#speculative philosophy

[criminal-delirium]

“All modern philosophy hinges round the difficulty of describing the world in terms of subject and predicate, substance and quality, particular and universal. The result always does violence to that immediate experience which we express in our actions, our hopes, our sympathies, our purposes, and which we enjoy in spite of our lack of phrases for its verbal analysis.”

—Alfred North Whitehead. Process and Reality.

#alfred north whitehead #metaphysics #philosophy #speculative philosophy

[rhianna]

Author

Burnham, William Henry, 1855-1941

Title An Historical Sketch of the Conceptions of Memory among the Ancients

Contents Conceptions of memory before Aristotle -- Aristotle's conceptions of memory -- Conceptions of memory among the Stoics and Epicureans, and in Cicero and Quintilian -- Conceptions of Plotinus and St. Augustine -- Diseases of memory mentioned by ancient writers -- Ancient systems of mnemonics. Language      English            LoC Class

BD: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Speculative Philosophy, General Philosophical works

Subject

Thesis (Ph. D.)

Subject

Memory (Philosophy) -- History

Category Text EBook-No. 59995

 Release Date Jul 28, 2019

 Copyright Status         Public domain in the USA.

#memory #philosophy #speculative philosophy #psychology #history

[suppotato123]

So, I’ve noticed that when we design an alien species that’s supposed to be sapient we tend to make them look like us, and I don’t mean in the typical “why in the world does this people on an entirely different planet of a completely different species with its own unique evolutionary history have a very primate/human-like body plan???” Kind of way. I’ve noticed that even when we make sapient species that look nothing like us and have a completely different body plan, we still give them the same or similar facial expressions and body language to ourselves. I find this really interesting because facial expressions are not across the board for all species (or all humans for that matter). Take, for example, the smile, a common friendly greeting among humans that communicates happiness, contentment, humor, and a lack of hostility, etc. However, for most animals, bearing teeth is a sign of unease or even open hostility. Its a threat that, “I have teeth and I’m willing to use them to protect myself!” Or take cats who, to the human eye, look relatively apathetic or sometimes even slightly annoyed when they are actually completely content. As I mentioned before, even human expression is more complicated than a set of particular facial expressions that only communicate one type of emotion.

Take a good look at this picture. What Emotion is this woman feeling?

Did you say pain? Loss? Anger?

If you did you’d be incorrect.

This is a picture of Sofia Kenin after winning a point in the first round of a Women’s singles match.

With the full context, it’s clear that she’s feeling elation, or excitement.

This is in no way meant to criticize artists for making their characters with distinctly human expressions. I understand that, especially in visual media, these sorts of expressions are really important to communicating the character’s inner world with the audience. I just find it super fascinating, and I think that it says something about us as a species that we look for and insert bits of ourselves in everything around us. So, yeah. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

#ted talks #actually adhd #adhd #xenobiology #speculative biology #world building #alien #aliens #sapient #art #philosophy #psychology #interesting #unreality #emotions #body language #communication #alien character #speculative worldbuilding #speculative evolution #speculative anatomy #writers of tumblr #writing #writerscommunity #writblr #nerd #conworld #tv #comic books #movies

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

actually, in general, what would Romans' opinions of the Chinese classics have been?

I think they'd lose their shit over Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Partly because it's a great book, and partly because it's about an exciting civil war! With arson and wizards and and thinly veiled homoeroticism! They'd eat it up like baozi buns.

Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi, on the other hand, would baffle them. I think most Romans who read "The Dào that can be told is not the true Dào," would say, "Then stop wasting my time," and close the book. They might like the Four Books of Confucianism better, since those authors usually say what they mean, and they share some Roman values like honoring one's family and the importance of ritual.

The Romans loooved fortune-telling, so I bet they would've gleefully mass-copied the Yijing, taken it out of context, and hexagrams would've been a whole-ass fad. Then somebody like Cato would've outlawed it, and kicked the fortune-tellers out of the city for like five minutes, before they snuck back in while he wasn't looking.

Aaaand that's all the Chinese classics I've read, so feel free to add your own speculations about those I left out! Or to disagree with my takes. It's all in good fun.

#we are in the wild and mostly baseless speculation zone folks #abandon facts all ye who enter here #just roman asks #chinese philosophy #never thought i'd have multiple posts tagged like that on this blog #alternate history #jlrrt essays

[mollysunder]

Can you imagine after Silco's death Jinx is left with a series of vinyl recordings she needs to play on her gramophone. On it is Silco's will, he was leading a dangerous life before he met her and was already fighting a chronic condition that was getting worse with time, and he left her everything. On those vinyls he tells her all his wordly possessions, sure his crew gets paid (probably a little extra too) she gets the lions share, meaning, his car, the Last Drop, what's left of the Shimmer profits, and the fabric for his clothes are all for Jinx to keep. Silco gives her a verbal list of all his associates, mundane to high profile, what they do for him, what they can do for her, and what their weaknesses are. Maybe she already recognizes most of those names, maybe some he's explicitly hidden from her because he thought they were too dangerous to take head-on and had to be manuerverd carefully (Noxians?).

Even better, he left a special set of memoirs about his time as a youth, and it's filled with digressions where he can't help but talk about Jinx's growth. These are the ones where he's just letting all his love and adoration for her come through. When he talks about the first time he drew a knife on his supervisor in the mines, he chuckles about how Jinx aim didn't shake when she made a hostage out of an overeager chembaron's son. He can't help but mention how sharp she looked in that new coat they both picked out for winter that year. Of course, Silco would still like to wrap up those recordings with a special lesson for her to take at the end. You know, stuff like, remember to nurture your grudges and keep an eye on accountants that are too calm.

The best part is always the end, when Silco ends his recordings telling Jinx he loves her. He can leave her as many gold mints and minks as he could but she'll keep his voice and his love with the best care she can give.

Also, I can't help but think he'd leave contingency recordings for her and Sevika for a number of situations. Hell, he might have even left a recording explicitly telling Sevika not to get mad at Jinx if she somehow kills him. I can see him telling Sevika to just let Jinx grieve however she needs to. I can see Silco having a recording where he already forgives Jinx for anything and everything she could to him and Zaun but hasn't done yet, just so she knows there's nothing she can do to make him hate her.

This is probably pie in the sky, but if the next season comes out in parts like last time, maybe Silco's will could be used to narrate the flashback scenes and interlace it into the present. Then the next parts can be narrated through personal eulogies Jinx and Sevika would have for Silco as they handle the ongoing conflict. Honestly, I'd just love to see more of Zaun's mourning and funeral practices, Piltover gets a whole funeral scene for unnamed characters.

#i can't imagine a man who loves ymto monologue like Silco wouldn't leave audio recordings of all his thoughts and philosophy #jinx doesn’t need to be haunted by Silco #he can take a physical presence with these recordings #jinx arcane #sevika arcane #silco and jinx #arcane #arcane season 2 speculation #honestly this feels more like headcanon than speculation at this point #but whatever

[p5x-theories]

Hey this guy is a native speaker and you can hear him say the names of the new thieves. Yui, Hina Nishimori, Toshiya Sugai, and Miyu Sahara. Idk if he’s speaking 8n Chinese or Japanese but the names sound clear. https://www.youtube.com/live/6fQz402kUg4?si=RId-nY6Gk7ju9RL2 at 40:43

Oh, haha, I was just about to post a link to his stream of the preview livestream, for anyone else who was curious to see it!

He's speaking Japanese, which means his readings of the names (which are written in Japanese) are probably a more accurate guess than what I'm doing with my dictionary, yeah. The kanji characters that Japanese names are usually written with often have multiple ways they can be read, though, and my understanding is that even if you're a native speaker, the first reading of the name that comes to mind may not always be the correct one, in the same way you could misread a name in English because you've heard it pronounced one way, but the person whose name it is pronounces it another way.

Which isn't to say I think he's wrong necessarily! Just that (at least as I understand it as someone learning Japanese) it's still not 100% confirmation those are their canon names, so I'll hold off on calling anything "confirmed" until I hear the names in-game, just to be safe.

(Though, to be clear, I do consider Yui confirmed, since they write that name in English in some cases as well, haha. The above explanation applies to the three names written in Japanese.)

But thanks for sending this in, all the same!

#anonymous #third beta #genuinely always appreciate when you guys find stuff and send it in even if I've already seen it. to be clear #because I *am* going to miss stuff sometimes and it's always nice to know other people are looking around for things too! #as for my obsession with confirming names in-game it's largely that I'm trying to limit how much name confusion goes on on this blog #getting used to calling someone one thing then having to switch (ex the suwa arai -> motoha arai confusion of the first beta) can be troubl #and I know not everyone reads every post I make and keeps up with the game info as much as I do. so basically I just want to keep it simple #and in this case the best way to do that is to avoid using a name until I am absolutely positive it's the canon one! #ruferu is sort of an exception in that that IS his japanese name but it might be something like ruffle or lufer in an english dub #but at least ruferu is *a* correct name for him as opposed to luffy which is speculation/possible mistranslation. you know? #not to write an essay on my reporting philosophy with this blog though haha sorry #bui #riddle #sepia #puppet

[sex-ray-spex]

Scientists estimate that approximate ninety percent of the cells in the human body belong to non-human organisms (bacteria, fungi, and a whole bestiary of other organisms). Why shouldn’t this also be the case for human thought as well? In a sense, this book is an exploration of this idea – that thought is not human.

Eugene Thacker, In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy 

#eugene thacker #speculative realism #horror #cosmic horror #lovecraft #object oriented ontology #critical theory #media theory #postmodernism #philosophy

[loki-who-remains]

Well. Burdened with knowledge and wisdom. Don’t have a purpose? Invent one yourself. Below are my random threads of thoughts and rhetorical questions; it’s 5.30 am and I haven’t been sleeping for the past couple hours.

I wonder if Loki is the only one who can do that, and if so, why him? I mean, he is special in many ways. But are his love for his people and the need to belong unique in the big multiverse? In the end, (space)time slipping is relative and subjective and can remain unknown for others. Meaning, anyone could time slip and we wouldn’t know – if no one talks about it

And if so, was HWR aware of it somehow? In the end, it started happening after Loki returned from the Citadel, met past Mobius and panicked that he lost the only person left whom he cared about. I guess time slipping isn’t magic since it’s not constrained by the safety system.

How far back can he go? Is he bound to his own universe? Which universe is his?

All in all, it’s a bigger responsibility than the TVA. It’s bigger than HWR’s ambitions or Thanos’s twisted care for the universe. Imagine this power in the wrong hands. Are Loki’s the right ones? I really wanna see what he does with it now. Can we trust him?

I still don’t see how the Loom’s or the TVA’s existence are justified. Loki wants his friends, okay. Will he let them go once the TVA is fixed? Will they go back? B-15 chose to stay and care for the TVA. OB is literally living in a sci-fi dream. Casey doesn’t have to be a criminal. But Mobius is a dad and subconsciously still wants to be a dad. And what about other tens and hundreds (?) of minutemen, judges, analysts and other employees?

If we slap a bunch of really good quotes from the show, we come to a conclusion: once you’re changed by the journey you’re not the same as you were before you left and you can’t unsee things. You still can choose to stay or go back, so this is free will. I guess the TVA employees were recruited and given a choice to join, rather than being stolen from their timelines and brainwashed. Huge mistake of HWR’s was to remove people’s awareness of their past.

#I need to think #this is some philosophy I wasn’t expecting from a marvel series #loki season 2 #loki spoilers #loki series #loki speculation #loki thoughts #he who remains

[anarchonist]

I think a big problem in our culture is equating intent and effect, and this works both when predicting the effect and when determining the cause. It is important to remember that just as having good intentions does not excuse the harm one causes, so does someone having caused harm not always mean they intended to cause harm all along.

We are able to know our own thoughts, so when we cause harm we may easily downplay it because "that's not what I intended", as if that would make the harm go away. And when we judge others who cause harm, we similarly try to work backwards from the assumption that harm requires intent - and since we see the harm but not the intent, we assign intent somewhere where it may not even exist.

None of this is to excuse people who cause harm, but maybe to clarify that what we call evil is not some nefarious satanic mindset of ill intent, but rather a stubborn unwillingness to critically examine whether you might be causing harm even if you don't actively intend to, and even whether or not you truly care.

And the more power you have, the easier it is to distance yourself from the harm you cause and keep causing it.

#philosophy #evil #intent is not magic #on an unrelated note i do think this also stems from some form of christian tradition #as 'god created the heaven and the earth' forms this assumption that nothing would exist without an active will to make it exist #the anthropomorphic god who created humans in their own image is in a way linked this erroneous thought pattern #that reality is caused by intent #which is why the problem of evil exists #since the idea is that if god willed the world into existence and there is evil in the world surely god intended to put it there #but like #not to get all atheist in a post about philosophy but wouldn't it help us all to rid ourselves of these kind of mind traps #and yeah yeah my background is christianity and christianity is a major religion affecting western culture so #if you want to challenge me based on 'not all religions are like that' or whatever i don't care that's not the point #the point is the post itself the tags are for weird off-tangent speculations about where this mindset may come from #the actual point is about trying to disconnect intent from harm since those are not the same as cause and effect #intent doesn't prevent harm and harm doesn't require intent #anyway that was my random philosophical thought of the day #thanks for reading

[orcelito]

I find it funny when ppl analyze trigun thru the lens of Christian mythos and iconography bc I literally just don't notice it. "This is like such and such guy from this book of the Bible where he did this thing and THAT is what this part is saying" like. Uhm. Plants really cool? WTF can Vash actually do? What are the characters actually thinking?

Aka my lens of analysis has so much more to do with what is factually there in the story rather than what it represents. Which says a lot about me actually I think

#speculation nation #like ppl who start talking philosophy terms and im like. what #i just dont care about that lol. either the christianity or the philosophy #like ykno it's cool to have the imagery but when it comes to actual like. stories and such???? nnaaaahhh #ive seen ppl wanting to read more christian stories to better analyze trigun and im just like. that just aint me. #like you do you. if it makes u happy go right ahead #but im much more interested in trying to figure out what plants (including vash) are capable of & how they work #and also character thoughts and motivation. that's a given as a fic writer tho lol #anytime i see any in depth christian lens analysis my eyes just glaze over lmao. cant help it. i just dont care about christianity.

[spaceintruderdetector]

https://archive.org/details/b4d68a6d-01fb-48f1-9f64-1fcdaaf1cdfd/mode/2up

Essays, articles, artworks, and documents taken from and inspired by the symposium on Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, which took place in March 2011 at The New School. Hailed by novelists, philosophers, artists, cinematographers, and designers, Cyclonopedia is a key work in the emerging domains of speculative realism and theory-fiction. The text has attracted a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary audience, provoking vital debate around the relationship between philosophy, geopolitics, geophysics, and art. At once a work of speculative theology, a political samizdat, and a philosophic grimoire, Cyclonopedia is a Deleuzo-Lovecraftian middle-eastern Odyssey populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers, Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, and the corpses of ancient gods. Playing out the book’s own theory of creativity – “a confusion in which no straight line can be traced or drawn between creator and created – original inauthenticity” – this multidimensional collection both faithfully interprets the text and realizes it as a loving, perforated host of fresh heresies. The volume includes an incisive contribution from the author explicating a key figure of the novel: the cyclone.

#speculative fiction #speculative realism #theory-fiction #gilles deleuze #howard phillips lovecraft #philosophy #cultural theory #art #science fiction

[rhianna]

Author

Adler, Felix, 1851-1933

Title      An ethical philosophy of life

 presented in its main outlines Contents Preface -- Autobiographical introduction -- Philosophical theory -- Applications: the three shadows, sickness, sorrow and sin, and the right to life, property and reputation -- Applications: the ethics of the family, the state, the international relations, etc. -- Appendix: Spiritual self-discipline. The exercise of force in the interest of freedom.

 Language     English

 LoC Class

BD: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Speculative Philosophy, General Philosophical works

Subject

Ethics

Subject

Philosophy, Modern

Copyright Status Public domain in the USA.

#ethics #philosophy #speculative philosophy

[muninnhuginn]

trigun (talking original anime not stampede/manga here as I can’t comment on those yet) is actually genuinely really solid in terms of themes and repeating imagery. the way the very setting of a desert with the associated resource scarcity plays into it all. you get monopolies over water where one family holds everything whilst the surrounding areas are left to rot. but then you have small patches of greenery that could have amounted to nothing but due to years of nurturing they’ve grown up into forests. it’s about what you do with what you’re given and what you choose to pass on to others.

#trigun #trigun spoilers #<- is it spoilers if the series came out over two decades ago. eh. let's play it safe #keep thinking about rem -> vash -> wolfwood and rem/vash vs knives in the whole debate about sacrificing one to save the many #because honestly both rem and knives' opposing philosophies are extremes and the only reason vash survived by rem's philosophy for so long #was because he wasn't human. rem and wolfwood don't have that and so the price they pay for moral purity is steep #(and honestly sometimes you do get scenarios where by choosing not to interfere it means more people suffer and vash is called out on this) #there's a reason why vash decides to carve his own path in the end and that's because both of the extremes are untenable #but he can still hold what he's been taught dear and move forward. people make mistakes and all they can do is try to be better #and that's all humanity as a whole can do. water and resources can be taken advantage of. but they can also be shared communally #and so in the series there is the hope that with water and nurturing eden will return and this desert planet will turn green #(also the christian imagery cracks me up but unlike with death note and eva I can't really call it faux symbolism because it kinda fits) #(and the gunpoint dilemma + cross scenes (rem -> wolfwood -> meryl) are so lovely if painful to watch #because the only time we know the 'right' choice was made is the last instance. the others are left to speculation)

[hollowwhisperings]

KH4 Spec: Disney Worlds & Emotional Vulnerability (for boys)

A key part of any Kingdom Hearts game is the use of Disney (& Pixar!) films as Microcosms to the greater Macrocosm of said game (& often the Series as a whole). The Disney Worlds act as easily recognisable Settings, toyboxes if you will, to convey concepts otherwise difficult to "fit" within the limitations of the JRPG genre.

(even then, KH does tend to rely on Monologue Heavy Cutscenes & Collectible Texts to direct players toward All Those Emotions & Reactions That Are Happening)

Societal Preconceptions of what stories can be told with a Young Male Protagonist actively sabotage the KH series in its efforts to show the emotional experiences of its young male characters: Sora needs the Framework of a Disney Princess in order to express and recognise concepts traditionally Denied to his gender. Players need Very Explicit Parallels and Dialogue, often repeated & rephrased across several Worlds, just to prevent their Dismissing Emotional Text (let alone Subtext) out of hand because "JRPGs/Action Heroes/Boys don't feel Scared/Sad/Insecure".

Emotional Depth is not "masculine", especially for Male Protagonists and Male Antagonists because "Feelings" are "feminine".

KH actively subverts this false perception of [How Brains Work] by very pointedly removing its "Token Girl" from the most Emotional & Introspective moments in the series.

Kairi's whole PURPOSE, in the greater scope of the KH series narrative, is to "Not Be There" when she "should" be: when Sora feels overwhelmed by the enormity of his quests or feels scared of Failure, it is never Kairi who magically pops by to do the Emotional Heavylifting in Sora's Stead. Sometimes Sora is able to articulate his feelings by recognising them in the Stories of the Disney characters (most of them Female) but as "Story" characters, the emotions and memories that are being Expressed are, by default, those of our Male Protagonists (Sora & Riku). The Disney Worlds act as framing devices for a Young person struggling to articulate whst they Feel & for a Male Protagonist to Recognise his own emotions even as his "own" World (the society he grew up in, the societies of We Players) has preconditioned Sora to "grow out" of Feeling emotions, let alone Expressing them.

Kairi the UnCharacter

Kairi's function within the greater narrative of KH ("the Coming of Age of a young boy named Sora") is to Be Female and to Not Be Where She Is "Supposed" To Be.

In most works with Male Protagonists, especially those of the Shōnen or action genres and ESPECIALLY in the videogame medium, a "Token Girl" functions as an Emotional Outlet for the Male Characters.

Has the (male) Protagonist just experienced something Frightening, suffered Loss or become Lost after the Peacefup Setting of the game's Tutorial?

The Token Girl will be there to Recognise and Express feelings of "something sad and scary" having happened to the Protagonist, of how "shaken and out of sorts" the Protagonist must be. The Token Girl will then act as an Outlet for these emotions, a Comfortable Vehicle to Focus on (to "redirect" the negative emotions to masculine "action") via becoming Someone To Protect or Someone To Impress. Or, if the Token Female is Dead By Tutorial, grief for "Her" is an Acceptable Emotion... to then be directed to the "more acceptable" method for dealing with Males Having Emotions via Monologues To The Setting ("talking at the scenery") or Promises To The Dead.

These emotions are, subsequently, Never Brought Up Again except as Character Motives or within the "acceptable" outlet of a Romantic Sideplot or an Epilogue Montage/Cutscenes. Sometimes games will use character commentaries in item descriptions or story logs to Remember The Plot Device but since these Expressions of Emotion are hidden within optional reading, players & the game's cast can Dodge any further acknowledgement of Having Feelings or anything resembling [Emotional Labour].

Kairi, the "Token Girl" of KH1, exists to "not exist": as the Designated Female in the lives of Sora and Riku, Kairi's absence is Glaring and, for some, Uncomfortable.

When Sora is at his lowest, when he feels scared and overwhelmed... Kairi is Not There to do his [Emotional Labour] for him. When Sora feels insecure or has a sudden understanding about himself or his relatio ships with others... Kairi is Not There to be Sora's ("Acceptably Female") Emotional Outlet. When Sora feels inspired or moved by his experiences... Kairi is Not There to say Sora's emotions for him, she is Not There for him to confide in, Not There to serve as a "purpose" for Sora "Having An Emotion".

Sora is a Very Emotional character: he is in a Coming of Age Journey, he is constantly put into the emotional stories of Disney films, and emotional introspection is a fundamental component of his setting's [combat mechanics]. Sora spends most of his games with Disney characters as his companions, his mentors, his confidants: when each KH game has its Emotional Climax, removed from the Disney settings & characters who had subconsciously prepared Sora (& players)... Kairi is Not There.

The emotions in Sora's Story are HIS emotions: his to experience, his to recognise in Others, his to express and articulate.

And, when removed from the comforting framework of Disney, who does Sora share his emotions be they positive or negative?

Riku, the OTHER Male Protagonist.

Kairi is Not There for Riku's emotional experiences either. Kairi, whose "purpose" in most works is to be Designated & Acceptably Female Emotional Outlet, is Not There. When Kairi is conveniently nearby either boy when they have an Emotional Revelation... Kairi is left in the background. The KH games COULD include Kairi, the Designated Female most "convenient" for its Male Protagonists to Emote At... yet, at every opportunity, Kairi is Not There. Kairi Not Being There is Deliberate, it is Pointed: it is the KH series saying "here is where you expect Emotions to come from & go to" and "we will not be doing that".

Kairi is Conveniently Female so that the KH series can Actively NOT USE THAT CONVENIENCE: Sora's Coming of Age Journey is emotional, as all such stories are, and it is SORA'S. Sora's to feel, Sora's to act upon, Sora's to recognise through Disney Parallels, Sora's to come to terms with, Sora's to express to whomever Sora most wants to express them to.

Now that the KH series has "retired" Kairi from her Role as "Convenient Female We Actively Never Use For Convenience", she might be allowed to have an opinion and perhaps even Have A Personality! I fear, however, that Players will need even more very pointed instances of Kairi Being There & Female and how Pointedly Unused she is when Sora needs to do something "feminine"!

Because KH is about deconstructing the "gender" of emotions: it is about exploring how feelings affect and influence our memories, our behaviour. How our identities, our relationships, require us to engage with our emotions. How refusing or ignoring what we feel leads to pain, isolation and sometimes tragedy. How each generation's relationships with emotional expression affects the generations that follow them, shaped by beliefs of predetermined suffering: how younger generations, if given the tools and context for such trauma-shaped beliefs, can show us all that these cycles of suffering are not inevitable or destined. That it takes all of us engaging with our emotions honestly, respecting each other's emotions as being as important to them as yours are to yourself... and, together, we can share our emotions (our Hearts) and find grounds for reconciliation (Connection). How we can only become stronger by embracing our ability to "feel" and by respecting how important and natural emotions are to us all. Emotions ("hearts") and the tools we use to understand them (stories, friendship, introspection) are not solely "allowed" to "children", to females or within the bounds of romance. Emotions are human and limiting who is "allowed" to express them or how they "should" be expressed? That harms us all. So open your hearts, connect with the hearts of others, and heal the hurts we have done unto ourselves & each other.

#kh meta #kairi the noncharacter #disney worlds in kingdom hearts #deconstructed tropes #kh as a coming of age journey #hearts in kingdom hearts #the mythology of human emotion #philosophy of kingdom hearts #deconstructing gender roles #can you believe i only meant to speculate how kh would do its crossovers in unreality #i guess i had a lot of feelings about how important the disney worlds are to the thesis of kh #and also how fascinating the kh series uses kairi by NOT using her

[innocentlymacabre]

Within and Without

Liam stepped hesitantly into the study, feeling a strange sense of detachment despite his many years in this house. He had been with Mr Device for over fifty years and had enacted each command to the T for every one of them. He was on amicable terms with the entire Device family and there wasn’t a place on the grounds he couldn’t go, nor a facility he couldn’t use. Except the study. The one thing Mr Device had absolutely insisted on was the study being off-limits to everyone else.

But that changed last night. Last night Mr Device had died. He chose to pass on these grounds, in the comfort of his own home, rather than in an impersonal hospital bed, even if his name was on the golden plaque on the ward label. He lay surrounded by his children and grandchildren, muttering words of encouragement and solace to them with his final breathes. In the end he dismissed everyone but Liam and beckoned him closer.

‘Go into the study. Destroy it.’

‘Destroy it?’ Liam felt bad for making him repeat his words when they came with such difficulty, but he could not believe what he was being asked to do.

‘Destroy it.’ Mr Device took Liam’s hand into his own. ‘Promise me you’ll destroy it.’

The last thing Liam wanted to do was to wrap up this conversation, but Mr Device’s end was dawning, and he knew his questions would not be answered even if they were asked. So instead, Liam promised, dazed and confused, but smiling with enough conviction to let him pass in peace.

Content, Mr Device nodded, rolled back his head, and shut his eyes, a calm look of serenity washing over his face that one seldom saw when the face still breathed life.

The funeral was much like the man himself: quiet, warm, and understated. Family and close friends in attendance only, Liam was quite content with it, sure that it was just as Mr Device would have wanted it.

But now he stood on the brink of doing the one thing he hadn’t wanted Liam to do for most of his life. He wasn’t sure why he felt afraid. He was doing as he had been instructed. Perhaps it was the unfamiliarity of the situation or maybe it was the uncertainty surrounding exactly what it was that he needed to destroy. Liam didn’t have to destroy the entire study, that was for sure. Mr Device spent much of his time cooped up in there and had all but moved in after his wife passed some years ago, so it was bound to be flushed with valuables. No, it wasn’t the study. It was something in the study.

Liam felt around in the dark for a light switch and marvelled at the sight before him when he finally found it. Row after row of leather-bound books ran along the walls, covering almost every bit of the faun wall behind them. There must have been easily a thousand there, maybe two. The spine of each one had meticulously written titles in a script Liam recognised as Mr Device’s and he gaped at the sheer tenacity he had to have written so many.

He understood the choice behind prizing handwritten copies over virtual ones. Mr Device was by no manner technologically disinclined, but what he was, was cautious, and his caution sometimes bordered on paranoia. If his research was dangerous enough to have to be decommissioned upon his death, it would stand to reason that he had chosen to house it in a wholly impenetrable room, as opposed to a device that could more easily fall into the wrong hands, no matter the security measures it had.

The floor of the room was as bare as the walls were adorned. To one side, there was a fireplace and in front of it sat a solitary chair. A little way away there was a small mahogany table and that was it. Liam ventured over and saw a letter written out and addressed to him.

Dear Liam,

If you’re reading this, I find myself in yet another place of thanks: you’ve enacted another one of my commands and have come to the study. Now it’s time for you to destroy what is perhaps the most valuable item here – the cipher.

A cipher? When he had been initially charged with the task, he had the creeping feeling that he was about to discover something deeply unsettling about Mr Device’s past and that he would have to destroy the proof. Mr Device had been the kindest man Liam knew but he also knew that no one attains the riches he had without making a few enemies along the way. A knot in Liam’s stomach seemed to untie upon discovering this was not true. He read on.

You see, Liam, my life’s work has the potential to drastically change the world, to fundamentally restructure the way we think about what it means to be human. It opens the possibility of not only being able to study human behaviour at previously unimaginable scales, but also unlocks the ability to manipulate behaviour that only truly become evident at these scales.

Mr Device had always been a bit on the dramatic side so Liam knew to err on the side of restraint, but his pulse quickened as he read on, excited by the prospect of what had been discovered.

A long, long time ago, I came across a paper of philosophy by Niria Michellyn. Although mostly unknown during her life, and sadly even after, Michellyn described a concept that would go on to form the basis of my life’s work.

She argued that human behaviour was not only influenced by the sum total of our experiences, but also by distinct sub-beings, where each was an embodiment of the defining qualities of a person. She then went one step further to say that of these sub-beings, Intelligence, Morality, and Bravery were the commanding virtues and that it was their influence that dictated a human’s behaviour.

It was her, and later my, belief that a human being only truly exists when these sub-beings work together, operating at varying levels and types of influences at different times, a wonderful orchestra working together to produce the even more beautiful symphony of individual identity.

This idea gripped me wholly, and I became obsessed with not only proving Michellyn right, but with developing a method of extracting these sub-beings and being able to manipulate the control they hold.

Of course, I recognise that over the passage of time, the relative importance of these sub-beings changed, with Bravery, for example, no longer being valued as much as Morality, but it was my (ultimately correct) belief that all three, amongst others, would still exist in an individual.

Imagine being able to selectively nurture Intelligence, essentially creating a mind the likes of which the world has never seen before. Or perhaps focusing on Morality, being able to bring out and keep at the forefront, the benevolent side to an individual that most keep so buried. If Bravery were instead fostered, imagine creating a race devoid of almost all fear.

I succeeded, Liam. I succeeded in creating such a machine. But as with everything, it came with a price, an unanticipated caveat.

The total influence the sub-beings can exert is absolute, it cannot be altered. So, allowing Bravery to prosper, for example, would come at the cost of Intelligence and Morality, and therefore the ability of making a choice and the very concept of free will. In essence, you would have created a race of obedient super soldiers.

Such implications revealed a yet concealed fact to me. I was so blinded by the possibility of doing good for the world that I remained oblivious to the ill-intentioned that yet dot this planet. If they were to learn of this information, their goals would not be as well-founded as mine are.

The thousands of books you see around you (two thousand, three hundred, and sixty-eight, as I’m sure you were wondering) detail these findings and each one is written in the cipher described in one of these books. You needn’t destroy every one of my books – in fact I would appreciate it if you could take it upon yourself to preserve them for as long as you can – but the cipher, Liam. The cipher must go. And the machine. That is essential.

You will find the machine behind the fireplace. Yes, behind. Make sure it’s safe and then reach into the roof of the fireplace and look for a lever. Pull it, and you’ll find the machine.

Thank you, Liam, for all your numerous years of service. This family wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for you. I do hope my bequeathment allows you to comfortably live out the rest of your days.

Aiden Device

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