>Before Socrates, the common Greek outlook on Happiness was that is was a blessing from the Gods, and to hope to gain Happiness for oneself was hubris and ultimately self-defeating.
>Socrates argued that Happiness can be obtained through conscious effort and careful harmonization of our desires, knowledge, and virtues
>Desire can be "educated" and directed, and only by this can Happiness be achieved
Are game designers ultimately philosophers? Is the pursuit of Happiness through constructed games a path to wisdom?
>>46688031
Duh. That's why game designers are paid like shit: they're both artists AND philosophers.
>>46688126
>artist
>philosopher
>both classes with negative pay modifiers
Game designers confirmed for shit at multiclassing.
>>46688158
Basically, yeah.
We pursue the misery of no money so that we may better understand what truly makes people happy.
>>46688158
>imaginary numbers on a piece of paper which represent nothing and are essentially a 7,000 year old ploy for useless people to enslave decent people under a misbegotten concept
>a valid measure of a person's success
Pick one.
>>46688031
I've found that happiness is best achieved by ignoring all the suffering, horror and nastiness out there in the world. Just tune it out. Most people do.
>>46688379
For me, it's accepting that those exist in real life. Then accepting that even in the midst of all that, people can be happy, and people did get happy.
That makes me happy.
>>46688031
>I am happy not by the blessing of gods, but by me own conscious effort
That sounds familiar.
>>46688500
Fedora-tippers appropriated good philosophy for their own stupid shit, and now it's soiled.
Like how the Nazis appropriated the Svastika, and now the plethora of cultures that used it in the past can't use it openly.
>>46688368
>wealth
>a ploy
I'll grant you that somewhere in the last couple centuries things started to get way out of hand, but come on anon. You're like a child screaming that capitalism touched him in a bad place.
>>46688500
Only superficially. Christianity owes a lot to Greek philosophers.
>>46688031
In some languages to this day "happiness" and "luck" are the same word. Eg. in Polish "sczęście".
I think the idea of attaining "happiness" as a goal has not widely spread until after Middle Ages, but I could be wrong.
>>46688368
>essentially a 7,000 year old ploy for useless people to enslave decent people under a misbegotten concept
>he never had to live in a barter system
The existence of a small, standardized unit of exchange was critical for those guys who make useful goods that are large and difficult to divide, as well as the people who made a living by doing the dividing.For those of us who know fuck all about history, that's farmers who raise animals, and butchers.
>>46688031
In what way are game designers more philosophers than anyone else attempting to find their own happiness?
>>46688031
>Year of our lord 2016
>Still treating Plato's wank about Socrates serious
>Still treating either of them as competent
At least you could go for Aristotle... Or Diogenes
>>46688031
Game Design isn't about eliciting Happiness, though. Ultimately you design a game to be fun, but you usually pick an immediate goal like "I want players to feel powerful" or "I want players to struggle so when they succeed it feels special". Because you consider, or are designing the game for, people who find those things fun.
Game Designers are experience engineers.
>>46689114
Their entire livelihood depends on being able to systematically understand how to evoke happiness from others?
Certainly more philosophical than say... tax auditing.
>>46689237
I read Book of Lenses too.
Or some of it. Fuuuug.
>>46689299
I didn't and I agree with him on that.
I've been doing this shit for a decade and most of my time is spent trying to elicit specific emotions and reactions from peopleand/or being poor but that's its own problem.
Gameplay/Story Integration is one of the most amazingly fun things to actually pull off. When you're playing an unstoppable machine of destruction you should FEEL like an unstoppable machine of destruction. When you're some average joe trying to survive you should feel desperate for any edge you can get your hands on. When you're trying to build something you should feel like you accomplished something after you're done.
>>46689237
>>46689348
The immediate goal of "I want players to feel/experience X" is useful, but not really all-encompassing and ultimately needs to be tapered with other considerations. It's a starting point to answering "How do I make the game fun?", but not the ultimate and final answer, and it's important to recognize that there really isn't a single, final answer.
>When you're playing an unstoppable machine of destruction you should FEEL like an unstoppable machine of destruction.
For instance, 40k fans enjoy the idea that individual units like Space Marines are supposed to be unstoppable machines of destruction. However, the game simply can't handle that, so there is a distinct separation between the game mechanics and the upper end of the fluff. In some ways, that separation is incredibly important, because if Space Marines were as vulnerable in the fluff as they are in the game, they would lose most of what attracts people to them in the first place.
Though, all that does is raise the question of whether 40k is a poorly designed game.
>>46689554
>Though, all that does is raise the question of whether 40k is a poorly designed game.
That's a question?
>>46689348
It is a really good book.
I haven't been game designing for that long. On and off for maybe a couple of years.
I say that with only one tiny prototype for a board game, one game mechanic idea for a phone app and a few notebook pages of ideas for a PC platformer.
>>46688031
>Believing Plato's fan-fiction.
>>46689003
>"happiness" and "luck" are the same word.
And sometimes they are embodied in the same item.
>>46689160
Mate you shut right up or I'll take a shit in your barrel
>>46691206
>>46689160
Man, I need to get educated here. Like all the jokes in Small Gods in Ephebe, I only get about half of them.
>>46691897
I know that feel, and it's kind of worth it - at the very least, you too can make philosopher jokes.
But this one at least is easy - Diogenes (the cynic) was basically homeless and lived in a jar/barrel, as part of his philosophy on eschewing material things (which resembled poverty). He was quite well respected in spite of this, and is fairly well known to have told Alexander the Great to stop standing in his sunlight (and various other things related to respect)
>>46691897
Diogenes of Sinope was a crazy hobo who lived in a barrel, masturbated in public, told Alexander the great to fuck off out of his sun, and fucked with Plato every chance he got.
>>46692122
>"Behold, a Man!"
That never gets old.
>>46688031
>Are game designers ultimately philosophers?
Nevermind your second question but the answer to this one is no. NO.
>>46692122
Diogenes is 4chan's patron philosopher.
>>46692311
Diogenes plays for /his/ in 4chan cup. I think he might even be their captain.
>>46692311
Yeah, pretty much
>>46688525
They still use it openly, but western fags get their panties in a bunch.
>>46695590
Seriously. I have photos of Buddhist temples from when I was living in Korea. You should see the reactions I get from some of these Americans I show them to here in the states. Blue-haired fat-asses will lecture me about cultural appropriation one minute and the next minute get offended that Korean Buddhists still use the manji.
>>46688368
> muh ebul gabidalism
Communist whore fuck off pls.
>>46695774
They can't lecture you about cultural appropriation when you've actually lived there, or presumably are from there. That's not fair.
>>46696856
Yeah, well evidently social justice in not fair.
>>46692311
He's a meme philosopher. I don't think he really was ever taken that seriously.
Gaming's goal is fun, not happiness. It's easy to confuse the two, but they're really not the same thing.
>>46695774
Please don't group "Americans" with "blue-haired fatasses"
We're trying, guy. These people are cancer.
>>46700149
Let's have a philosophical discussion. Classic rules.
1. You must provide the premise and the evidence.
2. You must avoid major fallacies of reasoning.
Topic: What is the difference between fun and happiness?
Goalpost 1: Define fun.
Goalpost 2: Define happiness.
Goalpost 3: Determine any substantial differences or similarities between them.
Let's go. You can even do it old school, sit at your computer naked and sweaty and pretend you're arguing with other naked sweaty men.
>>46700346
1. Fun is the experience of being entertained, or positively engaged. Its opposite is torture, and its negation is boredom.
2. Happiness is the positive state of contentment and above. Its opposite is sadness, and its negation is apathy.
3. You can have fun without being happy, such as in the case of playing games while pushing aside your real life problems. You can also be happy without having fun, which is achieved by being content with peace and quiet.
Fun may look like temporary happiness, but there are wide degrees of happiness that include long term considerations that include the ability to suffer in hopes of achieving happiness.
>>46700662
"Fun is the experience of being entertained" needs some help. You're essentially saying "Fun is the experience of having fun."
What is entertainment? Is it temporary contentment?
Can we say, then, the primary difference between fun and happiness is duration?
>>46700346
I'll bite.
>Define happiness.
Happiness is the absence of suffering.
>Define fun
Fun is the feeling of joyful elation gained from sensory experiences.
>Substantial differences or similarities
The difference is that happiness is a negative while fun is a positive. Fun is defined by what you have gained (elated sensory experiences), whereas happiness is defined by what you lack (a lack of suffering; a lack of painful experience, lacking the sensation of loss or dissatisfaction)
It is often the case that fun leads to unhappiness. For example, one might enjoy the temporary experience of gambling, but become unhappy after gambling away all of one's money.
And it is often the case that one might have a lot of fun but also be unhappy at the same time, as is the case with alcoholics, drug-users, and all other kinds of addicts (including game addicts).
And it is also possible to be happy while having absolutely no fun whatsoever, as is the case with Buddhist monks most of the time.
>>46689101
Medium of exchange, store of value, unit of account. Money is useful goddamn stuff. There's a reason that more cultures have invented some form money than an alphabet.
>>46700871
>What is entertainment? Is it temporary contentment?
It's a positive or pleasurable occupation of your attention. It provides satisfaction for our desires for stimulus and activity.
While duration plays a part, I'd actually have to say that scope is the more important difference between fun and happiness. Fun only satisfies a small aspect of being content, and may even come at the cost of the other aspects of being happy. Having your attention positively occupied may produce the illusion of being happy, but that's only the surface of the consciousness being satisfied, and the immediate desires that were satisfied lose your attention more quickly when there's larger concern beyond them.
Fun is not happiness itself, but it is a useful component of happiness. Having fun is satisfying immediate desires and can provide incentive to satisfy further desires, and it's hard to imagine a person able to be happy without being able to have fun.
>>46701011
>And it is also possible to be happy while having absolutely no fun whatsoever, as is the case with Buddhist monks most of the time.
Buddhist monks have tons of fun.
>>46701011
Depression may exist in an total absence of suffering. The complaint is 'numbness' or feeling disconnected from the world. A lack of suffering does not therefore imply happiness.
Further, individuals may suffer, and still report that they are happy. Therefore suffering does not imply a lack of happiness.
Given that there is not a definite relationship between the two states, we have to assume that they do not represent points on a continuum of sensation, but rather two distinct mental states, which may be experienced in some cases simultaneously. As they are experiences, and not experiences that can be reproduced as one may reproduce the sensation of heat or light or sound and expect agreement from many people, we cannot simply assume happiness is something we can define and quantify in our arguments.
Besides being far from a solid concept, any philosopher who's edifice rests on happiness must grapple with Dostoevsky's Underground Man:
"And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact. There is no need to appeal to universal history to prove that; only ask yourself, if you are a man and have lived at all."
>>46701437
There's a difference between pain and suffering, in that a person can experience pain and not suffer from it (such as is the case of masochists), or simply being able to endure the pain and not suffer for it. This includes physical, mental, and emotional pain.
When a person is sufficiently depressed, they are suffering, because that 'numbness' they feel either emotionally or mentally takes its toll on the other side that isn't numb.
>Therefore suffering does not imply a lack of happiness.
You really can't both suffer and be happy. One can be in pain and be happy, but suffering is a the point where the scales have been tipped beyond satisfaction. People want suffering to end, and happiness to continue.
> Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact.
On one hand, there's emo, which is largely just exaggerating one's pain as a cry for attention/sympathy/respect, while on the other hand there's persevering past pain in order to obtain some other benefit beyond it. You really can't get much in life by avoiding suffering, and it's less of a love with it so much as it is a love for wisdom, strength, courage, and all those other virtues. Ultimately, it's what is to the advantage of man.
>>46701729
But then your definitions become tautologies. Everything is ultimately defined in terms of itself. Happiness is not suffering? What's suffering, anything that makes you not happy. So Happiness is not not happy.
This is not a specific criticism of you, it's an issue I have with a lot of concepts in philosophy. Slapping an ultimately self-referential label on a subjective state of being does not mean you now have a thing you can talk about meaningfully. It's like Qualia which might as well be Cartesian mind-body dualism.
>>46702541
Suffering is defined as the following:
The physical and mental pain of being born, growing old, becoming sick, and dying.
The anxiety or stress of trying to hold on to things that are constantly changing.
The basic unsatisfactoriness that pervades all of existence because all things all things are ever-changing and impermanent.
If happiness is the state of not suffering, then happiness is:
Happiness is the state of not being in pain as a result of being born, growing old, getting sick, and dying. Much of this can be accomplished by staying in good health, exercising, eating well, and developing endurance to cope with the pain.
Happiness is the state of not trying to hold on to things that are ever-changing. Happiness is the ability to let go, to live in the moment, and to accept and appreciate things as they are.
>>46702541
I wouldn't call it ultimately self-referential. Happiness being simultaneously incompatible with suffering is just one part of a much larger definition as >>46702643 pointed out.
It's kind of like alive and dead, where being alive is certainly not being dead, but there's also a list of other qualifiers that explain what being alive means.
It seems /his/ is leaking tonight, and I'm completely okay with that.
>>46692273
>>46692311
The "Behold, a Man!" is better in original, because it was rather "Behold, a Man as described by Plato!". It was a personal punch toward Plato, toward which he had no answers.
>>46699843
If anything, the sole fact you know about him and his teachings should tell you about the level of respect he had. Otherwise you would never hear about him, because believe it or not, gossips about celebrities is not something that survives really well or long
>>46707016
>It was a personal punch toward Plato, toward which he had no answers.
This.
The entire point of that chicken trick wat to show just how idiotic Plato's idealism is in practice, by giving a quick glance about how arbitrary his entire teachings are.
>>46688031
To this day I agree with Socrates.
A key component of happiness is contentment. And contentment is born out of being satisfied with what we have, instead of longing for more and more, and the unattainable.
>>46707016
>>46707081
>It was a personal punch toward Plato, toward which he had no answers.
It was actually originally Socrates's definition of a "Featherless Biped" that Plato was using. After Diogenes's joke, Plato's answer was to add "With broad flat nails" to the definition.
>>46707452
>After Diogenes's joke, Plato's answer was to add "With broad flat nails" to the definition.
Can't plateu the Plato
