For Chad of FF14's next lecture, "The Meaning of Life, The Universe, Everything."

[Mister Goober]

I play FF14 and Chad Thundermember of the Crystal Data Center is my character. I do lectures with him.

For this coming lecture, it is titled "The Meaning of Life, The Universe, Everything." It's not an original idea. I got it from the game Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga. But only the title. Its contents are original and coming from me.

It's a very very big topic and I need help planning for it. What should it include?

My lectures run anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours.

Please help.

 

[Seiryuu]

Do something crazy and wacky at 42:00.

What's your main idea that you're trying to convey?

 

[Dionysos]

"The Meaning of Life, The Universe, Everything"

As Seiryuu hints at here, that expression is very much a Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy thing too. It is the ultimate question asked of the Deep Thought mega-computer. The answer after the computer's millennia of deep contemplation? 42.

I'd suspect that Divinity 2 might even be making a sly reference to it, although I know nothing about that franchise.

Something special for the 42nd minute could imbue your followers with cosmic power, perhaps.

If this is a philosophy thing then you can't go wrong with a bit of Plato. The good life and the soul, etc. (I mean you can go wrong with a lot of Plato, but it is interesting, I mean).

 

[Mister Goober]

"The Meaning of Life, The Universe, Everything"

As Seiryuu hints at here, that expression is very much a Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy thing too. It is the ultimate question asked of the Deep Thought mega-computer. The answer after the computer's millennia of deep contemplation? 42.

I'd suspect that Divinity 2 might even be making a sly reference to it, although I know nothing about that franchise.

Something special for the 42nd minute could imbue your followers with cosmic power, perhaps.

If this is a philosophy thing then you can't go wrong with a bit of Plato. The good life and the soul, etc. (I mean you can go wrong with a lot of Plato, but it is interesting, I mean).

The old school philosophers like Plato and Aristotle had such beautiful and SIMPLE concepts in their philosophies. Even Aristotle himself, who was considered as an analyzer, still had concepts simple enough to be easily understood. He created the original format of logical thinking, the "Syllogism".

Nowadays we got people in Universities asking how they can prove the existence of a kiwi that they ate three nights ago...

Do something crazy and wacky at 42:00.

What's your main idea that you're trying to convey?

Oh my goodness bro, a lot. I can probably spend eight hours in the lecture and still don't have enough time, so it's definitely gonna be condensed.

I'm leaning towards telling everyone that their focus should be on themselves. For example... Why was Socrates hailed as the greatest philosopher during the golden era of philosophy? Because he told everyone to focus on human ethics instead of asking about the molecular components of sunlight. It's the same thing here. It's like the Renaissance, when great scientists like Da Vinci focused on the greatness of humans instead of the greatness of God. That's why anatomy was part of his whole study.

It's probably gonna sound like a self-help presentation.

 

[Seiryuu]

Are you hosting these yourself? Going through the CliffNotes of your philosophy in roughly an hour likely isn't going to explain the reasoning behind it. Is it possible to segment it into smaller, more manageable topics that can be discussed in an hour?

 

[Dionysos]

The old school philosophers like Plato and Aristotle had such beautiful and SIMPLE concepts in their philosophies. Even Aristotle himself, who was considered as an analyzer, still had concepts simple enough to be easily understood. He created the original format of logical thinking, the "Syllogism".

I'm more familiar with Plato, but I also like Aristotle. He has a lot of interesting things to say. Although he is a bit more elitist at times and with some highly dismissive/judgmental opinions compared with Plato. But that should be expected of the guy who, according to tradition, became the teacher and influencer of Alexander the Great.

I'm leaning towards telling everyone that their focus should be on themselves. For example... Why was Socrates hailed as the greatest philosopher during the golden era of philosophy? Because he told everyone to focus on human ethics instead of asking about the molecular components of sunlight. It's the same thing here. It's like the Renaissance, when great scientists like Da Vinci focused on the greatness of humans instead of the greatness of God. That's why anatomy was part of his whole study.

Socrates is interesting for this, yeah. At least Socrates as portrayed by Plato (Socrates didn’t write anything himself, preferring to talk instead, pouncing upon people on the streets, at symposium parties, etc). In fact the character of Socrates is very much debated. How much of the man is Plato’s construction? How much is accurate to how he was as a man, and to how he thought in real life? How many of Socrates' ideas were actually just Plato's? It’s a tangle.

If Plato’s Socrates is somewhat accurate, then the comic poet Aristophanes’ caricature of Socrates is quite wrong in many aspects (which, to be fair, we should expect for Old Comedy). In The Clouds, where Socrates is lampooned, he is very much conflated with the earlier Ionian philosophers (more naturalistic, interested in the stars, matter, and so on), and also the Athenian sophists interested in teaching rhetoric, and varied subjects, potentially for monetary gain. Plato presents him as humble, caring about social issues, moral issues, and the nature of the soul, and so on.

Add to that his unfortunate execution (and the charges were quite unfair!), and the emotions that makes people feel because of how brave he was in accepting it, according to Plato’s account. Young Plato left Athens for some time following that, potentially grieving quite a bit based on the works which followed, and when he returned he went guns blazing with his philosophical writings, formed the Academy, put his ideas into the mouth of his deceased (but very much remembered) idol Socrates in his dialogues, and criticised his enemies and the Athenian state.

Going forward, Socrates certainly reverberated through history, and I think he is a truly fascinating figure.