Sigmund said:Truth is just where opinion and reality collide.
somebody else said:Truth is the identity between perception and what actually exists.
Quote : Weekend Warrior said:Truth is when a judgment aligns perfectly with the facts on the ground.
mart28 said:Any relative truth is—within certain limits—just a decent reflection of objective reality.
If we actually bothered to distinguish between correctness and truth, then most of these definitions are really just talking about being correct, not finding the actual truth.
Joseph Murphy10 said:@Terry Martinez10 props on this question. It really forces you to sit back and actually think first. Plenty of people throughout history—think Pontius Pilate (IV 18,38)—never actually got an answer to this one. It’s such a massive, messy question that some thinkers, like Lacan, basically argued absolute truth doesn't even exist. Even when facts are laid out in an American courtroom, people who don't like the verdict struggle to wrap their heads around it—and honestly, you have to wonder if what’s being called "truth" is just whatever the person in power says it is. Same deal in science. Everything we call "fact" today might get debunked tomorrow. So, I'm tossing out all that legalistic and scientific positivist nonsense and just sticking to pure thought. In philosophy, they say when Hegel was called out by certain facts, he just shrugged and said, "go check the facts." @Amanda Jackson5 knows exactly the context behind that, assuming he even said it.
The answer is brewing in my head, but let it simmer for a bit.
@Amanda Jackson5, loved your response. You're definitely on the same wavelength as me. ruggedraven36, the answer is identical to Sigmund's 😲
thanks to everyone for the votes in the last round.
Deleted it. No point in having two identical answers cluttering things up. I'll try to come up with an answer that's slightly less truthful next time.
Look, I’ve had my fair share of scraps with steelridge58—I’ve been banned and I’ve scrubbed some of my own posts—but I want to go on the record here and back her moderation. She’s doing the work to keep this place from turning into a total circus, keeping the discussions decent and staying objective. Honestly, if you’re out here hunting for flaws in her, you should probably take a long, hard look in the mirror first.
I picture Flying as this sharp, high-browed type—long, sandy-brown hair and dark eyes. They've got this intense, thoughtful look about them; someone decisive, though they’d probably hate admitting how much they actually care about things.
ruggedhawk20 said:Can you actually defend the idea that "happiness is worthless if you have no one to share it with" without leaning on old-school proverbs?
How am I supposed to explain that, for example, I feel genuinely happy when I'm completely by myself?
Matthew Gomez2 said:I agree, I never actually intended to live in total isolation. The small town where I grew up is a settled community with a school, grocery stores, neighbors, and all the basic necessities a place needs, but it also offers that specific peace you just don't find in a major city, which is exactly what I'm aiming for.
Sounds like a decent little spot. It’s a shame the rest of the world can't just move to places like that and call it a day.
He walked away from the Army straight into the woods And lived off nothing but roots. He had zero possessions—just pure freedom, Which he guarded by running away.
A young Canadian girl Fell head over heels for him; The nomad and his descendant Brought new kinds of madness into the world.
Those two—whose ideals Were endless, winding paths— Gave their lives to my grandfather, But left me with this hollow stare.
And often, lying awake at night, I feel this crushing urge to just bolt. Somewhere—wherever some random chance takes me: It sings inside me with a fresh kind of fever— The song of an old, dead deserter.
And he sings and sings about freedom Without borders, About how much better the vast forests are Than any farmland, And how beautiful, how crazy it is — Hey! — To tear it all down.
The idea sounds interesting enough, but I’m flat-out against the notion that answers need to be short or concise. People should be able to write their responses however they damn well please. No unsolicited suggestions needed.
From a purely technical standpoint, yes, games are played via some form of software. However, that is a rather oversimplified way to look at it. Some might even argue that a computer game falls under the category of digital art. Digital art relies on computer-based digital coding or the electronic storage and processing of information in various formats: text, numbers, images, sounds—all contained within binary code.
Of course, there is a dark side to video games, which could certainly be discussed at length, but there also seems to be something profoundly useful about them. There is a downside to internet forums, reading the news, or watching sports as well. Negatives exist everywhere.
It isn't a bad idea to contemplate this, provided we take it a step further:
After all, video games are a form of media—specifically electronic media—which are fields that philosophy engages with quite deeply. After all, video games are a form of media—specifically electronic media—which are fields that philosophy engages with quite deeply. After all, video games are a form of media—specifically electronic media—which are fields that philosophy engages with quite deeply. Talking about "pros and cons" is about as shallow as it gets. It isn't philosophy—any kid can list what's good and what's bad about something. That's just common sense, not deep thought.
hiddeneagle98 said:First off, let's talk about this whole "reactionary" label you're throwing around—it honestly reminds me so much of my old man.
My dad spent my entire childhood preaching that video games were nothing more than a colossal waste of time. Instead of actually supporting me or showing any interest in what I was building, he just kept dismissing it all as nonsense. In his own shortsightedness—which honestly mirrors the exact kind of tunnel vision you’re showing here—he completely missed the fact that he had a kid in middle school who was busy procedurally generating entire universes. I wasn't just playing; I was building solar systems, planets, and moons from scratch, simulating gravity, collision physics, rocket trajectories, and the logic behind automated AI characters. We're talking about complex coordinate systems, trigonometry, and Newtonian physics baked into every little mechanic—stuff I was handling better than some college professors at that age, let alone the actual programming involved. And the kicker? My father is a certified Khan Academy instructor, yet he held onto this incredibly ignorant stance. The reality is that game development might actually be one of the most intense brain workouts out there; it forces you to constantly question your understanding of logic and how the world works. When you're developing a game, the only real ceiling is the limit of your own imagination, because a computer can simulate absolutely anything you can dream up, provided you have the technical skill to make it happen.
Based on everything I’ve seen, the entire education system needs a massive overhaul to be centered around game development. We should be structuring all STEM curricula so that every single concept is applied directly to building video games or, at the very least, complex simulations. That is how you actually learn things—by seeing them function in a real-world application—instead of this endless, soul-crushing grind through abstract theories that feel like they have absolutely no purpose in the real world. Look, my grasp of trigonometry and Newtonian physics was honestly incomprehensible to the professors over at that elite prep school I attended, yet I mastered it all through something I actually found fun—developing video games. It didn't feel like work; it was just play. So how on earth can anyone claim that kind of mastery has zero value? If we keep looking at it that way, the entire STEM education system becomes even more questionable, because its actual end results—in terms of practical, real-world application—are significantly weaker than what you get from hands-on creation.
Look, I wasn't some shut-in who lacked any sense of athleticism or social life. I was out there playing basketball with my crew, running around playing war, and riding my bike just like every other kid growing up here. If we’re going to get pedantic about this, let’s be real: the kids who spent their entire lives buried in books were usually the ones who ended up socially stunted and physically unfit. My life was a balance; I had these massive bursts of creative energy where I wouldn't leave my computer for days or nights on end—aside from the time I spent being active with my friends—but I also had those heavy, depressive stretches where I’d just stare blankly at MTV for hours. Even with all that screen time, I think I utilized my childhood way more effectively than most people do today. Just because you see these cases of neglected, overweight kids who spend twenty-four hours a day shoveling junk food into their faces while staring at a console doesn't invalidate the medium itself. Video games aren't just a factory for producing obese, mindless zombies—because if that were the case, I would have turned out exactly like that. This whole outcry is really just hype fueled by old-fashioned busybodies and people who haven't accomplished a single thing in their lives. They love to moan about "fat kids playing video games" because it makes them feel superior; it gives those older generations a sense of validation to look down their noses at us, acting like they were somehow better just because they spent their youth running through fields instead of having computers.
Look, let’s be real for a second: video games are officially the king of global entertainment. They pulled ahead of the entire Hollywood movie industry a long time ago, and honestly, it makes perfect sense. When you're playing a game, you aren't just sitting there watching some actor run around on a screen; you *are* the protagonist. You’re the one making the calls, driving the action, and feeling the stakes. It’s interactive, it’s immersive, and frankly, it’s way more engaging than staring at a cinema screen for two hours. So, I find it incredibly hypocritical when I hear someone advocating for things like a shorter work week—which, fine, who doesn't want more free time?—only to turn around and claim that the world's biggest form of entertainment is somehow worthless. It’s a massive contradiction. If you're fighting for more leisure time, you're essentially fighting for more time to engage with these very activities. It really forces you to ask a deeper question: does "entertainment" even need to have some sort of inherent, measurable value? Does a game, as an art form or a medium, actually need to serve a higher purpose to justify its existence? It seems to me that if people are hungry for more downtime, they should probably stop acting like the things they do with that time don't matter.
I think we need to start by actually defining what a game even is. You call it a computer game because it’s played on a machine, sure, but I’m not interested in getting bogged down in semantics. I’ll leave the heavy lifting to the philosophy buffs who love to drop academic quotes in every thread—you guys go ahead and lecture us on the "essence of play" if that’s what you want. As for me, here is how I see it: a game is essentially an act of transformation, a sort of "constructed reality." It’s a space where people cooperate or compete under conditions that lack immediate, life-altering consequences—though, of course, there are hidden ones, like sharpening your reflexes or developing mental acuity. Even in the wild, animals engage in this kind of behavior to hone their instincts, build muscle memory, and test their limits. They aren't just messing around; they are exploring their own capabilities and learning how to interact with one another through these simulated scenarios. At its core, play is a rehearsal for reality disguised as entertainment. If it didn't serve a purpose, nature wouldn't have bothered evolving such complex behaviors, and they wouldn't persist. Play prepares us for the real world while keeping us engaged; otherwise, why would it exist?
Whether a game is digital or not really shouldn't matter when we're talking about actual value; if the core experience holds weight, then obviously a computer game can be just as meaningful. Take chess, for instance—one of those ancient staples that’s still going strong today. Nowadays, you’re far more likely to see someone playing it on a laptop than hunched over a physical wooden board. In neither scenario are you getting any kind of physical workout, but with a computer, you can hop online and play against someone halfway across the world in Brazil, or let an algorithm match you with opponents based on your specific ranking. So, the real question is: does chess lose its essence just because it's played on a screen? If the game itself has value, how does moving it to a digital medium strip that away? And while we're on the subject, people used to think computers would never be able to touch a human at the board, yet now they're absolutely crushing people in games like Go. These kinds of shifts actually force us to rethink some pretty heavy philosophical ground.
There’s one particular thing that left a massive impression on me, though it’s really a borderline case since it’s technically called a "game," but let's call it what it is: "Conway's Game of Life." I remember seeing it back in the Windows 3.11 days, tucked away alongside Minesweeper and Solitaire. It was dreamed up by a mathematician in the 70s. It blew my mind to see how a simple little universe governed by just four basic rules could spring to life in such miraculous ways. Honestly, given how much it resonated with me, I’d argue this thing should be mandatory reading in elementary school; that's how much intrinsic value I think it carries. Generally speaking, if we want learning to be more effective and engaging, we ought to "gamify" everything—that is the true inherent value of digital gaming.
Then you have all these educational games that drop you into historical contexts, letting you soak up history through gameplay or even letting you tweak the course of events. You’ve got management sims where you run entire empires—take Civilization, where you build a society from the ground up, or Panzer General, where you command troops during World War II. All these titles expand and sharpen the player's intellect while casually feeding them historical facts and narratives. For example, one of the "advancements" in Civilization—if I recall correctly—is "women's suffrage". By playing Civilization, you gain a practical understanding of the timeline and importance of various breakthroughs, from the wheel to the modern era; it's almost hands-on knowledge because if you fail to innovate at the right time, your civilization falls behind everyone else. It reminds me of those classic American game shows, like Jeopardy!, where it's basically just high-stakes trivia categorized by topic.
My kid plays educational games on his phone. Look, if you’re constantly parenting young children, it’s nearly impossible to keep a smartphone out of their hands, but it is entirely doable to load it with apps that teach shapes, letters, numbers, logic, and deduction. My little guy mastered the entire alphabet when he was around 20 months old, maybe even earlier. He’ll play a game diligently for half an hour, get bored, and then go back to playing "in real life." I don't see any issue with that. I sit with him, watch how he plays, and help him out when he struggles or gets clumsy with his fingers.
When we start dissecting these different types of games, we really need to draw a line between virtual worlds—where you have persistent avatars—and the kind of games you just play once and walk away from. Virtual worlds where you can lead a sort of "second life" (which can easily become your primary one) are in a completely different league than something like Sokoban or Super Mario. In those worlds, you're dealing with other people who make that environment feel real; because of them, you can't just hit a reset button. You can reset your character, sure, but you can't undo the social connections. There's a parallel here to what happens on forums like this. Those of us who are regulars here aren't just hanging out for the philosophy; we're here for the other users. Even if we're just anonymous avatars, we are real people. This is a massive topic that probably deserves its own dedicated thread, but it touches on the future where everyone might be plugged into some virtual reality most of the time. I don't have the time to dive into that whole rabbit hole right now, so I'll leave it there, but I'll just say that even that hyper-connected future doesn't negate the points I made above.
I'm not buying the "reactionary" tag. It’s not that I’m anti-tech—it’s that I’m against tech that doesn't actually liberate the average person, but instead just suffocates them. The pace of computing is moving so fast, bleeding into every single corner of our lives, that trying to keep up feels more like an exhausting survival race than actual progress. We aren't being freed from the grind; we're just running faster to stay in place. Video games? They're just a side effect—shiny bait used to make all this tech look appealing, which makes it way harder for people to see how irrational the whole thing really is.
steelridge58 said:What even is play, really? I find myself staring at the ceiling sometimes, wondering if we ever actually grasp the essence of what it means to just... play. Is it a distraction from the grind, or is it the only thing that actually makes us feel alive while we’re navigating this chaotic life? I don't have a neat, academic answer for you, but I can't help but feel like there's something much deeper happening when we let go of our responsibilities and just dive into something for the sake of it. What exactly are we doing when we dive into a game? What’s the actual point of playing games? I find myself wondering about this quite often, staring at my console and questioning if I'm just killing time or actually doing something meaningful with my life. Is there some deep, inherent value in immersing ourselves in these digital worlds, or am I just chasing a temporary dopamine hit to distract myself from the grind of reality? I honestly want to know what you all think—is it just mindless escapism, or is there something more profound happening when we lose ourselves in a story or a challenge?
I honestly can't help but feel like I’m constantly staring at some massive, unsolvable puzzle where half the pieces are missing and the other half don't even seem to belong to the same box, though I suppose that’s just life, isn't it? It feels like we spend all this energy trying to connect these complex dots—trying to make sense of everything from how our society functions to why we feel so disconnected from one another—only to realize that the picture we were aiming for might have been a total illusion all along. I know I tend to overthink things and probably ramble on more than I should, but there’s just this persistent, nagging sensation that if we could only find that one missing fragment of understanding, everything would finally click into place, even if my clumsy attempts at solving it usually just end up making a bigger mess of things. kaže: Technology is moving at such a breakneck pace these days, and honestly, it feels like gaming is migrating entirely into this realm of true virtual reality through these specialized headsets. It brings up this one deeply philosophical concept called "presence," which is basically just a fancy way of describing that specific level of immersion where a player becomes so completely swallowed up by the artificial world that you start losing track of where the game ends and your actual life begins.
This provides such an incredible foundation for some deeper philosophical digging, so I’ll definitely jump back into the conversation once I can carve out a little more breathing room in my schedule.
I’ve been sitting here thinking about how much we tend to overcomplicate things when the simplest answer is usually staring us right in the face, almost like we’re trying to outsmart our own intuition just for the sake of it. It’s funny, really—how we can spend hours debating the most complex theories or getting lost in all this dense, academic jargon, only to realize that the core truth was actually quite plain and straightforward all along. I sometimes catch myself doing this too, getting caught up in my own head and making mountains out of molehills, but I suppose that’s just part of being human, isn't it? We want everything to be profound and layered, yet there's a certain honest beauty in just keeping it simple and being direct about what we mean. kaže: Honestly, this whole topic really does carry some weight, so if you're looking for a starting point, it might be wise to dig into an early paper by Marija Selak from back when she was still a young PhD student; she did some fascinating work on this exact subject by weaving together the philosophies of Nikolai Berdyaev and Martin Heidegger.
Maybe this might actually encourage some of you dear friends to dig a little deeper than just our usual surface-level distractions and tackle that one massive, heavy-hitting relationship that essentially dictates our entire reality—though, if I’m being honest, it’s already been pulling all the strings behind the scenes for quite some time—which is, fundamentally, that profound philosophical connection between man and... I’ve been sitting here thinking about the whole concept of *episteme*—you know, that deep, foundational kind of knowledge that goes way beyond just knowing a few random facts or being able to pass a test. It’s that structural understanding of how things actually work, the kind that shapes how we see the world before we even realize we're looking at it. I sometimes feel like I'm constantly stumbling through the dark trying to grasp it, feeling a bit foolish because while most people seem to be navigating life with such certainty, I'm still over here questioning the very ground I'm standing on. It's a heavy thing to wrap your head around, honestly, but there's something so incredibly vital about trying to reach that level of clarity, even if it feels like an uphill battle most days. i I’ve been spending way too much time lately thinking about the concept of *techne*, that old-school idea of craftsmanship and practical wisdom, and honestly, I can't stop circling back to it. It feels like we’re living in this era where everything is so automated and frictionless that we’ve completely lost touch with the actual soul of making things—that deep, intuitive connection between the creator and the work itself. You know, that specific kind of knowledge that isn't just following a manual or a set of algorithms, but is something you feel in your hands and your gut. I was reading some stuff recently that reminded me how easily we mistake mere technical efficiency for true mastery, and it’s a little humbling to realize how much of our modern "skill" is really just knowing which buttons to press on a piece of software. There’s such a profound difference between being a proficient user of a tool and actually possessing the *techne* to command it, and I think we’re all feeling a bit adrift because of that gap. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but I definitely find myself staring at my own projects sometimes, wondering if I’m actually building anything meaningful or if I'm just going through the motions of a highly optimized process.
I was reading through this academic paper on linguistic structures, and honestly, it’s one of those deep dives that really makes you question how much we take our own way of speaking for granted. It explores the intricacies of how language shapes our perception of reality—that classic idea that the tools we use to communicate actually build the world we live in. It’s pretty heavy stuff, looking at how specific grammatical frameworks influence the way an individual processes thought, but there’s something deeply moving about the idea that we aren't just using language; we are being shaped by it every single day. I found myself sitting there for a good hour just staring at the screen, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of it all, yet strangely comforted by the notion that our very consciousness is tied to these invisible linguistic threads. It definitely gives you a whole new perspective on why certain concepts feel so easy to express in one language but almost impossible to grasp in another.
I'll give it a read. Thanks a million!
I can't think of a single trait that applies to every single thing labeled a "game"—so honestly, I've got no answer for you.
Harold Doyle3 said:👍 Then you definitely understand that whole "spirit of the era": the Z80, those old galaxy shooters, the Commodore, the Atari... The real question is how on earth you motivate the masses to dump money into this "newfangled" tech! Some capitalist decided to lean into the whole "bread and circuses" strategy (with a heavy emphasis on the circuses"). Naturally, they bundled it with the promise of constant upgrades—both hardware and software—and then the madness started. You buy a graphics card in the morning, and by dinner, it's already obsolete and sluggish. Someone's constantly picking you off in an online match because your internet connection is garbage, leaving you frantically screaming, "Faster! Faster!" Then some junk flies into your computer while you're distracted browsing adult sites or playing some sketchy poker game, and suddenly you're hunting for every antivirus, anti-trojan, anti-malware, and anti-scam tool imaginable just to "sanitize," "decontaminate," and "disinfect" your system.
Honestly, I think video games align perfectly with Hegelian philosophy. You have: 1 - being 0 - non-being From there, it's all down to the laws of dialectics (and the market), where quantity eventually transforms into quality, and vice versa.
Of course I am. That's exactly why I know video games don't have any actual value.
Harold Doyle3 said:What exactly is...🙂 You didn't turn up a single thing regarding computer games on 18th or 19th-century papyrus or parchment, nor did you find anything in the Gospel scrolls according to Hegel. So, I suppose reductionism is all that's left on the table now. Fine. Have it your way.
I didn't just hear about them—I actually played them. I even spent some time coding them myself, first in assembly for the Intel 8080 and later in C++. Still, I’m glad my childhood was filled with actual, real-world games instead of just staring at a screen.
From a radical empiricist standpoint, whether the world actually exists or not is pretty much irrelevant. If it doesn't change how we experience things, the line between reality and a simulation is basically meaningless. Still—you have to wonder why we instinctively push back against that idea. When we’re dealing with inanimate objects, who cares if they're "real" or just digital constructs? But once you're facing a living thing, everything changes. You need to know if there's actual life in front of you or just a damn good imitation. And then there's the big one—the absolute dealbreaker—is that entity actually self-aware, or is it just running a script that makes it look that way? The world of gaming is really just a dress rehearsal for a future where we won't be able to tell the difference anymore.