Who knew the 6.15 Omega Quests… (Spoilers)

[EaraGrace]

Gonna focus on the main thing I was talking about since we've kinda strayed off-topic and I'm not sure it'd be useful to argue about the preachiness of Automata's ending or to basically rehash the existing vs. potential life part of the anti-Sundering argument in the opposite direction in trying to prove the Rejoinings are unethical. I think I've pretty much laid all my cards on the table there. I'm not saying it's impossible to argue the Rejoinings are justified from a utilitarian framework, just that most schools of thought have qualifiers to their thinking that would prevent it.

Fair that it’s a bit off topic. I don’t think we’re gonna convince each other on this.

I'm not really sure I follow how Nozick's thought experiment is comparable to the Plenty other than the fact that they're both anti-hedonist arguments. Nozick's argument is based in material fact, which is that an existence of pure pleasure and no suffering in an artificial reality implicitly limits self-actualization, which subjectively may have equal or greater importance. By plugging ourselves into the utopia machine, we will attain an existence of eternal happiness, but we will only ever be hedons, unable to assume any other role we might find meaningful. There are some counters to this (mostly around the idea of 'meaningful' itself being subject to status quo bias), but it's a solid argument.

That self actualization isn’t impossible in the Experience machine however. In Nozicks example, he states that one could accomplish any number of things like world peace, writing a great novel, etc. in the experience machine, all while not knowing you were in it. The roles would be able to change. But that’s besides the point, I was using that more as way to demonstrate that the concept of happiness not being the end all of human existence or the wellspring of meaning is not novel to Endwalker. Perhaps a more compelling example are discussions about the nature of a Christian heaven or the writings of people like Bernard Williams, or even the show the Good Place where a philosophy consultant wrote a book called Death that might as well come from Endwalker itself.

On the other hand, Endwalker's argument is based on a presumed end, but doesn't 'show its work' in how it got there. What's interesting is that Nozick pre-supposes what Endwalker actively denies - he admits that an existence of optimized happiness is both possible and in some regards desirable, but ultimately attacks it on the basis of being limiting. Endwalker rejects the entire premise, saying that an attempt to optimize happiness will lead to people becoming so miserable they crave death.

In both cases the scenario is fantastical, but one is a logical argument based on the parameters, while the other is rooted in an invented outcome. That's what I mean when I say author fiat.

He admits that happiness could be maintained for as long as one lives, but whether that could be maintained forever is not stated.

[Lurina]

That self actualization isn’t impossible in the Experience machine however. In Nozicks example, he states that one could accomplish any number of things like world peace, writing a great novel, etc. in the experience machine, all while not knowing you were in it. The roles would be able to change. But that’s besides the point, I was using that more as way to demonstrate that the concept of happiness not being the end all of human existence or the wellspring of meaning is not novel to Endwalker. Perhaps a more compelling example are discussions about the nature of a Christian heaven or the writings of people like Bernard Williams, or even the show the Good Place where a philosophy consultant wrote a book called Death that might as well come from Endwalker itself.

I was using 'self-actualization' in a general rather than purely internal sense. Someone in the utopia machine may believe they have written a great novel and have thus self-actualized, but they haven't actually written a great novel. They're still a hedon, just a deluded one-- Though of course whether this actually matters is another question entirely.

Anyway, I don't really understand the point you're trying to make here by citing all these examples. Obviously I'm aware that there are lots of other pieces of media/academic literature that share Endwalker's negative attitude towards hedonism, but like I said a couple pages ago, my problem isn't that it has that opinion/that I believe it's 'novel' in doing so, or that I believe it's impossible to argue for said opinion convincingly.

My problem is that it doesn't. Instead of making the arguments based on implicit reality that it could have, it just dictates things that render the whole question moot. Hedonism lead to this scenario where everyone wanted to kill themselves, ergo hedonism is bad.

When I called Endwalker "proselytizing" earlier, what I meant was that it argues like a religion; it tells you what the truth is and how you should live in deference to it rather than making an argument for why the premise is so. The Bible, for example, does not attempt to make a rational argument for why sexual impropriety is bad, it just says: "Look, this is Sodom. The people here are perverts. Look at how immoral and evil they are! And now they've been smote by God! Ergo, being a pervert is bad!"

It's condescending. The problem isn't what it's selling, it's how it tries to sell it.

Let me put this another way - beyond entertainment, the purpose of stories is to convey new perspectives onto others that can broaden their understanding of the world and lead them to question their own beliefs. I consider myself a utilitarian and like 2/3rds a hedonist. When I read something like Nozick's argument or watch the Good Place (since you bring it up) even though I don't quite agree with the conclusions, the arguments they make are based on things which are empirically true about humans and/or reality. It is true that a life in a simulation would not be able to affect real material change. It is true that some people in a society of eternal pleasure would eventually tire of it and want to cease existing. The former is based on straightforward logic and the second is personal rather than absolutist; I have no choice but to concede ground and consider these ideas in opposition to my values.

But the Plenty is both speculative and absolutist. It doesn't contain any self-evident truth, it's just the developers idea of what would happen in a given circumstance based on their beliefs. There's nothing I can take from it, no way I can respond other than just saying "I don't agree that this would have this result," which is bad because appreciating the message is contingent on me accepting it would, on the thesis the story predicates on it. So the experience just leaves me feeling empty and frustrated.

[EaraGrace]

I was using 'self-actualization' in a general rather than purely internal sense. Someone in the utopia machine may believe they have written a great novel and have thus self-actualized, but they haven't actually written a great novel. They're still a hedon, just a deluded one-- Though of course whether this actually matters is another question entirely.

To someone following the utility principle it wouldn't. You'd have to appeal to some other form of good, which is obviously untenable.

My problem is that it doesn't. Instead of making the arguments based on implicit reality that it could have, it just dictates things that render the whole question moot. Hedonism lead to this scenario where everyone wanted to kill themselves, ergo hedonism is bad.

But I don't think Endwalker does that at all. The problems the Plenty or the Ea or the Dragons faced were based in fairly logical terms, each trying to achieve perfection and finding reality incapable of delivering. Same with the Ancients. Hermes lays out the argument in their case pretty clearly in his rant after the Lykaons are put down, and the Plenty talk through their reasoning in the dialogue. If we find only corpses and Meteion didn't give a whole narration about it I'd agree, but that's obviously not the case.

Let me put this another way - beyond entertainment, the purpose of stories is to convey new perspectives onto others that can broaden their understanding of the world and lead them to question their own beliefs.I consider myself a utilitarian and like 2/3rds a hedonist. When I read something like Nozick's argument or watch the Good Place (since you bring it up) even though I don't quite agree with the conclusions, the arguments they make are based on things which are empirically true about humans and/or reality. It is true that a life in a simulation would not be able to affect real material change. It is true that some people in a society of eternal pleasure would eventually tire of it and want to cease existing. The former is based on straightforward logic and the second is personal rather than absolutist; I have no choice but to concede ground and consider these ideas in opposition to my values.

But the Plenty is both speculative and absolutist. It doesn't contain any self-evident truth, it's just the developers idea of what would happen in a given circumstance based on their beliefs.

Again I believe it does contain self-evident truths. A society that believes it attained perfection cannot be improved or changed as it is "perfect". Ergo, those living in it will limited to only what is and will face the consequences of this. This is logical, and the same can be said with the Ea. If a society places the gathering of knowledge above all else, the realization that all of that is doomed is understandably horrific. The game justifies its moral with these arguments, as well as the others scattered throughout the story.

Now one can disagree with the arguments that are given, that is an option, but to say that the game doesn't offer the argument is to hold it to a different standard than pretty much every other story. This is why I brought up Nier and other media, because I simply do not see what they did differently. Nier showed about as much to justify why religion inevitably collapses into murder and cannibalism, and why living beings are inevitably faced with the truth of existentialism. Even previous FFXIV expansions rested upon justifications that summed up alien concepts with one or two lines. Endwalker went further than they I say, yet is criticized more than both.

But I don't think were gonna shift one another on this unfortunately.

[Lurina]

To someone following the utility principle it wouldn't. You'd have to appeal to some other form of good, which is obviously untenable.

Well, no, but it's possible for me to recognize a worthwhile or interesting point even when it conflicts with my personal ideology. No philosophy is capable of completely encompassing every worthwhile idea because reality and human nature are filled with contradictory principles. Even though I think it is basically correct, there are limitations on utilitarian thought, which is why many utilitarian philosophers - and most philosophers of like, everything - qualify their thinking in the way I was talking about earlier.

You seem like you only really view this stuff in absolute terms.

To someone following the utility principle it wouldn't. You'd have to appeal to some other form of good, which is obviously untenable. Again I believe it does contain self-evident truths. A society that believes it attained perfection cannot be improved or changed as it is "perfect". Ergo, those living in it will limited to only what is and will face the consequences of this. This is logical, and the same can be said with the Ea. If a society places the gathering of knowledge above all else, the realization that all of that is doomed is understandably horrific. The game justifies its moral with these arguments, as well as the others scattered throughout the story.

I'm going to have to stop you there, because it really feels like you aren't understanding what exactly it is I'm complaining about, or what I mean when I say 'self-evident truth'. Let me try this more directly, contrasting the final theme of The Good Place again with the Plenty, an explictly similar scenario, in how they construct their arguments. Like most, we can basically break down both into a fact (an observable truth about reality), an inference (a logical assumption predicated on the previous fact) and a thesis (what the author believes is the reasonable conclusion based on the previous two).

Fact: The amount of pleasurable experiences one can have in reality is finite.
Inference: Therefore, without a finite lifespan, people will inevitably run out of new pleasurable things to experience.
Thesis: Some people will become bored of existing and want to end that existence.

Fact: "A society that believes it attained perfection cannot be improved or changed as it is "perfect"."
Inference: Therefore, an unchanging society, however pleasant, will have its population lose all sense of meaning and stop enjoying life.
Thesis: The inhabitants of the unchanging society will end up wanting to end their existence en-masse.

Do you see the difference?

The problem isn't that the initial fact is wrong, or that the thesis is unreasonable unto itself. The problem is the fact>inference leap. In the first case, B is the only logical conclusion, based on the material limitations of the universe, of A. But in the second case, B is just a guess or opinion on what would follow A. It's less like Fact-Inference-Thesis and more like Fact-Thesis-Thesis. That extends to the little bit of context we get from Meteion's narration and the notes because all they really do is reiterate and clarify said thesis.

It doesn't really seem like you're cognizant of the distinction, or at least don't view it as important; Like, in this post, you assert that Endwalker is also based on self-evident truth just because the initial fact is true and the thesis is written clearly. Substantiation and the story 'showing its work' (and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect stories to do this - again, in the case of the Good Place, they lay out that inference repeatedly) doesn't factor in.

And you say "If a society places the gathering of knowledge above all else, the realization that all of that is doomed is understandably horrific", but this isn't a logical inference either - there are plenty of dedicated scientists in the real world who know about entropy and are not experiencing any sort of existential horror, and even if there weren't, there's nothing about that assertion which is implicitly true. It's Fact-Thesis-Thesis again. Endwalker does this constantly. That's the problem I'm trying to express I have, but it seems like we're not operating under the same standard of implicit logic. It's hard for me to even say we disagree because it doesn't feel as though we're having the same conversation.

If what you mean by "holding it to a different standard" is that you don't feel stories with high ideas are obligated to justify themselves in this way, then just say so and we can leave it at that. But you should at least understand what my issue is first.

This is why I brought up Nier and other media, because I simply do not see what they did differently. Nier showed about as much to justify why religion inevitably collapses into murder and cannibalism

I'm happy to illustrate the distinction using this same method. In Automata's case:

Fact: Most religions claim that a benevolent deity exists which confers purpose to life, but bad things still happen even to their most important followers and leaders.
Inference: Therefore, said deity must either not exist, be malicious instead of benevolent, or allow bad things to happen as part of some grand design.
Thesis: Religion is self-contradictory and cannot answer the fundamental questions of the universe, and so invites chaos/murder/cannibalism.

While Automata also has problems with its reasoning, the problem isn't the fact>inference link in the way it is with Endwalker. It's that the thesis is kind of reductive and silly.

[EaraGrace]

You seem like you only really view this stuff in absolute terms.

I simply believe that if you have a moral system founded upon a principle, that principle would imperative what you believe to be moral. A criticism of utility gets to the core of all utilitarianism, in the same way that criticizing duties does to the deontological ethics, or critiquing virtues does to virtue ethics. If that's absolutist to you then ok but I don't believe that to be wrong.

I'm going to have to stop you there, because it really feels like you aren't understanding what exactly it is I'm complaining about, or what I mean when I say 'self-evident truth'. Let me try this more directly, contrasting the final theme of The Good Place again with the Plenty, an explictly similar scenario, in how they construct their arguments. We can basically break down both into a fact (an observable truth about reality), an inference (a logical assumption predicated on the previous fact) and a thesis (what the author believes is the reasonable conclusion based on the previous two).

Fact: The amount of pleasurable experiences one can have in reality is finite.
Inference: Therefore, without a finite lifespan, people will inevitably run out of new pleasurable things to experience.
Thesis: Some people will become bored of existing and want to end that existence.

Fact: "A society that believes it attained perfection cannot be improved or changed as it is "perfect"."
Inference: Therefore, an unchanging society, however pleasant, will have its population lose all sense of meaning and stop enjoying life.
Thesis: The inhabitants of the unchanging society will end up wanting to end their existence en-masse.

Do you see the difference?

The problem isn't that the initial fact is wrong, or that the thesis is unreasonable unto itself. The problem is the fact>inference leap. In the first case, B is the only logical conclusion, based on the material limitations of the universe, of A. But in the second case, B is just a guess or opinion on what would follow A. It's less like Fact-Inference-Thesis and more like Fact-Thesis-Thesis. That extends to the little bit of context we get from Meteion's narration and the notes because all they really do is reiterate and clarify said thesis.

I believe you strip important context from the second scenario in order to make this work.

Fact: "A society that believes it attained perfection cannot be improved or changed as it is "perfect".
Inference: Therefore, with a long enough lifespan, living in said society would lead to ennui and dissatisfaction as nothing new is possible and repeated experiences have diminishing returns.
Thesis: The inhabitants will seek to escape their "perfect" existence as it becomes more and more painful to live.

The game explains the mechanism by which the Plenty came to resent their existence, and in so doing made the argument clear. You can say that that wouldn't happen, but once again that's different than claiming Endwalker doesn't offer an argument.

It doesn't really seem like you're cognizant of distinction, or at least don't view it as at all important;

I don't think I'm incapable of seeing distinction, I just don't agree with the distinction you are attempting to make. I believe Endwalker substantiates its position. You obviously don't. That's the core of our disagreement.

And you say "If a society places the gathering of knowledge above all else, the realization that all of that is doomed is understandably horrific", but this isn't a logical inference either - there are plenty of dedicated scientists in the real world who know about entropy and are not experiencing any sort of existential horror, and even if there weren't, there's nothing about that assertion which is implicitly true. It's Fact-Thesis-Thesis again. Endwalker does this constantly. That's the problem I'm trying to express I have, but it seems like we're not operating under the same standard of implicit logic. It's hard for me to even say we disagree because it doesn't feel as though we're having the same conversation.

And once again you strip context that makes the argument sound. I am also feeling like were not having the same conversation, because I don't think you're willing to give Endwalker any ground or charitability and it leads to us talking past each other. The Ea weren't just interested in knowledge, but we’re a society wholly dedicated to the discovery and retainment of said knowledge. This is made clear by their changed forms, which they explicitly state to have abandoned for the sake of "knowledge and technological advancement." To compare them to the average human scientist is ridiculous. And this might be why we find ourselves not connecting with each others arguments. I fully believe it logical to conclude that a people that have put so much towards the accumulation of knowledge, to the extent of the Ea, would find the inevitable end of existence and their collective knowledge a supremely demoralizing find.

If what you mean by "holding it to a different standard" is that you don't feel stories with high ideas are obligated to justify themselves in this way, then just say so and we can leave it at that. But you should at least understand what my issue is first.

No that's very much not what I said. If you aren't at least willing to believe that I mean what I say then I don't see how we can hope to have a discussion.

I'm happy to illustrate the distinction using this same method. In Automata's case:

Fact: Most religions claim that a benevolent deity exists which confers purpose to life, but bad things still happen.
Inference: Therefore, said deity must either not exist, be malicious instead of benevolent, or allow bad things to happen as part of some grand design.
Thesis: Religion is self-contradictory and cannot answer the fundamental questions of the universe, and so invites chaos/murder/cannibalism.

While Automata also has problems with its reasoning, the problem isn't the fact>inference link in the way it is with Endwalker. It's that the thesis is kind of reductive and silly.

So Automata's reasoning is no less flawed then, just in a different way? That's exactly my point about the unfair standard then, unless you believe that one kind of break in the link is worse than another?

[Lurina]

I believe you strip important context from the second scenario in order to make this work.

Fact: "A society that believes it attained perfection cannot be improved or changed as it is "perfect".
Inference: Therefore, with a long enough lifespan, living in said society would lead to ennui and dissatisfaction as nothing new is possible and repeated experiences have diminishing returns.
Thesis: The inhabitants will seek to escape their "perfect" existence as it becomes more and more painful to live.

The game explains the mechanism by which the Plenty came to resent their existence, and in so doing made the argument clear. You can say that that wouldn't happen, but once again that's different than claiming Endwalker doesn't offer an argument.

Even with more context, this doesn't really change the point I'm making. The issue is that, while the jump from fact to inference in The Good Place example is self-evident - it is just material fact that there are only so many possible pleasurable things to experience in a finite universe - your example makes an unspoken assumption between the two.

Like, let's lay both out both again with this in mind.

Fact: The amount of pleasurable experiences one can have in reality is finite.
Inference: Therefore, without a finite lifespan, people will inevitably run out of new pleasurable things to experience.
Assumption: It is impossible to meaningfully forget pleasurable experiences and re-experience them, and the resulting lack of novelty would be enough to cause some people to become suicidal.
Thesis: Some people will become bored of existing and want to end that existence.

Fact: "A society that believes it attained perfection cannot be improved or changed as it is "perfect".
Assumption: All people experience ennui and extreme discontent without novel experiences.
Inference: Therefore, with a long enough lifespan, living in said society would lead to ennui and dissatisfaction as nothing new is possible and repeated experiences have diminishing returns.
Assumption: It is impossible to restore novelty though forgetting the original experiences, and this dissatisfaction would be great enough to make all the inhabitants suicidal.
Thesis: The inhabitants will seek to escape their "perfect" existence as it becomes more and more painful to live.

An ideal argument contains no subjective assumptions whatsoever, with the fact, inference and thesis all leading seamlessly into one another. However, it is much more reasonable to have assumptions leading into the thesis than into the inference, because the thesis is by nature a subjective observation, whereas the fact and inference are just intended to reflect reality. An argument with a bad inference>thesis leap is merely wrong, while an argument with a bad fact>inference leap is, intentionally or not, disingenuous because it's parameters are biased. It is treating something it merely believes to be true as objectively true before it even begins to argue its actual point; to be mean about it, you could say it's trying to 'trick' the reader. Again, this is what I mean when I say condescending/proselytizing.

In this case (though the Ea stuff also does something similar) Endwalker takes it as an indisputable truth of reality that all people experience ennui to the point it can make them profoundly miserable. But this isn't so. Ennui is a subjective emotional experience that is reported extremely differently between individuals; the assertion is at best a guess, and at worse, completely false.

A big problem with how Endwalker argues is, like I mentioned briefly earlier, its absolutism. While the inference>thesis leap is essentially the same in both Endwalker and The Good Place, The Good Place merely argues that some people will experience terminal boredom in its anti-hedonism argument, while Endwalker - in trying to indirectly defend Hydaelyn for the Sundering, and its more extreme viewpoint generally - is forced to assert that people will eventually arrive at that state as a matter of general truth, and in doing so, makes that fact>inference assumption.

While The Good Place doesn't have to do that, because the idea that just some people experience extreme ennui is observably true.

So Automata's reasoning is no less flawed then, just in a different way? That's exactly my point about the unfair standard then, unless you believe that one kind of break in the link is worse than another?

Don't get the wrong idea - like I said, there are plenty of valid criticisms for how Automata delivers its message. Even if its argument about religion is just contrived and doesn't break the fact>inference rule, there are plenty of times it does do so, and overall the story relies on the player only having a basic investment in any of the philosophical topics it touches on to make its argument. The game is mostly carried, like Endwalker, on the emotional aspect of the storytelling. While the game is very earnest, it's a complete mess if you squint, which is why there are some very polarized responses to it, too.

It just doesn't have an official forum for people to argue about them for 1000 years.

[SentioftheHoukai]

You want to know the funniest thing about this seemingly endless philosophical debate between Lurina vs. Eara (Who will win? Place your bets now!) is that mortal beings cannot truly comprehend what "perfection" even looks like, let alone agree on what it entails. Like many other things, it's nothing more than a social construct we invented in our heads and decided should be strived towards. If any sapient race ever "reached" it, chances are highly likely they would soon discover they did not and the endless march of progress would just continue on.

You know that old phrase? Well, practice doesn't make "perfect" because perfection is unattainable and might not even exist in the first place. Practice merely leads to improvement. Even the concept of utopia is a social construct, an idea that first surfaced as a likely philosophical opponent of perfection and how it only leads to detrimental outcomes.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, that the Ancients didn't reach utopia and neither did the Ra-La. Utopia and perfection don't exist and if they did they'd be beyond sapient races. Free will alone bars the way to it, because free will leads to disagreement and most races get violent when they disagree.

[Lurina]

You want to know the funniest thing about this seemingly endless philosophical debate between Lurina vs. Eara (Who will win? Place your bets now!) is that mortal beings cannot truly comprehend what "perfection" even looks like, let alone agree on what it entails.

We've actually been arguing about writing, not philosophy. I think it was Crowny who Eara was discussing the theme of perfection with like 4-5 pages ago.

[Lyth]

If you want to draw on your own personal viewing experience of Endwalker's MSQ to reflect on the nature of hedonism, then that's your choice. I don't actually recall any discussion on the subject directly happening within the game itself, though.

Discussion around utopias on the other hand are central to Shadowbringers, with More's work being heavily referenced throughout your exploration of the city of Amaurot. A much more direct discussion of the subject also comes up during the Eden raid storyline, when Mitron tries to forcibly create one.

Hard to have a discussion on the subject when your objection is really to events and not themes.

[Lurina]

If you want to draw on your own personal viewing experience of Endwalker's MSQ to reflect on the nature of hedonism, then that's your choice. I don't actually recall any discussion on the subject directly happening within the game itself, though.

Discussion around utopias on the other hand are central to Shadowbringers, with More's work being heavily referenced throughout your exploration of the city of Amaurot. A much more direct discussion of the subject also comes up during the Eden raid storyline, when Mitron tries to forcibly create one.

Hard to have a discussion on the subject when your objection is really to events and not themes.

Hedonism (specifically ethical hedonism) is the belief that individuals and societies will create the most favorable outcomes through acting to maximize pleasure and minimize struggle. Insofar as the Plenty is presented as a society which strove to and successfully eliminated struggle from very first line Meteion gives about it ("Farther still existed a star without strife..."), I don't think it's unreasonable to interpret this as anti-hedonist.

However, even if you reject this premise and regard it as strictly anti-utopian (or whatever you consider the actual ethical extension of that viewpoint), this doesn't change my argument from the past page in any way. Because I've not been talking about what Endwalker argues, but how it argues it.

Incidentally, though, More was actually an ethical hedonist himself, and among many other things Utopia was written as advocacy for this position. If we take FFXIV's Amaurot as commentary on More's Amaurot, we could say that it's implicitly hedonism-skeptical... Though that might be giving the writers a little too much credit.