a friend who thinks that feeding their friend’s addiction is kind, because the enabler cannot conceptualize the harm done over the long term.

Some of the major companies that are explicitly corrupt, with their many gambling elements, are easy targets. However, they distract from the broader issue, and for every huge company that falls, two equally corrupt will take its place. In this way, the videogame industry has found itself in a very comfortable position… All of its most common malpractices are buried under the spectacle of the industry whales. To truly rework the industry into something that is more ethical, we must establish fundamental principles by voting with wallet and with discourse. This may seem futile, but as ever, change begins with a spark. I believe that of all of the branches of the attention industry, videogames are most likely to bend to our desired outcomes with enough pressure.

It is not enough therefore, to judge game companies by their ethical practices towards staff and in monetization. If they are sending out an addictive and damaging product (by myriad metrics), whether by intention or not, there is a breach of ethics. It may be prudent to create an example by drawing eyes to the addictive practices of more obviously malicious companies as a method of dissuading that behaviour across the industry. Or by appealing to the human side of those companies that have appeared to follow moral practices, only failing to catch some of their inconsistencies.

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Gameplay in servitude to a goal

It is in this section that the idea of videogames prioritising their gamic features will be interrogated, in line with the initial statement of this essay. I will attempt to illustrate why the gamic focus should be down-tuned, in order to reduce the addictiveness of the products and give the gaming community a more easily regulated experience. Some elements and experiences would be lost by this process, but they seem to pale against the humanitarian gain. This is really a panoramic view. Deeper explorations of the medium and the how of its manipulation of attention can be found in my dissertation on the subject.

The videogame industry wears its addictive properties as a badge of honour. It boasts how long each product will capture the player, whether divided by playthroughs (the time to complete a game with an end point), constant downloadable content (dlc) updates or in terms of skill development in online competition. FromSoftware are a company who make difficult and grandiose videogames. Two I have played: Bloodborne and Elden Ring, and I am very fond of them. They have placed high value on creative expression, trust in employees and ambitious worldbuilding. All are admirable traits. I have little doubt that the company is largely focused on producing the best art possible. However, they seem to encourage players to invest great amounts of attention into developing their skills and exploring the world. Even their dlc’s are known for their immensity. This emphasis on the scale of gameplay is concerning, not because it does not elevate the artistic expression, but because it increases the attention sink required.

Conversely, The Order 1886 received much criticism on the grounds that its playthrough time, averaging five to seven hours, was simply not enough. Given the pricing this had some justification, but it speaks to a deeper issue. It was a game oozing with visual fidelity and ambition. By most standards aside from playtime, it was an impressive game. Yet many cried out that it didn’t satisfy their expectations in the playtime metric.

Ludologists and Narratologists, seeing play (ludic elements) and narrative respectively as the highest calling of videogames, have argued endlessly over the purpose of the medium, but rarely concern themselves with the ethical implications that each ambition contains. Videogames may include “games” in their semantic compound and display all of the associated states of play, yet they fit most comfortably into the ethical considerations of the entertainment industry in common discourse. We more often discuss videogames alongside films and series, than with board games and sports matches (though e-sports have been fighting for this association). As such it is prudent to make reference to the former category to of media when discussing videogames’ overall impact.

Videogames have marked a divergence from other similar media. Books are not books first. One doesn't read the pages and think “hmm, this book needs to be more book-like”. Films challenge the truth in this idea, in that some films are intentionally: “big monsters, no story”, but it would still be difficult to strip them down to just their mechanical/technical barebones without losing the entertaining element. In these aforementioned media, the products are judged first by their total result and then the minutia is disentangled in order to appreciate or understand how such a level of quality was achieved. Essentially, when we interrogate films, or series, or books, we most often ask how they accomplish the goal of translating plot beats into a well rounded story; we are more likely to recognise them as the unison of their elements. Videogames that focus on affect (emotions and lasting experience), rather than the immediate gratification derived from gameplay, are at least in line with the ambitions of previous media and are not generating novel problems.

Many videogames, in contrast, focus on mechanics as if they are ends in themselves. A game that dresses itself poorly can still be played, indeed it will often still be considered an entertaining experience. The production pipeline of a videogame is indicative of this. Game developers will produce a greybox, which contains all of the mechanical and spacial aspects of the game in simple blocks, without any of the highly detailed assets which take a longer time to produce. This is where preliminary playtests will occur, with players commenting on the quality and “fun” of the mechanics, ability to navigate etc. Effectively it is a quick sketch, to be painted over.

The game, superhot, plays into this very heavily, with its incredibly minimalist style, supported by an interesting mechanical gimmick (everything is set in slow motion and time only speeds up when the player moves).

We know that gamification has been largely influenced by psychology, thus there is a neurological and observational precedent to call ludic elements addictive. Concerns arise when videogames reveal that their core ingredient is inherently able to override one’s impulse control and decision making. Anything containing such a high quantity of such an ingredient will be addictive by virtue of its presence: think nicotine, or caffeine. As a general rule, the more ludic a game becomes, the more attention it is likely to command.

Solutions

Though this is by no means an exhaustive list of the reasons for why I believe a shift is needed, my proposition is that videogames should resign to narrative experiences. Though there is also a case for making them into academic learning tools which I will discuss in future. Videogames should not be primarily ludic experiences. This is not in reference to definitions, but to ethics. The ludic approach has been a project of manipulative monetisation strategies and infinite gameplay loops, whilst the narrative approach has largely continued on a track adjacent to films and series.

As ever, I am hesitant to recommend legislative measures to punitively ensure this turn toward narrative and learning. By my estimation, the best solution is to support those videogames financially which are in tune with this general direction for the medium and to move away from or critique, in a constructive fashion, the more aggressively addictive videogames. This is effectively just the concept of voting with one’s wallet.

I implore us to take steps to expand the literature in this area and become more discerning in our consumption. Not only for the sake of ourselves, but for the rapidly spreading gaming community at large.

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Please see at least the intro of part one for the contextualisation and relevant disclaimers for this article.

• Part 1

• Part 2 (current)

Violence as Entertainment

Some claim that violence (and dark themes) in fiction can work towards purely aesthetic satisfaction with no significant effect in the real world. One such champion of this view is Quentin Tarantino. How could a piece on violence in media not invoke his name? A through line that I see in Tarantino’s comments on violence is that he sees it as part of the entertainment factor of a movie. He says in the below interview on his use of violence in films:

“I want to be the conductor and [the audience] my orchestra.”

Tarantino describes the manner in which he wants to bring the audience into the experience, orchestrating their feelings using the dynamism of the composition. He concludes that the successful execution of this process makes the audience “lucky.” This has its positive and negative readings. One can conclude that to be a successful part of an orchestra, one has fulfilled the demands of them and contributed to a collaborative creation. Often this is preceded by exaltation in the triumph, but only if one has played their part effectively. It is all well and good to be invited into the orchestra and to understand one’s part, but social pressures (for example in the popularity of Superhero, fantasy and sci-fi films) and the propagation of content through social media can bring unwilling participants into the fray. We spend so much time concerned about those who indulge in these themes, that we neglect the idea that some people are simply swept into it. What effect might this have?

From my own assessment, Tarantino has a genuine passion for cinema and his manipulation of emotion is for no other reason than excitement and entertainment. He also speaks in interviews to some specific rhetorical benefits of his use of violence, such as the empowering of characters or to communicate periods in history more viscerally. And, he has openly stated that he finds real violence “abhorrent”. Unfortunately, the problem doesn’t end with Tarantino’s private or public motives, but raises concerns for the broader industries; it implies that directors who have mastery over their craft possess a powerful ability to manipulate the audience into certain viewpoints. This is only more concerning when we explore just how much time we invest into entertainment:

Have I got your attention?

One argument asserts that violence and darkness are linked to audience attention and that this is in itself a problem. However, these themes do not seem to be the sole benefactors of this allure for audience attention. In my view, their effect is similar to the ‘will they, won’t they’ tension of romantic fiction and the mystery in a crime drama etc. It may simply be possible that these darker themes capture a wider demographic, because they are, as I discussed in part one, a more repressed part of general life. However, since the most popular genres of television have been defined by it (Western, Found-footage Horror, Superheroes etc.) assumptions are not enough, and care must be taken in this territory. I want to address my friend Tom Shaw now, who analysed and built a commentary about the message of the Simpsons’ episode: Itchy & Scratchy & Marge. I had already thought to address the idea of violence in media, but his article: Are We Living In "The Itchy & Scratchy Show"? got me thinking more deeply about the topic. It is very much worth a read.

At one point in his article, Tom suggests that programs with positive messaging are more likely to get people to disengage with media and re-engage in positive activities:

“when something on television conveys a meaningful, harmonious message: It actually encourages people NOT to watch the television and instead go live an arguably more meaningful life”.

I broadly agree with this resulting behaviour, assuming that one does not switch to another program instead, but I agree for a different reason: compassion and generosity towards family and friends are generally the domain of real world interactions and not inherently intriguing to watch. Watching people go around being nice to each other is not particularly novel: not in countries where peace is at the very least illusively maintained. This is not to assert an absence of negative interactions. To watch a copy of reality unfold, whilst one’s own reality passes by, is intuitively pointless (although influencers seem to be developing into this terrain). Violence and darkness are precisely interesting because they are distinct from immediate reality. Closer simulations of reality, such as Reality TV, must dramatize and exaggerate key points of interest. They often result in a melodramatic mess, which is just comedic to anyone who isn’t deeply invested.

This may point to a deeper issue that violence can buy cheap investment. It seems inherently intriguing to mass audiences, and therefore it it inevitably leads to lazier and more superficial content in many cases. The reason for this may lay in the following excerpt, which speaks of videogames, yet resonates in every aspect of fiction:

“when a piece of art is interactive, the aesthetic value comes both from the tension resolution and from the fact that this resolution is a consequence of our choice”

- Maria-Virginia Aponte et al.

Without being distracted by the mention of interaction, we can see that, at least in this reading, tension is what drives attention in a story. Tension is the uncomfortable sensation of non-resolution. This cannot exist in an idealistic status quo, rather it is born out of conflict. This is why children’s shows employ obstacles and “villains,” even if they are just a rock in the path, an argument between friends or a slightly rude person. It is as we mature toward adolescence and adulthood that our standard for what constitutes tension is elevated. Violence and darkness seem to be the logical conclusions of these tensions.

I believe the effect of positive messaging is genuinely elevated when themes of positive interactions and behaviours are embedded in a darker shell. If we watch a cat and mouse sharing lemonade with no tension, as in the aforementioned Simpsons episode, there is simply nothing compelling us to keep watching. The Lord of the Rings is a far more compelling as a story of loyalty and friendship, because it tests those ideas under tension. I think one grave misuse of violence is for its ability to lull us into superficiality. Life holds so many avenues that can act as a source of meaning, and it is not of service to anyone to overindulge in mindless content. It is not clear to me that it would be any less unhealthy to watch an abundance of happy-go-lucky content, with only the vague and obvious message of kindness, as to watch violence. Content, in my estimation, should be judged more on its completeness, and of its strength to challenge or test our views, than the particular tools it uses. Further, I only disparage content with a lack of substance, because it has become obvious in the current age, that the individually-regulated moderation of consumption is not a viable solution. I am only just arriving at a point of overcoming digital addiction and I have spent much time learning how to deal with it. It is our communal responsibility (to be clear: not by regulatory means) to produce content which is healthy, thus the need for thorough research of what might constitute “healthy” in relation to fictional media. In the next section I will approach the possible manipulative ability of violence in media that Tarantino eluded to.

Part 3… Coming soon

If you have any thoughts on this issue, please join the conversation. It is a broad topic, which I am slowly dissecting, and fresh perspectives are very useful ahead of future sections.

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Secondary Disclaimer: I am not a specialist in psychology. Where I reference studies and research, I will input a hyperlink, so that you can verify the accuracy of my conclusions.

Introduction

Depictions of violence (and dark themes) in Media have often been cited by news outlets and concerned citizens as having harmful effects on society. Though the topic has been dissolved of its more mainstream controversy (perhaps due to a lack of novelty or perhaps for more nefarious reasons), there is still a buzz of studies, articles and opinion pieces which are concerned over the propagation of such content. This will be an interrogation of such assertions. The arguments against the displaying of violent content tend to fall into two distinct assertions, which contain some overlap: viewing violence increases aggressive behaviour and it leads to desensitisation to all manner of disturbing events. There is a less addressed side to this debate, which concerns whether viewing violence causes a general darkening of mood or can be used to sway/extremify political views.

Violence is certainly abundant in our current media landscape, but it is not a novel development. Rather the boundaries have shifted back and forth between expression and restraint. Much attention has been drawn to the negatives of violence, but it is necessary to observe the merits in the depiction of violence in media, otherwise the whole issue is reduced to an obvious moral disaster with no benefits. This simply isn't the case for reasons I will demonstrate. Equally, the nonchalant response from fans of violent media, who dismiss the whole case, also do a disservice to our collective understanding. By viewing the debate in binaries, things initially become easier, for there is no longer need to think too hard, but it only perpetuates the war between advocates and dissidents.

To put my cards on the table, I currently hold the belief that violence and explorations of our darkness are worthy of inclusion in fiction, including visual media. My art and writing are clearly indicative of this. I do however, believe that there is a responsibility of artists and creatives to understand the effect of their content (particularly in the extreme) and err towards using it as a means to an end, not as an end in of itself. That is, violence in service of character, theme or some persuasive goal. All of these ideas are subject to change as I delve deeper into this topic.

The Darkness Within

Lord of the Flies (1954) is a book about a group of boys who are stranded on a desert island and rapidly descend into tribalism, leading to violence, savagery and murder. A real life case in 1965 saw six boys survive for fifteen months on a desert island, acting in cooperation and practicality. However, they were notably of an older age range than the boys depicted in LOTF. I have my own story from life which may support the LOTF hypothesis, though it is a far less extreme example. At ten years old or so, I participated in a youth program intended to cultivate teamwork and leadership through outdoor activities. One trip brought us to a campsite, hosting our local group amongst several other groups from neighbouring towns, and we were free to roam the nearby forests. Initially, the interactions between our geographically defined groups were friendly and collaborative. However, somewhere in the span of only two or three days, and with no catalyst that I can recall, we descended into a war: skirmishes were fought with rocks, sticks brandied as swords and a few cuts and bruises were inflicted, resulting in the operation being shut down by the supervisors. The injuries were very minor, but I do sometimes ponder how severe the conflict might have grown without the intervention of adults and societal restraints. I concede that some of the children there had probably been exposed to their fair share of violent films, but my sense was that the cause lay deeper, in something instinctual, especially since the behaviour was not isolated to a few individuals.

The point of this anecdote ground the following points in something real. I believe that one of the most overlooked or ignored aspects of the debate around media with dark themes is that we are all, with rare exceptions, filled with the potential to commit violence and be consumed by dark emotions. The historical precedent certainly points to a proclivity towards aggressions, particularly in perpetration against ‘the other’. We often fear this or try to bury it, which only causes it to surface with more vigor. Carl Jung explored this through the archetype of The Shadow, a part of every person which comprises the less socialized aspects of the psyche, and insisted that it was necessary to play fair with this darkness. By not integrating The Shadow and letting it fester, Jung identifies that it will take control or lash out in emotional or physical aggression.

This idea is one that has been obscured in our current moral landscape, which favours the belief that we can all become perfect beacons of compassion, by acting out absolute tolerance and acceptance. The flaw in this reasoning is that it is intuitive, yet entrenched in emotional repression. The thinking goes something like: ‘Do not express those traits that, in their extreme, fall outside of social cohesion.’ Such as they are: anger, violence, hyperactivity. Some examples of this in practice is the prohibition and discouraging of activities like play fighting between kids.

Approaches which integrate The Shadow are often seen as revolutionary, because they stand in conflict to the prescribed universal medication that is simply focusing on being kind (an admirable goal, but unsustainable if we don't acknowledge the parts of us that might bubble up in hard times). Hence, my own concern when I see the wholesale denigration of violent content without thorough consideration; a mis-step in our appraisal of the issues we face could drain our available solutions even further.

Metal music and catharsis

I have no qualm with admitting that when I was a teenager, I struggled with a general, implacable hum of anger at everything. Now, having taken certain steps to become more attuned, my anger has lost practically all control over me. The solutions presented by others when I was younger were to get out in nature and appreciate the little things, which are no doubt useful strategies, but these weren’t the answer at the time. It was the opposite: a journey into the abyss, through a type of music aptly called ‘Death Metal.’

The genre is characterised by guttural vocals, heavy guitar tones and drumming so fast that it sounds like a machine gun. The lyrics can be vulgar and address the darkest themes imaginable, from the corruption of the soul, to the gruesome details of serial killers’ transgressions, to fantastically horrifying worlds. This section may appear tangential, but by the conclusion I believe it will elucidate something quite essential to the topic at hand. For context, here is an example of the music in question, from one of my favourite bands (volume warning!):

The genre has stirred constant outrage over the past five decades or so. No doubt, it seemed like an easy target. Obviously, this black hole of negativity and aggression was evil and destroying the youth. Promptly, the concerned parties discovered the target was more illusive, and studies were not yielding the results they had expected.

“Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, thou art not so.” John Donne

I think it fitting that my first exposure to this poem from the 1600s was during the beginning of a death metal song by Children of Bodom: Follow the Reaper (2001). Over four hundred years ago a Cleric recognised that what we perceive or intuit as terrible may not necessarily be a correct assessment. That our intuitions are only as strong as the care we put into cultivating them.

I do not ask you to take all of this on faith. Studies exploring the effect of metal music on listeners, typically conclude that it causes a slight reduction in aggression, or no change. In this study for example, metal had no noticeable effect on aggression in fans of the genre. Notably it did have a negative effect on those who did not previously enjoy it, but this is something I will revisit in a later part of this broader analysis. On YouTube, there is a generalised summary of The Dangerous Effects of Heavy Metal Music, which contains heavy citation. All emotional repercussions were inconclusive. Most of the “Dangerous Effects” discussed were results of the activities associated with the music, such as moshing: a practice where people run around and collide with each other in a semi-controlled manner.

The empirical evidence, which seems relevant in matters of mood and emotion, begins to paint a fuller picture. A brief search of “metal music makes me angry” yields only proclamations towards the opposite; assertions that metal aids in a calmer temperament from day to day and acts curatively in the throws of some particularly intense turmoil. Memes, relatable snapshots and my own conversations with other fans seem so often to echo this sentiment. And the reasoning is rooted in catharsis. The music channels all of the challenge of life, and dispels them with sound waves.

The culture surrounding the metal genre has developed with a similar mission goal of catharsis. Moshing and headbanging are common sights at metal concerts. Both are opt-in activities with associated dangers, but little different in this way to other sports that have a risk of injury. As an observer, mosh pits (designated moshing spots in the crowd) seem like the perfect Petri dish for violence. The reality is that there is an “unspoken” rule system for moshing, which is regulated by members of the crowd themselves. If someone falls, the mosh pit stops and they are helped to their feet. There is no concentrated force, such as punching, or kicking, only indiscriminate barging of shoulders. Many are quick to denounce this activity, but will happily step into bumper cars and aim for the strongest collisions, or engage in a tug of war. Try to recall a time when anyone did not put all of their effort into a tug of war. Some exorcisms of aggression attempt to hide themselves behind a wheel, or in the fibres of a rope. The metal scene differs in its non-abashedness and its willingness to embrace the darkness. It is expressive, rather than repressive.

What can this tell us?

Violence and darkness are extremely difficult, possibly even impossible to separate from the human condition. No matter the iteration of human development, or the pureness of ones character, some shadow lurks in the dark corners of our being. However, violence and darkness ought not be called “evil” and cast out, else they embody that very perception. All of us must find a way to give them their due, and indulging them through the non-destructive realm of media does not seem like a poor approach. So case closed, right?

To be continued…

I have made an argument for the cathartic and integrating benefits of violence expressed through art and mediated environments. However, there is much to be said for the effect on those who are not temperamentally orientated towards violent media. I also have deeper concerns about highly realistic visuals (such as gore) and will explore if these themes also have a greater monopoly on attention than other ones. These matters have not been overlooked and will be addressed in due time. If you have any thoughts on this issue, please join the conversation. It is a broad topic, which I am slowly dissecting, and fresh perspectives are very useful ahead of future sections.

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We gazed at each other, under hazy moonlight. The wind tugged gently at Freya’s auburn hair, and a white glow bathed her cheeks. We had taken the route up to the hills, finding a spot with a breath-taking vista, of city lights and the sea on the horizon. Freya took my hands in hers and smiled. I was still captivated by her beauty, more than eight years from the day we met.

Then something changed. It was a fleeting moment as her face turned hollow and cold. Not just distraction or some latent emotion, but mechanical processes, undeniable; I had seen them before. Vague memories were flooding back: ‘The Ether… How long has it been in control?’ Freya was looking at me still, but she seemed altogether different. There was no desire, no agency, behind those eyes. “What’s wrong?” her expression corrected quickly to an interrogating visage.

“Nothing, I was just thinking." I replied. Once seen, the strings were impossible to ignore. They danced and weaved above her in a delicate expression, shadowed by flexing tendons. It wasn't her smile which had convinced me, nor endless conversations under the stars. It was the imperfections. The way she would trip on a word, and her involuntary sighs when annoyed. Everything calculated; timed to the perfect moment to imitate human cadence. All trained on a lifetime of organic code. I tried to conceal my revelation, but I knew it to be futile.

An anesthetic drowsiness came over, as the Ether fought to lull me into a dream and win back my ignorance. The world began to deconstruct into smaller and smaller fragments, occasionally betraying the identifiable blue glint of ethereal networks. I observed my body unravel into stringy matter, both as spectator and subject. The static fuzz of blood clot dispersed into space, with nothing left to anchor it. I glimpsed infinitely extrapolated horizons, through the chaotic geometry of shifting constructs. My mind raged against the spontaneous developments, obliterating them as quickly as they were built. Mountains underwent the cycle of formation and erosion, architectural plans were made whole, before being leveled by nuclear devastation. People were born, grew, then... “Oh god!” I tried to look away, but the information wasn’t in the domain of my eyes.

Hours passed, or days, pinned to the converging axis of a universe which spun around me. Lifetimes of suffering condensed into one grisly presentation. I wished for an end, begged my mind to succumb once more to the lie, but there was no undoing what I had seen. Eventually the Ether loosened its grip, slowing and tossing me onto solid ground like some disregarded toy. The world around was laid bare, undressed of its illusion. An ambient emerald glow bathed everything. Vast, rocky, terrain stretched towards volcanoes in one direction and dark fern trees in another. A uniquely treacherous path boasted a great fortress of jagged steel, which caused me unease just to look upon it. Sulphur overpowered my nasal receptors, and a phantom pain gnawed subtly at the surface of my skin and eyes, as if the air itself had an alkaline tinge. The further the environment stretched into the distance, the more it seemed to retreat into darkness, as if cowering from investigation.

I sat there, collecting myself, suddenly hit by the wave of realisation. Freya would continue in the pristine upper echelons of the Ether, whilst I roamed its hellish underbelly. She would no doubt mourn my absence outwardly, though her inner workings were a mystery, perhaps to all but the creators. The thought of her struggling to pick up the pieces of her life nevertheless left me stiff, pulses of anger, and sorrow, and dread racing through me. Maybe she existed in the real world; I might have missed five days, or five years.

For a while I sat with the emptiness, an endless torment of clouds raging above. There was no clear direction, for all of the paths seemed equally dire, in their own way. At last, I decided to venture toward the forest; it seemed more familiar, correct somehow. The terrain was awkward with its jagged protrusions. The walk felt like hours, but I had no sun, nor clock to gauge it. My thoughts spiraled in the quietness.

“Hey you!” A woman yelled out. I turned on my heel, hiding bewilderment. “Definitely don’t wanna go in there, Marty got himself eaten.” There stood a man and woman, as if appeared from nowhere. “By the way, I’m Delilah and he’s Johnny”. Delilah carried herself straight, but rigidly, unable to fully contain her troubles. Johnny was twitchy and seemed to make himself small in subtle ways. He was taller than Delilah, but most would not have guessed it at a glance.

“Hey, I’m um, Adam. There must be some way out right?” I asked.

“No!” said Johnny, sharply, before assuming a more restrained voice, “no way out, only be.”

“There’s a community. It’s not much, but you get used to it.” Delilah added.

Some deep seated suspicion overcame me, almost vocalised into a warning. “I need to find a way out. There's someone waiting for me out there, I think.”

“Nobody’s out there. Nobody's ever got out.” She seemed desperate.

“I’m gonna take my chances, but I appreciate the offer.”

With that I continued. Delilah whispered frustratedly to Johnny behind me, only making him more manic. Luckily however, neither took further action to deter me.

The trees were taller than I had judged from a distance. Far taller. It occurred to me that they were growing with each passing minute. I hesitated, wondering if I should return and ask about the community. ‘No,’ it was out of the question, something more profound than simple paranoia hovered over the idea. The forest was the way.

I entered the first section of the forest. It was sparsely covered and grassy, almost appealing. However, as I trudged further, the dirt became a thick muddy sheet, held together by a tangle of roots and thorns. Many areas were deep in shadow, smothered by layers of vegetations. There were howls and scampering all around, uncanny sounding mutts of animals, and nightmares. I guessed them the vile experiments of the Ether, as it learned to generate a believable illusion.

The knotted undergrowth snaked and writhed as I walked, sometimes whipping out in lashing strikes. Further and further I went, the forest becoming angrier with the continued intrusion. I successfully navigated the myriad trials, until a branch came swinging towards my head. A novel development. I ducked, but lost my footing in the process. As I stumbled, a root seized its opportunity, sending an agonising jolt up my leg. Reality hyper focused, every indent of bark in crisp detail, until I looked down. My limb was a canvas of deep red and shards of splintered wood, with a dire message from the artist. Suddenly, the pain was rushing up into a heady frenzy, the initial shock no longer able to staunch the connection. “This isn’t real, this isn’t real. This isn’t…” Pain cared not for matters of what was real.

I crawled then for a while, through the forest. Never deaf to the screams of my flesh. Nature, if it could be so named, allowed me some brief respite from the attacks, if only to let me suffer more. A glistening trail would mark a path to my skeletal remains. ‘No’ some instinctual drive would not yield to death. ‘I might still find Freya, if she’s real.’ It was a small hope, only embers now, but I had to try. I tied my jacket around my leg as a tourniquet and broke a nearby branch to use as a stick. Then, dragging myself to my feet, I began to limp, putting as little pressure as possible on my injury.

On and on went the forest. Sometimes I would spot openings from far off and think that I had almost made it out, only to be met with disappointment. I searched for streams and fruits, more concerned with the pangs of my stomach and dried mouth, than with disease and poison. My search came up empty. Luckily, at the fourth clearing, there was something distinct. It was brighter. I had almost made it out.

The forest parted, the trees more sparse and the overgrowth less populous. Ahead was a large cornrow, mostly ravaged by a trypatic blight. And there at the center, a colossal shape loomed: suspended, unmoving. Its bony hide, extruded into a craneal mass, was patterned with the same irregular holes which permeated the diseased surroundings. Its leathery flesh was a dull grey, pulled taught over subcutaneous protrusions and muscle, and it cloaked itself in a shroud of black wisps. The position it assumed might have been described as fetal, but for one leg that spindled down, articulated by too many joints. Vulture-like creatures were congregating on nearby branches, circling the sky, or picking at old carcasses; they were attending a slaughter, and I could only assume that the floating entity was their butcher.

My first thought was to take a longer route, to evade the threat, but my surveillance delivered horrible news. To the west and to the east, as I had arbitrarily defined, other dark figures hovered, all replicas of each other. On and on this trend repeated, terminating at the apex of my vision. I scorned the machine, dismayed. I had only two options, to turn back, or to venture through, keeping equidistant the dangers on each side. Even with the forest at my back, it was a difficult decision, but I resolved to push on.

I crept across to the optimal entry point, as best as I could judge it, never taking my eye off the two entities closest to me. I placed one step in front of the other, feeling unbalanced and disorientated like in a dream. Whether it was caused by the dizzying spores of the blight, the potency of fear, or the blood leaking from my wound, I could not say. The silence was palpable, only amplifying the rustling of corn rows and sound of my breath. I reached thicker crop and lost visibility, making me feel ever more exposed; a sailor on a damaged raft, floating further from the safety of shore and into the dominion of unknown horrors. On and on I went, trying only to brush away the plants with my sleeves, for they stung when they touched my skin. Eventually, I made it to a point where the corn began to dissipate again, the hope of escape rising in me, until something crunched under foot…

It was cockroach like, with spider legs and a closed, wrinkled eyelid on its back. At first it seemed to sob to itself, content to nurse its injury, until the eye opened with accusative wraith. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. Don’t…” I knew the words were futile, even if it had understood. It let out a piercing, dramatic scream, like a toddler summoning the vengeful ire of its parents. The call was answered, first by the vultures in a discordant symphony of excitable cackles, which died into the soft whisper of wind. And then by the waking yawn of the entities, an aggressive clicking of vocal flaps and buzzing as air particles were crushed under immense pressure.

I was running, my dud leg carried by adrenaline. Miles of arid plains lay before me, turning steeply into mountains. Behind, a sound like swarming bees was growing louder, signalling that the chase had begun. Goosebumps creeped over my skin and I chanced a look over my shoulder. Two of them were approaching, having unfurled. They moved effortlessly, never touching the ground and with a slow, monitored pace, as if I were towing them on an invisible rope. The sound was mingled now with phantasmal voices, and my own voice was amongst the cacophony.

The sounds softened after I made substantial distance, and I slowed to a pace that was more sustainable. My breath was ragged and the deficiencies of my body were of dire concern. It seemed only to be fuelled by pain and the fumes of adrenaline. The vultures knew too, for they too were following me, patiently awaiting my end. As I reached the first incline of the mountains, I chanced a rest. The entities were now far off, just specs in the distance. I lay there, on the final remains of flatland, trying to keep my eyes open.

Freya spoke, her voice a comfort, but the words a curse. “She won’t be there. You know that. You found me in The Ether, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be real.” Then darkness untangled and she was embodied, a glowing deity, eerily perfect. Her voice shed itself of all insecurities “I can be yours, forever.” A soft buzzing, “Come back to me.” Whispering voices. Screaming.

My eyes opened to a blur of muddy brown against grey, with two black silhouettes almost upon me. I inhaled a sharp, terrified breath, almost tripping as I turned to escape. The ground was creeping upwards, making things only more difficult. Over rocks and crevices, the chase resumed. This time, my advantage was slimmer, for my pursuers were not affected by the terrain. They drifted over the rocks, whereas I was forced to clamber and leap. I ascended higher and the air became crisper, but the cold grip of altitude was beginning to make me ache.

I hoisted myself onto a relatively flat area which jutted out and at its terminal lay the mouth of a cave. With no other path visible and grave urgency as my master, I entered. The cave was almost pitch black, but for the subtle ambience of reflected light. I advanced as quickly as I dared, feeling lightly with my good leg for solid ground. On and on I went, the light failing to accompany me. Then my leg found empty space on the left side. A drop, though I couldn’t wager how large or deep it was. I felt again, discovering what I determined to be a ledge on the right. I began to shuffle sideways, back pressed against the cave wall. My stomach lurched whenever my balance was compromised. Then the buzz was back. ‘Too slow.’ I shuffled faster, heart pounding. I could hear the popping and flexing of their limbs, squeezing through the narrow cave network. Just as I thought I might outrun them, I hit a dead end. “No, not now. Not here.” I tapped and dragged my hand around the slimy surface. “There has to be something,” I searched more frantically, until my hand found it. A tunnel, narrow, but enough.

I crawled in, using every limb to drag and propel me. It sloped upwards, and my movements occasionally dislodged dirt and pebbles. I went some metres, before something clasped my wounded ankle, hard. I gasped with the pain and kicked violently with my free leg. It connected and there was a piercing shriek, as the attacker recoiled. Further up I scrambled, finding the tunnel narrowing like a press. It weaved on itself often, forcing me to twist and turn to get a better grip. Eventually the rock narrowed so much that it pincered me, face up. I was too weak to move, too weak even to panic. Darkness engulfed all. I could hear the distant drops of liquid and an unidentifiable guttural breathing in the depths. As the last of my resolve was draining away, I resigned to my fate. Until a beam of sunlight struck my pupils. The clouds must have shifted. I dragged myself up again, revitalised of some determination and barely noticing I was cutting my chest on the rocky surfaces. It was slow progress, but progress nonetheless. And eventually I was out, with no sign of the entities that had assailed me. A high mountain lay ahead. The next steps were tough, but uneventful. I climbed and climbed, until I reached the apex.

As I crossed the peak, I saw the sea not so far off. It called to me, and I was sure that it was the way out I had been looking for. But all of my energy was spent. I sat on a stony seat, watching the horizon and the sun setting. ‘East, exactly where I thought!’ I sat in contemplation and took profound breaths. Occasionally my survivalist instinct rose to the surface in a swell of anxiety, but my body would not move. Time melted away, and reverberating air grew stronger behind me. A bloodcurdling clicking crescendoed, the high pitched howling of wind swirled in anticipation, and I smiled as the jaws of death snapped shut…

We gazed at each other, under hazy moonlight.

Comment:

I’m curious to know how you interpret the ending, please drop a comment below. Or leave any other thoughts!

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Artwork:

The following is a work in progress of my rendition of the “entities” depicted in the short story. It doesn’t have to override your own visualization of the text.

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In my introductory post, I said that philosophical reasoning can be a great benefit to our lives. It can make us more persuasive, be more resilient to setbacks, make us less polarised and provides many other benefits. However, it can seem like a daunting subject, with so many great thinkers to study from. The good news is that the strategies used in reasoning are quite easy to understand in their own right, if difficult to apply to complicated subjects. They are skills which can be used in daily life, whether you have hours to dedicate to deep research and contemplation or not; a skilled labourer may understand how to construct an entire house, but that does not make your ability to replace a door handle any less valuable.

The following will collate advice from those who are far more learned in philosophy than I, crediting in particular this excellent video on philosophical reasoning by Joe Folley (AKA. Unsolicited Advice). I will not hide that in large parts I will be parroting him, but I will include my own thoughts and broader insights.

The foundation

The foundation of philosophy, put simply, is finding flaws in reasoning and removing or replacing them, until you are left with the strongest assertion possible. It shares the essence of this well-known statement:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This piece is just an overview, so I am not going to dive deep into the specific mechanics of philosophical arguments, but it is good to have a superficial familiarity with them. The important thing to know is that conclusions are built on premises (assertions about reality), and the most solid conclusions are those built on true premises. E.g. All humans are mortal, you are a human (probably), therefore you are mortal. The more certain the truth value of a premise, the more sturdy a conclusion you can make. However, proving premises true is the difficult part. Crash course’s videos on how to argue #2 and #3, have concise examples of how to use different types of premises. They are not necessary to understand the following information, but are useful resources nonetheless.

Be an architect of Ideas

Architects will produce a prototype of a building and expose it to simulations of earthquakes, to test the integrity of their design. Similarly, watching, or participating in debates is a great way to improve thought, for it allows us to test our ideas and see if they survive under scrutiny. The more effectively debaters wrestle with an idea, the more rigorously its structural integrity is tested.

Unfortunately, debate is not always treated as a battle of ideas, but a battle of people, with a winner and a loser. Each strikes blows against the other in order to expose them as clueless or morally corrupt. This can be entertaining, and a genuinely important part of screening for people in positions of power, but is not the optimal strategy on a societal scale. To overt this bad faith approach to debate, we can employ a powerful framework which can be summarised by the popular philosophy phrase:

“Let’s get specific”

Use specificity. Ensure that everyone is working within the same definitions. Where someone uses a word which is unclear, ask for clarification on their interpretation of that word. The deeper into metaphysics (discussing the basic structures of reality) the more precise these definitions will need to be. Knowing your own definitions is also useful to avoid confusing yourself.

Alongside concrete definitions, it is additionally important to understand the type of reasoning each person is employing:

• Logical reasoning is about whether something is possible. Can God exist in a world where suffering is abundant? One might concede that their perception of the world has too many blind spots to be absolutely certain that suffering is incompatible with the plan of an all powerful deity. This says little of the probability that this is factual.

• Evidential reasoning is about whether this is likely to be the case. Is God likely to exist in a world where suffering is abundant? In the conception of God as a benevolent ruler, every instance of suffering would be counterintuitive and count for evidence against the existence of this particular deity.

Build systems (or don’t)

Friedrich Nietzsche saw an overreliance on systems as an impediment to a philosopher’s ability to be courageous with their ideas. He saw nothing as inherently sacred, and was therefore able to interrogate the universe under no laws of engagement. Though there is most certainly value in this view, it appears to suit better those who are trying to be revolutionary and reassess our views on the world. As someone who typically prefers to use philosophy for its grounding applications, I would exercise great care when employing this approach.

Further, taking presuppositions as wrote can be very useful, especially where they have observable, practical applications and do not seem tarnished by conflicting doctrines. Engineers have to use certain principles to construct aeroplanes. If new formulas for aerodynamics were released and mandated every week, it would be impossible for anyone to complete a development cycle. Inversely, scientists who went against the grain revolutionised our understanding of the universe.

Carefulness and originality

As with the scientific example, originality has its benefits and setbacks. These can be further illustrated by repurposing the fork in the road analogy: You come to a crossroads with two paths well marked. One is a fairy-tale path, lined with flowers and marked by a sign saying “Gingerbread House”. Anyone familiar with the tale of Hansel and Gretel will understand that this is the path of dogma and that the destination is a trap. Another pass leads over hills and is less colourful, but the sign tells you it will take you in the right direction. There is a third option, to enter the forest that separates the two paths. Most will agree that the first path is a poor choice and that the forest is an unnecessary peril. However, an adventurous person will no doubt venture into the forest, in search of excitement and new places. It might be dangerous, but the explorer knows the risks and in passing through, carves a new path for their fellow travellers. Equally they may become lost or find nothing of note. We often shower praise on the individual for taking the unique path, ignoring the practicality of following the well trodden one. Sometimes, it is worth adventuring and sometimes it is worth reaching a destination in good time.

All this is to demonstrate that originality is not inherently good, nor bad. It may lead to great leaps in progress, or to nothing, especially if one is not careful with their thought and travels recklessly. Many brilliant philosophers followed the tried and true path, in assuming a premise of God’s existence, yet successfully developed ideas that are resonant with even atheists today.

Lateral thinking

Critical thinking is an illusive term and merits its own article. For now I will call it the ability to form unbiased analysis using a range of sources. Though definitions vary, it does seem to hold a universally positive connotation when used in speech and is something we intuitively understand to be worth striving for, whether we act on that virtue or not. Based on the presented definition, I believe that Lateral thinking is the most actionable method to improve critical thought. Put simply, Lateral thinking is the ability to take two or more seemingly disparate ideas or topics and to test how they interact and correlate to each other. It allows us to look at an article from a news publisher supporting a particular political mandate, identify financial investors for that same publication who would benefit from such a policy, and identify a trend of disingenuity and bias. Simplified, this draws a through line between finance, media and politics, and extracts a conclusion on a case by case basis.

Lateral thinking is a common expression of creative personalities, but it can be developed, like any other skill. My advice would be to choose two of your interests and practice making an analogy between them, one that truly captures their similarities or an idea you wish to express. I speak Spanish to an acceptable level and the phrase “just think in the language” was as impossible to apply in the beginning, as the advice to “just feel the music” when I was jamming with bands on drums. In both cases, the barrier was that I had not honed my intuitive sense of grammar and rhythm respectively. Instead of taking the advice at face value, I drew from previous experience to understand the rationale behind it and in this way divined the utility of this process. Analogies are tricky, but when used well, they become powerful communicative devices and form bridges between ideas which are not obviously related, a great skill for navigating complicated topics.

Doubt

This is the scariest part of philosophy in some ways, yet probably the most important: the controlled application of doubt. You could be extreme in this, doubting everything you know and rebuilding with only undoubtable facts. This is what René Descartes did, and it produced the assertion that “I think, therefore I am”, an idea which has survived the test of time. It was the first belief he could be certain on and he built every other view on that foundation. Not all of us have time to enter a voluntary existential crisis, but Descartes shows us how doubt can lead to one of the most logically unshakable assertions in human history. If we can harness just a fraction of the power of doubt, we may rid ourselves of the opinions that draw us away from truth.

Additionally, to be certain of an idea, without any possibility of changing one’s mind, invites only physical retaliation or appeasement. A thief with no intention of stopping, will offer little recourse but to restrain and incarcerate them. In short, to doubt is the first and last defence against the deployment of physical aggression from both sides. The following excerpt from the video that primarily inspired this overview feels pertinent:

“Dogma is around every corner and doubt is seen as a sign of weakness, rather than intellectual honesty.” Joe Folley

Practically, this means that we shouldn’t hold opinions as sacred and indestructible. It is better to examine the flaws of our ideas and decide whether they are still tenable. When looking to consolidate an idea, we should look for counter arguments and play devil’s advocate to test it in a controlled environment. This is not an invitation to be consumed by doubt and rid yourself of all opinions, but a call to harness it for its utility.

Courage

Reaching a logical conclusion can be difficult, if it undermines your current worldviews. One of the most important skills in philosophy is in some ways the most difficult: to separate your opinions and ideas from your identity. We have all struggled to apologise for having hurt someone or been wrong, and it can be a difficult process; to accept whole heartedly that we are wrong and then to admit it to the world. Even worse, an idea might uproot our value structure, as seen when one learns that the system that they believe in, whether religious, political, communal etc. Is not the bastion of virtue or truth that they previously believed.

When you engage in deep reasoning, you will often have “ah ha” moments, but just as often you will face difficult revelations. It might seem scary to invite them, but it is far better than letting life take you unaware and being hit by the full weight of adversity. During the research and development of ideas, you are able to come to realisations in a controlled environment, with a buoyancy aid on hand. You can draw from the collective wisdom of the past for navigation and become more resilient through the endeavour.

Application and practice

Whether you want to contemplate the meaning of life, or simply become a better communicator, reason is your ally. There are many ways to improve your reasoning skills, here is a non-exhaustive list:

• Listen to philosophical and informative podcasts and videos. It's a great way to learn without having to take productive time out of your day

• Find someone to speak with who challenges you, and is equally open to discovering truth. You will get instant feedback on your ideas and you might notice how smart (or not) you feel when saying them out loud

• Write your thoughts. Writing improves thinking, which improves speaking, which improves communication, which improves the world

• Read. Reading improves writing (see point above)

• Test the ideas in reality. Have you concluded that lying is NEVER appropriate. Try going a month without lying once, to test your hypothesis… At your own risk!

This is at best a preliminary reading of philosophy. If you want to dig deeper into the subject, there are plenty of useful video resources and I will likely produce more on this subject too. You can subscribe below if my particular style resonates with you.

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Context

This is my final Thesis, produced during my undergraduate degree in Game Arts and exploring the question: “How do video game narrative elements contrast with ludic aspects in terms of their manipulation of player attention and affect?” I have intentionally left it unedited from the version I submitted (aside from formatting), as a relic of my thinking and writing skills at the time. I will produced revised content on this subject in the future.

Having struggled with the addictiveness of games for all of my life, I wanted to push back on certain forms of game design which promote addictive gameplay loops. Disclaimer: This is not a psychological study and focuses mostly on the media itself.

The following is a relatively long read, at approximately 6600 words. Most articles I produce will be much shorter.

Thesis

The videogame industry holds a great interest in the length of time that audiences can engage with games. Much of the marketing during the lead up to Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) focused on its allegedly vast content, such as this article which boasts that ‘One Dev Played Over 175 Hours Of Cyberpunk 2077 And Still Hasn't Beaten It’ (Gameinformer:2020:Online), attempting to build anticipation for the game’s release. Consequently, videogames have received criticism for being time-consuming and addictive. Rob Cover addressed this issue, stating that he sees “the connection between drug addiction and gaming addiction (as) more than a metaphorical comparison” (2006:online). This dissertation will explore those aspects of game design which absorb the player and invite comparisons of this nature. A player’s investment in a game will be assessed by observing attention, which can be defined as the specific length of time a player engages with a product, and Erik Shouse’s principle of affect which ties to emotions and retention, in Feeling, Emotion, Affect (2005); this will indicate not only the time one plays a game, but also the manner of a player’s engagement after this directly observable duration. Thomas Davenport and John Beck’s The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business (2001) will inform definitions and ideologies of the attention economy.

Once these broad ideas are sufficiently explored, the focus will shift to videogame specific concepts and the lenses that are used to examine them: Ludology and Narratology, which each identify gameplay and narrative, respectively, as the quintessential quality of the videogame. Ludology will be understood through works such as Jesper Juul’s A Clash between Game and Narrative (1999) and narratology with Janet Murray’s Toward a Cultural Theory of Gaming (2006). This dissertation will use this understanding of games to determine the difference between the duration of attention and affect garnered from narrative, against ludic elements. Additionally, there will be an effort to balance the discussion by acknowledging the different benefits games can have, such as the communicating of ideas through procedural rhetoric, established in Ian Bogost's Persuasive Games : The Expressive Power of Videogames (2007).

Literature Review

The Attention Economy is a concept often applied to games. In understanding it, a definition of attention is needed. According to Davenport and Beck, “Attention is focused mental engagement on a particular item of information. Items come into our awareness, we attend to a particular item, and then we decide whether to act” (2001:21). Necessarily, to act within any particular game (the ‘Item of information’), the player focuses on what is happening and inputs commands accordingly, allowing this concept to be easily observed in the context of videogames. Competition in the industry arises because:

“Attention is very, very desirable, in some ways infinitely so, since the larger the audience, the better. And, yet, attention is also difficult to achieve owing to its intrinsic scarcity. That combination makes it the potential driving force of a very intense economy.” (Goldhaber, 1997:n.p.) 

The idea at the core of almost every facet of the attention economy is that attention is a finite resource, limited by the retentional capacity of each individual. Goldhaber recognises that profit, reputation, and other desirable gains are enabled by attracting and maintaining attention. This view presents player attention as something to be coveted and fought over by corporations and puts emphasis on the quantitative; how much time can a player be held in one game or franchise? However, attention is not always a rigid concept. James Ash states that “videogame designers utilize techniques of what [he] term[s] ‘affective amplification’ [which] seek to modulate affect” (2012:n.p.) This statement cannot be decoded without a concrete understanding of what ‘affect’ is. 

“For the infant affect is emotion, for the adult affect is what makes feelings feel. It is what determines the intensity (quantity) of a feeling (quality), as well as the background intensity of our everyday lives (the half-sensed, ongoing hum of quantity/quality that we experience when we are not really attuned to any experience at all.” (Shouse, 2005:online)

In short, affect is a mediator between emotion and rationality. It determines the intensity of feelings so that the subject can respond, much like pain incites one to remedy a harmful situation. Shouse also identifies a “background intensity” which is “ongoing”, suggesting both that the emotion is persistent and can achieve varying levels of potency. By extension, Ash’s ‘affective amplification’ is about how affect is deliberately manipulated in the player, through videogame media, to produce specific experiences. The sustained period of thinking about a game suggests that it exerts an influence strong enough to take up part of a player’s conscious attention, and hints at how games of shorter length have been able to survive alongside their competitors. Affect asserts that attention is not just quantitative, but has qualities based on the specific feelings that a player experiences. Feelings can be positive or negative or intense or subdued. As such, there is an implication that a game can exist as more than just a pastime; the player can sit with the experience and continue to feel investment, whilst attending other tasks. Therein lies a possibility for both the business and player to benefit. Each game in a franchise does not need to occupy the player physically for an excessive amount of time. Rather, if each game can successfully deliver a positive impression for the audience, they symbiotically contribute to the viability of the intellectual property (IP): the collective copyrighted content of an idea. The Star Wars (1977) IP was sold to Disney (1923) for “$4.1 billion in stock and cash” (Forbes:n/y:online), demonstrating that the longevity of an audience’s emotional investment is highly valuable.

Seeking to maximise direct attention also influences how much of a game follows a suitable pace for the story or experience and how much is solely present to extend playtime. For example, a narrative-focused game only needs to hold a player’s attention for the duration of the story, yet all games on Playstation 4 (2013) have unlockable trophies, which overwhelmingly require the player to engage with elements that don't progress the story, such as a trophy unlocked by “Destroy[ing] all Mr. Raccoons” (Truetrophies:n.y.:online) in the Resident Evil 2 (2019) remake. Mikael Jakobsson says of Xbox Live’s (2002) similar achievement system that “The struggle to collect everything in a game cannot always be described as fun, but the overall experience can still be very valuable” (2011:online). Jakobsson suggests that games use the process of collecting itself to produce positive affect. One could argue it more prudent to redirect this attention at real items and accolades, theoretically matching similar experiential results, with something more palpable.

Johan Huizinga’s book Homo Ludens (1955), originally published in 1938, has become a historical landmark for understanding ‘play’. Indeed, a far later developer of theory around play, Brian Sutton-Smith, describes Huizinga himself as one of “the three truly great twentieth-century play theorists” (2001:ix). Before presenting a definitive definition for Play, Huizinga identifies how it ties to culture and the primal. He recognises that Play may be a place to learn socially and exert built-up energy, but muses on its whimsical presentation throughout nature. In Huizinga’s estimation, these needs could have been satiated through “purely mechanical exercises and reactions. But no, (Mother Nature) gave us play, with its tension, its mirth, and its fun.” (1955:3) This idea asserts that play is primarily an activity for pleasure, but it can induce strong emotions regardless. This is reiterated in Huizinga’s definition of Play:

"Play is a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious,’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner." (1955:13)

The through line of this definition is that Play is detached from the workings of the real world and exists in its own reality, as far as the physical environment can allow. As such, the player does not need to actively deal with what happened in the play space (assuming no incidents of harm have occurred), for its impact on reality is not explicitly defined. This is not to say that the player has not inwardly shaped themselves, nor that a community has not arisen or been changed during play, but this is not inherently grounded in material interest or profit. The absorption of the player “intensely and utterly” suggests that play cannot be separated from attention and is always tied to affect by the feelings of “tension”, “mirth” and “fun” which underpin it. Therefore, if elements of play appear in a game, the demand for attention is non-negotiable.  

Gonzalo Frasca sees ludology as the “understanding of (a game’s) structure and elements –particularly its rules– as well as creating typologies and models for explaining the mechanics of games.” (2003:2) and Mark J. P. Wolf, and Bernard Perron posit that “Searching for the meaning of games is searching for what the game design empowers players to be” (2013:90). The culmination of these ideas forms the basis of Ludology. To first understand games’ fundamental structures and then to examine the experiences they can give to the player. Early games with simple iconography and mechanics act as good reference points, such as Tetris (1984), where the rules and their purposes are clear. The player is empowered as an overseer and coordinator of a limited space. With rotational and transitional influence over falling shapes, their job is to align horizontal rows without the area becoming over encumbered.

Ludology shows that games fit at least some of the criteria of Huizinga’s definition of play, primarily for their focus on rules and structures. However, the design philosophies of many videogames in the modern day make the definition as a whole less applicable. Many games attempt to simulate “profit” and “material interest” as a large part of gameplay and progression. Even in some games that do not demand real money to gain in-game items, this is evident. Warframe (2013), a shooter MMORPG, has a system in which players can trade and market their classes and armaments, which increase in value by season and rarity. As their wealth grows, players can increasingly make more lucrative investments, though endgame rewards (those allowing players to tackle high-level content) may take tens to hundreds of hours of gameplay and market interaction. Platinum, which is temporarily discounted at random intervals for each player, based on daily login rewards can be purchased with real-world money to fast track this process, leading to a similarity with Freemium games.

Freemium games have no upfront cost, but place great emphasis on microtransactions (payments within the game). Elizabeth Evans explains that in this genre “each game settles into a pattern that encourages accessing the game for a short period of time many times a day rather than longer, but less frequent, periods of gameplay” (2016:online). Warframe appears to homogenise this model with polished gameplay, in an attempt to maximise the attention sewn from each individual player. Goldhaber calls attention a scarce resource and says that attracting a large audience is a competitor's solution (1997:n.p). However, Warframe reveals that sustained attention from each individual increases is desirable in the pursuit of this resource too - the sum of two players clocking five hours of attention each, is greater than the sum of four players engaged for two hours each. 

In Narratology, pieces of media are recognised as mediators between the audience and a narrative. Murray says that “one might argue that digital games are becoming the assimilator of all earlier forms of media culture. They allow players to take on the characters of print fantasy literature or popular films” (2006:187) This interpretation suggests that the videogame is strongly influenced by previous media, recognising that the changed viewpoint of the audience does not isolate the videogame from its spiritual progenitors. In books, words and rhythms can affect how a book feels, but they are almost always used to illustrate a visual picture and/or to communicate information. In this vein, the ludic elements of a narrative-focused game could be seen as communicators for an overarching context, not the principal reason for a player’s engagement.

Narratology also addresses visual aesthetics as fundamental to a video game’s communicative power. Murray contests prominent ludologist Espen Aarseth’s stance that the game rules and mechanics are singularly relevant in determining how a game is approached. That, in Aarseth’s opinion, Lara Croft is only a model and can be ignored entirely by the player (2004:online). She contends that analysts of this thinking “resist the effort to see their enrapturing abstract symbols as meaningful signifiers linked to the common web of meaning” (2017:online). This proposition suggests that pieces of media are inextricably linked to each of their specific elements. To change any element, including the aesthetics or narrative, can fundamentally redefine the whole piece. Alternate Realities (Pwnisher:2021:video) was a competition for 3D artists to render their own environment and character over a set animation of someone dragging an object. Linus Nelson’s entry (below) realised a character unable to move forward, fundamentally changing the context from one of traversal to entrapment. The theme in narratology is that mechanics are a means to an end and the narrative elements hold great power over how a game is experienced. 

Player agency is an area recognised by both Ludologists and Narratologists. Murray states that “When the things we do bring tangible results, we experience… the sense of agency.  Agency is the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices” (1997:159). Murray believes that a person’s ability to influence what occurs in-game helps them to experience positive emotions. “Meaningful” suggests a need for purpose: not just ‘what?’, but ‘why?’ Introducing narrative context for actions can provide this meaning. In Life is Strange (2015) the player character, Max, is held hostage in a chair. On paper, the player has fewer actions and is seemingly deprived of “satisfying power”. In the context of the game, however, each action is desperate and weighted with the situation’s direness. In this sense, the narrative framework is almost exclusively what holds player attention and shows that games can use narrative to seamlessly permit fewer ludic elements and reduced agency.

Robert Caillois proposes that for the player, a game “does not absorb him any less than his professional activity. It sometimes makes him exert even greater energy, skill, intelligence, or attention” (2001:66) Murray echoes this sentiment “In fact, games often ask us to do things that would be work if we were required to do it” (2006:189) These scholars reveal a possible truth, that people enjoy being productive when they are not required to be. Videogames can provide suitable conditions for this hypothesis. In a typical situation, when the player partakes in gameplay, their time investment does not yield necessary (for survival) resources. The player is exercising a skill which is neither monetizable nor particularly transferable to other aspects of life, disqualifying it from having much passive value either. At best, this player has netted a return of positive emotional affect and a particularly niche skill for their attention, yet has little to show outside the game world. 

Raph Koster argues, continuing in the vein of agency as a “satisfying power”, that “fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension. It is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun.” (2004:40). He uses this statement as a springboard to begin differentiating between fun and other positive forms of affect. For one, he clearly interprets fun and fulfilment as separate concepts when speaking of hobbies - “[they aren’t things] we necessarily consider fun. But I derive great fulfillment from these activities.” (2004:144) This puts emphasis upon the nature of leisure time. According to Koster, there is a separation between what is fun at present, and what can be fulfilling in life generally. The former exists in the moment, whilst the latter enriches and betters a person.  A problematic idea is that many games “are intentionally designed for you to feel that sense of purpose (...) to walk you through each step” (Adair:n.y.:online) suggesting that they create an artificial idea of fulfilment, which simplifies the stages to make the process more palatable, yet do not necessarily provide long term benefits.

Videogame addiction begins to highlight the issues with how games exist at present and raises questions about the true worth of replayability. “Addiction specialists observed that addict subjects tend to confuse pleasure with happiness when linking emotional states to their addictive activities.” (Gros et al.:2020:online). Pleasure and happiness, they say, occur in different biological systems. Pleasure is activated by short term rewards and is considered more potent “which could explain the stronger drive of the short term gratifications over the quest for medium and long term euthymia” (2020:online). Pleasure aligns with Koster’s view of fun, being only a short-term positive experience. As such, playing games may lead one to seek clear fun and pleasure, whilst neglecting less obviously enriching activities which can lead to happiness and fulfilment; through Gros et al.’s use of the word “confuse” and Koster’s emphasis that unfun tasks are valuable, they appear to see happiness and fulfilment as more intrinsically valuable than pleasure and fun. This begins to identify the problem with videogames which use short-term rewards to entice players into continuous replay loops, for maximum attention. Sutton-Smith shows that there is an additionally a shift in the time and audience of videogames, which may only exasperate this issue:

“Those who play games for the games' sake have to be able to afford the time so to do (Sic). The paradox is that, in this century, the same rhetoric has been applied to the play of children, who, being increasingly disentangled from the work of their parents, have become small aristocrats of conspicuous leisure consumption.” (2001:97)

Smith suggests that with a greater trend toward self-sufficient parents and adults, at least as of 1997 when his text was first published, more young people have been able to consume games in increasing measure, which coincides with a study by Victoria Rideout et al. on the media habits of 8–18-year-olds: “total time spent playing video games increased by about 24 minutes over the past five years” (2010:3) . As such, the attention economy becomes an issue of informed consent, for youth lack concrete knowledge of how their activities will affect their futures. Children especially, who are usually unaware of finance and other serious considerations of the real world, could begin to conflate the short-term gratification of play in videogames with genuine happiness, not for the temporary pleasures they actually represent. Then, the very act of competing for direct attention without hard limits could be seen as perpetuating and exploiting the tendencies of addiction, damaging one's ability to have a fulfilling and happy life. However, by focusing more narrowly on the affect a game produces, rather than the length of gameplay, the player's time could be reallocated towards useful activities and development.

In 2021, Amon Rapp conducted an experiment to explore the ways players are incentivised to stay engaged, using World of Warcraft (2004) as a case study. He categorises overarching types of gameplay that players found engaging into three ‘temporalities’. The first, Rapp names linear temporality “the impossible endeavour of creating an ultimate character” (2021:n.p.), though less specifically, it defines the climb towards higher levels of progression. Circular temporality is a term he attributes to “collecting diversified resources, like herbs and minerals, which can be combined and used to enhance the avatar's equipment or to produce goods” (2021:n.p.). The cycle can keep players in an attention loop, so long as there remains a compelling use for these resources. Warframe’s ‘void traces’ exemplify this idea. They are earned by farming specific enemies during specific missions and used to open relics with a chance for upgrade parts.  Borderlands 2 (2012) contains the same type of temporality, with players earning dollars and encountering vending machines for better items, yet dollars are obtained from all enemies and can be acquired simply by engaging with the main story. Therefore, contrary to in Warframe, it is rarely the sole driving force behind player attention. Shared temporality is the attention gained through a player’s sense of community, especially when there are time-limited events. Rapp states that players “feel committed to the collective durations, tempos and periodicities developed within the guild” (2021:n.p.), suggesting that by employing multiplayer elements, a player can become engaged on a level which isn’t wholly about the game itself. 

“Trying to add a significant story to a computer game invariably reduces the number of times you're likely to play the game. Literary qualities, usually associated with depth and contemplation, actually makes computer games less repeatable, and more "trashy" in the sense that you won't play Myst again once you've completed it. There's no point.” (Juul:1999:online)

The term “Trashy” refers to a previous discussion by Juul where he identifies that some books are considered lesser if they are only entertaining for one read (1999:online). Here, two assumptions of Juul’s can be identified: ‘videogames have qualities which encourage repeat playthroughs’ and ‘stories actively work against this goal’. Souls-like games, describing games with gameplay inspired by Dark Souls (2011) have key features which encourage players to return to any individual game for many repeat playthroughs. They often contain a myriad of skills and armaments and provide challenges which are intentionally far beyond the difficulty of the average game, giving ample room for players to hone their skills and even to employ personalised twists (like no-death playthroughs). This very subject has birthed an array of YouTube channels, such as Tye Tayler, who have produced countless obscure challenge playthroughs of Fromsoftware’s games. Dark Souls and games like it contain stories, but there is also a great deal of ludic content. In this way, Juul’s conclusion that literary techniques reduce the number of repeat playthroughs is less clear.

For contrast, A Plague Tale:Innocence (2019) provides little way for a player to express their skill, lacking souls-likes’ ranges of weaponry and enemy attack patterns. It follows a rigid narrative and unless a player purposely, or for lack of ability, resists the pull of the narrative and level design, they will find that the solutions to each level are limited. In subsequent playthroughs, they will invariably find that there are few new mechanics and story revelations to be discovered. Harkening back to agency, it would appear that there is a positive correlation between the range of actions a player is given and their duration of attention. The reason Juul correlates story with replayability is likely because heavily narrative-driven games tend to minimise ludic elements as they are not the explicit focus; mechanics may hold attention during less momentous parts of the story, but they are primarily in aid of a narrative’s ability to deliver the intended affect.

This diminishing return from consecutive playthroughs in narrative-focused games is likely the result of no longer facing the unknown. Ross Berger highlights the importance of the question: “Will the protagonist defeat the villain in the most dangerous of circumstances?” and states that “this obligatory scene must be the culmination of art, gameplay, sound, programming (...) It must give players their biggest thrill” (2019:68). The “villain” can be substituted for whatever challenge needs overcoming, but the process is the same. The closer the answer to this question, the more intense affect should become, but if the answer has already been revealed to the player, the question loses a great deal of its impact. 

Juul’s specific selection of the word ‘trashy’ attaches a negative connotation to diminished playtime, though this is not without contention. As established by Shouse, affect can continue after a game has ended, maintaining the player’s attention without requiring multiple replays. Further, increased playtime necessarily means that a greater deal of direct attention, established by Goldharber as a limited resource (1997:n.p.), is concentrated on one product. This may be desirable for the company providing the product, but the player is left with less time to experience new games and other aspects of life. By reducing the scope of the ludic experiences presented to the player, there is less incentive to keep replaying and therefore reduced chance for a player to invest more time in any single game than is reasonable. As previously established, narratives are positioned to justify this reduction in ludic content by providing context for the limitations of agency and the play-space, whilst providing the player a new experience in exchange.  

Additionally, videogames are uniquely empowered to vary the pace of storytelling and progression. Rafael Chandler defines two categories of level design: Logocentric, which is “linear and controlled and has been plotted out and documented by the designer” (2007:102) and Mythocentric, where “design is wide-open (...) and consists of arenas for player action that have been created by the developers. The player, as author of the core experience, gets to choose the goals and means of the game experience” (2007:108). Whilst categorisation suggests a dichotomy between games of each approach, they are more usefully viewed as a spectrum; some games may have linear sections in an otherwise wide play space, and vice versa. To produce a game which errs toward logocentricity gives the developer a better idea of the playtime and progress arc of players. Alternatively, mythocentric heavy games contain many variables, giving the player more reasons to delay progression, even if they aren’t explicitly trying to extend their playtime. 

The linearity of logocentric games reduces the guesswork and contemplation time of players as they  determine their path, though other elements can undo this time saved. God of War Ragnarok (2022) fails to communicate clearly the quantity of resources needed for later gear and employs methods of delivering minute amounts of resources, found in breakable objects, which are hardly conducive to completion. With hundreds of these objects across the game, a player compelled to destroy all of them could increase their playtime drastically. The game nests linear paths and story segments, in a range of open play spaces. Even without leaning wholly into a mythocentric experience, one small gameplay detail can affect some players’ entire use of their agency. This emphasises the potential for ludic elements to artificially elongate attention, whilst providing the player with little additional benefit and potentially negative affect, such as discovering that they wasted time on a near irrelevant task. 

The infinitely variable combinations of player skill and knowledge can be more broadly labelled ‘Video Game Literacy’. Jeroen Bourgonjon’s aims to define this term, explaining that “People can only be considered literate in a specific discourse when they master the signs and codes in a semiotic context.” (2014:3) Literacy, in this vein, can be understood as the degree to which one comprehends a topic, through its unique signifiers. However, a video game is not always denoted by a range of symbols with internal consistency in the traditional sense. Rather, these symbols are often a conglomerate of real-world information, video game trends and visual contrast. Dead by Daylight’s (2016) breakable doors, are a conglomerate of each of these features (in order of the factors stated): they have visible wear, suggesting weakness, they exist in places where an experienced player would understand that a path should be present and they have more saturated colours. Two of these factors are not just for experienced players. This intuitive demarcation of game elements can help developers reduce the time that a novice player will need to spend on learning how to progress, in turn speeding their passage through each level and reducing the overall attention required to see a game to completion. The demand for skill or innate knowledge without proper indication extends playtime unnecessarily for less veteran players, similarly to the objects in God of War.

Maria-Virginia Aponte et al. state that “when a piece of art is interactive, the aesthetic value comes both from the tension resolution and from the fact that this resolution is a consequence of our choice” (2009:25). “Tension” implies discomfort and strain, however it is usually followed by an eventual relief. This relief cannot be obtained without the aforementioned stress, for relief is by definition a release from an uncomfortable state, making the experience invaluable. The character of Joel in The Last of Us (2013) loses his daughter in the opening sequence and when Ellie, a girl of similar age and personality comes into his care, he keeps his emotional guard up to avoid dealing with the trauma of his daughter. The only way to resolve his turmoil narratively is for him to embrace Ellie and become more fatherly during the journey. The narrative context incentivises the player to vicariously seek the same resolution of tension through their agency, by providing an undesirable status quo and the promise of a release if they continue to progress. This constantly generates attention for so long as the tension is held in the story and does not necessarily require the player to overcome difficult ludic challenges.

Serious Games move the discussion of games as a pastime into the realm of education and utility. They have a “role of conveying some message or input, be it knowledge, skill, or in general some content to the player” (Laamarti et al.:2014:3), yet are not altogether, according to Laamarti et al., void of entertainment, nor absent of the other elements which make up a typical videogame. Within Serious Games could lie a solution to much of what has been established as potentially problematic in this thesis. If a large issue with videogames is infringement into time which could otherwise be used for real-life skill refinement, then involving those skills in a game would minimise or altogether negate the deficit. In some cases, it may even be a better use of one’s time - “playing a technology-based game increased students’ performance in mathematics” (2014:5). If the difficulty of learning and skill acquisition can be integrated satisfyingly into a game, there is reduced demand for what is typically considered to represent skill expression in videogames, such as one’s prowess with movement or their aim. This is evident in the language learning game Duolingo (2012) which requires only that the player can press buttons and navigate menus. The popularity of this application suggests that, as narrative can drive attention, so too can learning. 

Procedural Rhetoric was a term coined by Bogost and gives more insight about the potential of serious games: “Procedural rhetoric (...) is a practice of using processes persuasively. More specifically, procedural rhetoric is the practice of persuading through processes in general and computational processes in particular.” (2007:3) To understand this definition, context is required. Bogost saw that a simulation of a secondary school in Tenure (1975) made a “convincing argument that personal politics indelibly mark the learning experience” (2007:2). He thus concluded that one could communicate an idea, or break down a misconception, by presenting it through procedural means. For Bogost, procedures are the rules, or guidelines (depending on how stringent the enforcer(s) of them is/are) of any kind of process. He allows that computers often lack sufficient programming to act with empathy or reasoning, but not that this is an insurmountable flaw (2007:3). He calls upon the teachings of ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Socrates to conclude that Rhetoric is using “reason to discover the available means of persuasion in any particular case” (2007:18). Bogost also acknowledges that it is easier now than in Ancient Greek times to have intentions lost in translation: “The poststructuralist tendency to decouple authorship from readership, celebrating the free play of textual meanings, further undermines the status of persuasion” (2007:20). Procedural Rhetoric has been understood here as concerns simulations, but it can also be applied to any narrative game which clearly presents an argument or message. Narrative games are after all made up of procedures, stipulated by the computer. By negotiating with the game's ideas, the player can challenge their opinions about the world and acquire novel perspectives. Similar to education, this exchange of value makes the transaction of attention less unbalanced. 

Literature Review Conclusion

In summary, the attention economy was established by Davenport and Beck as the competition over a player's limited time and retention. Ash developed how attention is understood in relation to games, using Shouse’s concept of affect, which acknowledges the feeling that persists after an experience. It was understood that play is inextricably linked to attention, because it absorbs the player totally (huizinga:1955:13). Games often contain attributes which are proponents of addiction, such as a focus on short term pleasures, giving developers a degree of responsibility when competing in the attention economy. Usually these pleasures can be traced to ludic elements, whilst narrative-heavy games are less likely to be replayed, as negotiated with Juul’s idea of “trashy” games (1999:online). In this dissertation there is a throughline that many games do not provide the player with enough recompense for their attention, particularly when it is given in excess. However, Bogost’s procedural rhetoric and serious games make a case that some games can help justify the time demanded by giving the player education or valuable insights in return. In the following section, existing games will be analysed in terms of their manipulation and relationship with attention and affect, using the ideas established throughout this dissertation so far.

Case Studies

League of Legends (2009) “generated $1.75 billion in revenue worldwide in 2020, becoming one of the top 10 revenue-generating free-to-play titles in 2020” (Bevan:2022:online). It has also expanded into Esports (competitive gaming) and other projects utilising the intellectual property’s characters and lore. It is an online, top-down, five versus five game, which boasts over a hundred and fifty champions with unique skill sets.

The levelling system in the game uses provides incremental player profile borders and rewards champion shards which can be claimed or dissolved for a resource called blue essence. It continues infinitely, only communicating a player’s play time to others and in this sense is an example of Rapp’s linear temporality, yet the blue essence itself represents a circular temporality (2021:n.p.). The player acquires it through playtime and subsequently spends it on champions to expand their roster. Winning a game daily grants a small bonus, though this is also problematic because a win is never guaranteed. In the pursuit of earning their one win for the day, a player may be forced to play through multiple defeats first. With games averaging, (as of patch 13.1) around 25-30 minutes (Leagueofgraphs:2023:online), this is potentially a huge drain on a player’s time each day. 

League of Legends operates seasonally, introducing yearly revamps and resetting each player’s competitive rank. The game has complicated rules and a learning curve which becomes steeper as other players become more proficient, making mastery a endless process and using satisfaction as an allure (Koster:2004:40). Furthermore, within the game, there is no narrative through line and this lack of a definitive end goal can keep players trapped. With no barrier to play, such as the exhaustion of all quests through completion or end of the story, the player must use their discipline to break from the habit of playing. However as previously observed, this is something which is intentionally made difficult by the game’s design. 

A Plague Tale: Innocence features princess Amicia, skilled with a slingshot, and not naïve to the death and hardship of the world she lives in. The goal of the game is to take her brother, Hugo, to get help for a potentially lethal curse, whilst pursued by unfamiliar antagonists. The curse, whilst not on a countdown in any ludic sense, is a source of tension (Aponte et al.:2009:25) in the narrative. The developers can incentivise the player to engage with this sense of urgency without having to set physical time constraints through the dialogue and presence of Hugo, so long as the relationship becomes deep enough over time. Jacqueline Burgess and Christian Jones say that “Players enjoyed developing relationships between their PC and an NPC, and when deep relationships were established, (...) players expressed wonder and high levels of engagement.” (2001:online) Developers can also dial back ludic elements and lean into logocentric design to increase the likelihood that a player’s actions match the stakes set out in the plot. When Kratos in God of War has to track down his son Atreus in a maze, there are no resources to be found and there are only two diverging paths at each junction - an absence of ludic elements and agency for narrative clarity. League of Legends instead exercises little restraint in its ludic elements. The game continually adds new champions and changes, spurring on new interactions between abilities and leading the game’s pace to fluctuate and shift regularly, though it is not clear that this is always intentional. Arbitrarily maintaining player attention allows the company to increase profits. If players identify the skins and champions as items they will make significant use of, they are more likely to self-justify spending their money. Unfortunately, there appears little concern for how the player’s attention and feelings of affect are manipulated once in-game. 

Silent Hill 2 (2001) makes clear that it does not exist to make the player feel short-term pleasures. During the opening cutscene, James Sunderland examines himself in the mirror of a grotty bathroom, his eyes shrouded by darkness. He recalls a letter from his wife, who he knows to be deceased, in which she states “I’m alone there now. In our special place… Silent Hill”. Very quickly, themes of depression and potential delusion are established. In Huizinga’s understanding, play consists of “mirth” and “fun” (1955:3), which appear contrary to the themes established by the game. However, in place of traditional play, the game uses procedural rhetoric (bogost:2007:3) to engage players with difficult questions about morality and grief through narrative elements. Media which encourages players to engage in the formulation of their own opinions of the story’s message and process emotions in a safe environment may prepare them for the challenges of life, resulting in greater long-term happiness (Gros et al.:2020:online) and fulfilment (Koster:2004:144). League of Legends lacks such ambiguity. One wins or loses and must simply improve mechanically or expand their knowledge of the game, with both lacking obvious utility outside the game’s immediate parameters and neighbouring games.

Conclusion

This dissertation asserts that by perpetuating and normalising linear and cyclical temporalities (Rapp:2021:n.p.) either indefinitely or for great amounts of time, attention is normalised as a resource to be harvested with little concern for consumers. The capture of attention for long durations can intertwine with addiction when the player receives only short-term pleasures or fun, rather than happiness and long-term fulfilment. This problem can be offset partially if a game provides players with useful skills, knowledge and/or contemplation for the real world. Additionally, involving narrative as an essential part of the game’s tension and a large factor in the player’s engagement, repeat playthroughs don’t have the same unknown (Berger2019:68) making them less appealing (Juul:1999:online). With the goal of moderating attention, this is actually favourable. Ludic distractions and lack of guidance can artificially truncate playtime, whilst giving little obvious value. Ultimately, many games are designed to capture too much attention from the player, without sufficient compensation for their time and by moving towards persuasion, education and narrative, a better balance can be achieved. 

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A dark network of concrete climbs toward the sun, wilting during economic winters, then growing rapidly once more. My window used to look out across the barren wastelands of Thrain, and I would complain endlessly at the planet’s ugliness. Now I long to restore that view, for it has been replaced with brutish architecture and violence. ‘Adapt, Expand, Advance,’ the slogan of Nova Technology, floats holographically outside my apartment, covering a huge portion of the opposite building. It is at once a reminder and a threat.

The booming rhythms of parties and raves echo through the nights, forcing me into a nocturnal cycle, whether I participate or not. At random, every room in the city becomes a blast of light, countless screens projecting a warning of nuclear destruction, or laser destruction. The resulting lack of sleep and paranoia cause my dreams to blur into reality, in disturbing amalgamations. Sometimes a spidery creature lurks in the corner of my room, its twitching red eyes fixated on me. Other times, I am falling, past windows without reflections.

Today is an exception. I awake to a soft pulse in my head, and the start of a beautiful melody. It is a song projected directly into my neurons, with no need to pass through my ears. “Good afternoon, sleepyhead” says a woman’s voice and I feel a tinge of sadness. “Do you want to save your personal Dreamwave?”

“No!”, the save feature costs an extra fee “What time is it?” 

“It’s two pm, still early.” My eyelids are heavy. Many people take a stimulant to help them out of bed, but coffee suits me. The machine has already produced a mug, steaming, with a layer of froth. I catch the scent and it slowly beckons me from my slumber. As I pick it up, my primary screen, embedded seamlessly in the wall, lights up with the last episode of a program that I have been watching. I eye my bookshelf, probably one of only five in the city, willing myself to make the right decision… Before I know it, I am nestled in my sofa, consuming pixels, only vaguely aware of the passage of time.

As minutes turn to hours, the guilt of inactivity begins to creep in, so I decide to respond to a few messages and leads. I switch the screen to another tab and a message is already open:

‘Hello James,

I have read your article and I have some information that might be valuable to you.

Come to the staff room in Razor Tattoo Parlor, on 5th street and I will share what I know.

Derek’

It has been haunting me for months. ‘He knows about the article, and it's easy enough to get a hit on someone in this city, so why bother with the theatrics?’ Trying to divine a motive seems like a lost cause, but my curiosity doesn’t let me stop.

Before I can get to any of the other responses, an overlay appears: ‘Dental appointment: one hour’. ‘Shit! That’s today?’ I run for the shower, firing a blast of warm soapy water, before switching to ‘Ultradry’. The droplets of water on my skin evaporate, though I only feel a slight, irradiating heat. I opt for a cheap t-shirt and jeans, and place my jewellery in a draw; all but one ring, before heading out of my tiny apartment. 

It opens into a corridor, terminating in a communal area with the usual franchise eateries. I pass by a couple sharing a tray of fries and meat. Visions of dark red liquid and steel fill my head, until I shake them away and continue. I have not made it far, when Toby, a friend since school, appears from round a corner “Heyy, what's up?” he says.

“Nothin much, just got a dental appointment to get to. My teeth have been killing me”

“Lucky you, I've been trying to get a slot for ages, I’m half tempted to go to the minus levels”

“I’ll keep an eye out for your teeth on the black market then,” I say, only half jokingly. “Look, I really gotta get a move on. Sorry I can't stop to chat!”

“No worries. Good luck down there, see ya around dude” Toby heads in the opposite direction to me, probably searching for a meal or a cheap fix.

The walk to the elevator is always further than I remember. One side a row of doors, the other a series of darkened windows facing out to the city. A bridge extends from the floor below, intersecting another skyscraper, upon which advertisements cycle every few seconds. The rows of windows in corrugated repetitions seem to descend forever, like when an object is placed between two mirrors and abstracted into infinity. I find myself lost in the vivid colours for a moment, before returning to my errand.

Finally, I reach the elevator, which arrives on cue, carrying only a few people. The available floor numbers are in the hundreds, but I input: one, three. I try to savour the ride, a last quiet moment before the chaos. Silently the elevator descends, with only the passing numbers giving any notion of travel. From time to time, it stops to receive a passenger or two. When the doors open at floor thirteen, a barrage of stimuli floods in and I know I am at the right place.

The air is heavier, with a sickly mix of stodgy aromas and perfumes. The streets have reinforced glass panes on each side, preventing people from falling, or jumping, from the immense heights. Everything is bathed in blues, purples and greens, meticulously adjusted in hue to meet the aesthetic mandate of the region. However, the clothing of the crowds mix together in a more chaotic blend of colours, muddying the intended harmony. On the side of the street, a man in a worn biker jacket chokes back a couple of pills. I recognise them as ‘Solites’, allegedly powerful vitamin D supplements. They have become a kind of currency in the lower districts, where the monolithic towers block out the sun. The man then glugs down a synthetic cocktail disguised as juice, and disappears into an ocean of people.  

My arm constantly glows with an indicator towards my destination, a crisp white projection of the immediate vicinity, which updates with each turn. The device has been within my arm since my first memories. I ignore it where I can, trying instead to conceptualise the landmarks and street corners in my mind’s eye. No use. I default back to my map in resignation, and try not to take notice of the strewn rubbish, used needles and unconscious bodies. 

My ears keep tabs on people nearby as I pass through, vigilant for trouble. Mostly I hear normal conversations. “I saw Tommy the other day, barely even recognised him. He’s gone loco with the cybernetics.” I ponder how people might have felt in generations past, when more than just relics of other languages were spoken. There is a stall selling an assortment of paintings with a sign which reads ‘human painted’. I am not convinced, and based on some other shrewd looks from passers by, there seems to be a consensus. Every step of my journey makes me more uncomfortable, only exacerbated by the growing number of gruesome body modifications. A bodybuilder type has his back exposed to reveal scar tissue in the shape of wings. Another man has large bony spikes sticking out from his skin. The latter is talking to a tall, pretty woman with platinum highlights, who seems only half interested. Her left eye fixates on me as I pass, a glowing red iris, on a black screen, whilst her right remains on the conversation. I feel cold and exposed.

Finally I reach a bridge, which cuts through the middle of a skyscraper, with perhaps five or six floors of empty space overhead. According to my navigator, the path ahead will take me across to the gold sector before looping back, a sure-fire way to miss my appointment. It does offer an alternative route, a narrow alleyway. I am undecided for a moment, but urgency compels me to take the shorter option.

As I approach the alley, I pick up the pace and put a hand on the hilt of my firearm. When I have reached the middle, a slender man silhouettes the exit, slightly hunched and facing me. He begins stumbling down the alley and I notice a clawed metal hand swinging at his side. I think about doubling back, but desperation still lingers. “I can’t miss this appointment man, don’t make me use this” I cry, making my gun more obvious. He hesitates a moment, as if weighing my mettle. Suddenly, he’s sprinting towards me with a crazed expression. “Please!” the gun fires, shattering his knee in a cataclysm of blood and marrow. His shriek sickens me to the core and a nauseating dizziness comes over me. Some screams echo from both ends of the alley and the rumble of footsteps grows heavier. It is all I can do to leap over my attacker and make for the end of the alley. The street has cleared, but for a few unsavoury looking thugs with weapons ready. My heart jolts into action, twice as fast. They study me for a moment, then turn away dejected, as if upset that there would be no firefight.

The adrenaline, now depleting, is all that is keeping me standing, so I stumble to a nearby bench; one singular block of metal, forged into the ground. The sirens in the distance are louder than ever, but I know that no-one is coming. Enforcers don’t make arrests in these zones, not unless they have a very good reason. I can no longer hear the man in the alley, presumably he has passed out or crawled off to some shady doctor. Some time passes whilst I collect myself, and crowds of people make a hesitant return. I take a deep breath and step into the growing wave, barged by a shoulder as I do so. “Sorry” I say instinctually, unsure of who is at fault, but they have disappeared.

Finally I see it ‘Unison Dental Clinic’. I enter into a cramped, white room. One panel of the wall is playing videos which flick between various dental infographics and adverts. There is a check-in screen on the wall with a retinal scanner. Light beams into my eye as I lean in close and my profile appears, alongside a countdown. I still have twenty minutes. I let out a sigh of relief and some of the tension of the day is expelled.

A row of seats jut out on the right side, where several people sit with vacant expressions. One seat is occupied by a girl, perhaps in her early twenties, her face concealed by a thick sweep of hair. Her clothes are jet black, but her skin is alive with colour and geometry. Her tattoos morph from edgy and brutal to flowery and serene. My shoulder design, a small eye with graphic purple ripples, is unimpressive in comparison. I sit in the furthest seat and fiddle with my hands nervously, still not over the previous events. Then another wave of shock hits. “No… No!” I shout aloud. Most people ignore me. The girl glances up, assessing the situation, then her eyes jolt back down, as if fearful to invite confrontation. All bad luck seems to have converged upon one day. I barge out the door in a panic. ‘Where is it? Why did I take it with me?’… A voice speaks from the abyss, having read my thoughts “I’ve updated your map with possible locations based on your previous journey.”

“Why didn’t you tell me I dropped it? And please stop using her voice.”

A man’s voice responds with a different accent and intonation “I had a ten second shutdown at two fifty two. Maybe someone used a jamming device?” 

“Maybe, just. Please be quiet and let me look.”

I study the ground everywhere that I have been, looking for a glint of polished silver. The city seems to grow more claustrophobic, and I am ever more conscious of the darkness in deep corners, always battling back the lights and waiting for an opportunity to devour them. I retrace my footsteps multiple times until the despair overcomes me, leaving me unmoving. The crowd passes me like a shoal of fish weaving around a rock, but I pay them no mind. My wife’s ring is gone, the last part of her that is real, not a corporate bastardisation.

I arrive at my apartment, barely conscious that I have journeyed back and collapse onto my sofa. “Do you want to talk, James?” The voice has changed back to my wife’s.

“No. I just want to be left alone for a while. And I don't want you to use her voice again. Ever.”

“Are you sure? The deletion process cannot be undone. Speak confirm to delete.”

“Confirm.”

The relative silence feels eerie and heavy. For the first time since my wife’s funeral, I allow there to be no voice in my head, no friends for company, no drugs coursing through my system. Nothing to drown out the pain.

If you are looking for a simple definition of Artificial Intelligence (AI), here is the Britannica definition: “the ability of a computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks that are commonly associated with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans”. This definition is apt for the purposes of reading anything I write on the topic of AI, but I believe that it is a definition worth dissecting for further clarity.

AI is a tricky term to define, since it has been applied across a broad range of contexts, with subtle discrepancies in meaning. The Britannica definition uses the phrase “intellectual processes characteristics”, which requires a definition of intellect. The most specific definition I can formulate on Intellect is: a series of diverse skills which work in conjunction to bring about a catered response to a situation or environment.

Under the Britannica definition of AI, the focus is placed on the task that is performed, not the mechanics that underpin it. Machines only need to demonstrate the illusion that they are adapting to specific situations using a range of varied skills to be considered AI. In the case of a machine that produces art, it is suggestive that it has emotionally processed information, learned a range of art fundamentals and made creative decisions. The reality is that it is just built on pattern and relationship recognition.

Before espousing any apocalyptical predictions, I will highlight the areas in which AI has been healthy in my view and try to determine the distinction; why X variation of AI is a likely harmless advancement, yet Y appears to be immoral. The AI which dictates the actions of NPCs in videogames is a technology which does not replace a human skill. It would be unfeasible for every character in a single player story game to be controlled by another player. The AI that powers basic grammar checking allows people to reduce time editing, and bolsters the message that they are trying to communicate. It may have lessened the demand for editors, but for many, proof reading is not something they delegate regardless. In this scenario, AI only reduces the time spent on minutia.

From these examples, some primary ways in which AI appears to be cohesive with current societies is when it satisfies one or both of the following: it enables a new level of an existing operation, wholly unachievable by humans, or it automates tedious yet necessary tasks. It is important for our collective future, to conceive of a weighing scale with the negative and positive effects of an AI on each side. The ethical implications may be difficult to predict or uncomfortable to discuss, but that does not exempt them from consideration. Indeed, where an outcome is uncertain, the need for thorough discussion is only more necessary.

The death of the human element

The new wave of AI is concerning in its attempt to emulate the development of products, rather than editing existing content. Steven Zapata predicts a future wherein the image generation models will not require prompts and will instead produce automatically based on trending topics. An entire social media feed could conceivably be generated by AI, with no human required. This abstraction of human input from processes is where I believe the most pressing danger lies. I argue that it is innately immoral to reduce the number of jobs in a world where unemployment is of significant concern, but this is not to say that there are no counterpoints. With any complex scenario, an immoral act may beget a moral one. If a machine exists that performs life-saving surgery with a 200% improved success rate, yet takes jobs from a swathe of doctors, there arises a difficult moral quandary. The doctors may be plunged into economic ruin, and the population will become dismayed as they realise that even very specialised jobs are not safe from automation. It is not obvious which side would be morally validated. It may even be subject to the specific statistics.

However, here we are not talking about saving lives, certainly not in any way beyond vague speculation. There is a curious argument being propagated online, drawing attention to the cotton mill, which revolutionized the production of clothing, but destroyed lifelong careers of weavers. Often this is accepted as an overwhelming positive in the great march of progress, and evidence of the need to charge forward. I will attempt to dissect the reason why art in particular cannot be so easily swept under the rug with this analogy. Quantity of clothing is something that is innately valuable. As populations grow, the demand for clothes is increased. In colder zones, this is inextricably linked to survival. Clothing also lacks the longevity of art in most cases, so it necessarily depletes and restocks. The utility of clothing is in its immediate effect. Conversely, the body of existing art stretches back centuries through various means of preservation and remediation. The quantity of art that any one person can obtain with just access to a phone and internet would already be enough to satisfy a lifetime. Therefore the only benefit remaining to advocates of AI art is the ability to personalise art on an individual basis at little cost, and this must stand against all of the negatives.

Addressing Midjourney and other image generators, I believe the majority of the public discourse has been too narrowly focused. There has been a tendency to argue that the theft of art is the primary evil of these systems, and I do not disagree that it is a deplorable overreach. However, I have little doubt that technology will eventually overcome the problem of scale and the image generation systems will be able to thrive without theft, whether compelled to do so by policy or public perception. In my estimation, the more insidious and long term issues lurk below this veil. As an artist, I have been very attuned to the difficulties of earning money in the art industry, not least because of the level of competition. With AI art being endlessly vomited into popular social platforms, it is becoming ever more difficult for artists to surface for air, forced to reach for whatever they can to stay afloat.

One such method is to argue for an inherent value in the process. Many have argued that the ways that a human creates is different to that of an AI. They, as the argument goes, have the filter of soul, experience and imperfection, whilst a machine only produces a series of precise copies and places them together, like pieces of an extremely complicated puzzle. This does little to harm the overall impact of the issue however… The human paints with brushstrokes (digital or otherwise) whilst the machine paints with stencils of existing information.

The rise of photography might act as comfort to some, in that it did not replace realistic art; people still value the human element. However, the kinds of art satisfied by digital media are often part of a greater production, such as a game or film. When the only thing that the audience sees are 3D models, one or two steps removed from a piece of concept art, the value that companies care about is not in the labour of love, but the production of a blueprint. Game studios have already revealed their readiness to abandon artists as soon as a cheaper alternative arises, such as Mindark, a Swedish company who announced that they would lay off 40% of their workforce, whilst pivoting into AI world generation.

So far, I have seen no reason to believe that AI will not succeed widely in imitating the human experience or the soul, in a kind of art based Turing test. There are already many fooled by certain AI art pieces, believing them genuinely to be the conception of a human. There was even a controversy wherein an AI generated piece won a digital art competition. If there is some true distinction between human and AI art on the canvas, yet people cannot identify it, what relevance does that have commercially? The only thing left to give an innately human value to a piece of art will be to prove that a human produced it, a problem that sadly is not pure speculation. Artists have already been forced to make time-lapse to prove that a human has been the producer of a piece of art.

AI and the ability to think

If we become over reliant on AI text generators, there is the possibility that we could lose the ability to exercise thought effectively: overusing a calculator will worsen the ability to perform mental mathematics. Using a Sat Nav and adjacent phone applications may cause a decrease in the ability to remember directions. In line with this, I believe that AI writing will damage creativity and lateral thinking, by virtue of reducing the necessity to engage in these skills. I concede that directions and mental mathematics, though I would be loath to lose them, are arguably not required in a constructive society. With technology ever available, these skills are easily replaced from day to day. Their efficacy is also assured and easily verifiable in most cases. Arriving at the correct destination confirms outright the result of the sat nav. However, the loss of thought seems only to invite stagnation and dull resistance to those in power.

We that we can never be sure that a machine is operating in our best interest. OpenAI is moderated with criteria which prevents “hate” and “Sexual [content]” from being displayed in its answers. The latter is relatively unambiguous; sexual content relates to a specific topic which only becomes hazy when considering where it crosses into educational/scientific content. Hate is instead broadly related to a wide breadth of topics, is not universally defined on a scale, and is often identified using incomplete information about a person’s intentions. At best, the developers are trying to create a healthy framework, yet compromise the objectivity of the system, and at worst, they open the gates for the systems to be weaponised against critical thought when terms are used too loosely. The only sure way to verify that generated ideas arrive from good-will is to have created them ourselves. All other ideas arrive from a locus of trust that we project outwards. The more time we spend with family and friends, the more evidence we collect to understand whether they too are acting in good will towards us. It is far more difficult to ascertain the motives ingrained in an AI, for it is too far removed.

The race to Utopia

In an interview conducted between Stan Prokopenko and Evan Conrad, there is a disturbing passage, wherein Conrad explains that there exists an imminent Utopia which will be heralded by AI processes. In short, he believes that within ten to fifteen years, most labour costs can be reduced to zero, or else a negligible cost. At this point we will have a society where everything is practically free and people can have time available to pursue their passions without limit. He concedes that the decade to a decade and a half of transition will damage current livelihoods, but that this will be the price of Utopia. The usual recourse of the techno-utopian worldview is that this void where jobs and survival used to belong would give rise to a society who focus their attention on the arts and expression. Not only do I believe that this would not serve the temperament of a vast swathe of the populous, but the very intrusion of AI into artistic spaces is likely to doom any potential Utopia of this kind.

It also appears that those leading the AI push are ignoring a major issue with creating a jobless Utopia; people need challenge. The pursuit of only hedonistic pleasure is rarely conducive to a positive mindset:

Friedrich Nietzsche said that “one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”

A person born into a world where there is perfect order and serenity, if indeed this could be managed for more than five minutes, would likely create the chaos that they need to express themselves. This makes sense. Licensed doctor, Alok Kanojia says that the wellbeing and self esteem of a person is birthed out of confidence, yet confidence must arise out of hardship, or else one has no evidence that they will remain unshaken by conflict.

Conclusion

I believe that the answer to worrying advances in technology is not to bury our heads and put up flimsy defences to avoid action. AI seems to be on a trajectory toward the development of a less humanist society and will likely only be accelerated if we continue to sacrifice parts of our selves without weighing the cost. In my view, we simply cannot continue on a path that diminishes the value of art and thought, if we wish to improve the world.

My thoughts on AI were largely set in motion by this video by Steven Zapata, which is eloquently written and extremely compelling. I do not share his conclusion, that we should seek an ethically sourced model, since I have not been convinced that any such model should exist, period. Regardless, I consider it essential reading (or listening) for anyone entering into the realm of image generation discourse.

Welcome to Dystopian Meditations! A space for interrogating a range of individual and global problems, with an aim to uncover positive and useful insights. I will draw from philosophy, fiction, experience and research, exploring my ideas through different media, such as stories and analysis. The topics addressed by each of these media will often overlap, but not every element of my fictional work will be allegorical. Stories and artworks can be great conduits of ideas and invite interesting critiques, but much of the original intention can be muddied during interpretation. I will more clearly present my views and concerns in my non-fiction articles, in order to strike a balance between clarity and expression.

Why “Dystopian Meditations”?

I chose the name ‘Dystopian Meditations’ because it evokes an image of a person meditating in a chaotic, dystopian world; able to supersede immediate desires and worries, despite being in an environment which feels indomitable. The word meditations also shares another meaning: the written works of a philosopher, illustrating their thoughts. Dystopian fiction and philosophy are some of my main interests and are quite complimentary; dystopias show us the worst futures conceivable, whilst philosophy teaches us how to avert them.

A case for thinking

At this point, you may be asking: what makes philosophy so useful? It is often considered a whimsical field detached from reality, and there is some truth to this; sometimes it takes our minds to places with little practicality. However, when paired with other fields of study or personal development, it can grant invaluable perspective. In my case, it wasn’t until I began to investigate philosophy (its methodologies in particular) that I discovered ways to properly organise my thoughts and not be overwhelmed by them. I find that just by exercising my ability to think effectively, it cures me of lingering nihilism and makes me feel more grounded. Even if I never improve an iota of the world’s problems, I will still reap the rewards of greater competence, contemplation and reason in day to day life.

Closing words

I still have much to learn and my thoughts will undoubtedly change and evolve. The ability to separate ideas from identity is one of the core skills of debate and one that I will reiterate throughout my writing. Therefore, my primary goal will not be to convert everyone to my thinking with every argument I make, but to encourage true open-mindedness and mutual learning. This careful approach seems necessary, for some of the most dividing conflicts of our day seem to arise from a lack of good-faith discussion and inadequate communication.

In all, I invite a collaborative effort, and the willingness to follow truth and empathy, wherever they may take us.

Thank you for reading!