Beginning Backgammon

In a far-away land, in a seedy, smoke-ridden establishment filled to the rafter with the seedy underbelly of the world's lowest classes, I learned how to play backgammon.

I learned from a fat sheik, from the lands far to the east, where the sands spread out like oceans and the noon-day sun boils a man's brains.I sipped watered-down beer and he smoked from a some sort of device made from hoses and bottles. His eyelids dropped behind shaded, half-moon spectacles. He smelled of salt and chamomile and sand. I could not tell if The rough tears in my eyes could have been from his noisome turban, or the sooty atmosphere.

I had met the sheik earlier in the evening,. I do not remember exactly how, and in all frankness I do not wish to. Some details are best left forgotten. But we had spoken of many things together, of loves lost and wars won; and, our conversation had led us into the game. The sheik carried a backgammon set with him, and as I had never played before, he kindly offered to teach me the game. I acquiesced.
He chuckled as he moved the ivory pieces across the inlaid board of his Backgammon set.

"Long ago", he told me. "In the lands of my great fathers there was a beautiful city. This was the most beautiful city in all of the world, filled with poets and scholars and artists. It was a peaceful city, for the people abhorred violence. They much preferred to sing, or to dance, or to ponder the inexplicable mysteries of the universe. Nowhere in the city was there anything more than a polite disagreement. It was a tranquil city, and because of this it was also happy."

I moved two of my pieces into a scoring position as he drew a long haul from his strange smoking apparatus.

"Then on day, "he continued. "There came to the city a messenger. The messenger wore strange clothes made from the hides of beasts, the messenger spoke with a strange accent, and the messenger carried a sword. This last was the most odd, for the peaceful people of this city never carried swords through their streets, as they had no need to. The messenger came to the lords of this city and he spoke thus:

'I come bearing word to you, the Lords of this city, from the great Kha Khan, which is Great King. The Kha Khan sends word that he is coming westward. He sends word that he is coming here. The Kha Khan has conquered many cities: cities of warriors and cities of sages. All of these have fallen before his mighty sword. But my Kha Khan is merciful and he makes you an offer. In the east, my Kha Khan has learned many games of strategy and skill. He has learned of the game chess, and his scholars tell him it is the game that most captures the true glory of battle. And so, the Great King has spread the knowledge of this game, and with it he test his generals and captains. The Kha Khan's scholars says that chess is most like life, of all games. As you are men of wisdom and learning, the Kha Khan makes you this offer: If you can create a game more like life than chess, then he shall be merciful, else wise he shall burn your city to ash, and salt the earth upon which it stand.' "

The sheik captured one of my unguarded pieces. I had taken a chance in my position, relying on luck. This time it had failed me.

"The messenger left, saying that he would return in five days for their answer. The Lords of the City considered his words. For many days they pondered, reflecting on the nature of life. They considered justice, mercy, honour, love, and duty. The things that sages try for, the things that young men die for, and the things that maidens sigh for, They thought in silence, they spoke in hast, and they debated in heat."

I considere my next move.

"Time passed." I rolled a double, releasing my captured piece.

"The messenger returned for the pious men's answer; and, they gave it to him. The messenger was bemused, and he returned ot his Khan. The khan looked at the game the scholars had sent him. He played it deep into the night, considering it's aspects, its strategies, it's nuances." The sheik moved two more pieces, scoring once and positioning himself well for the next gambit.

"In the morning he summoned his general's and advisers. 'Look,' he told them. "What do you think of this game?' This scholars considered. 'My great lord,' they said. 'This game is surely inferior to chess, the game of our generals. Chess requires constant strategy, a manipulative mind that sees far into the future. This game depends as much on the luck of dice as it does the sharpness of a man's wits.For this reason, Chess is the greater game, more mirroring the needs of life and battle' The khan nodded. 'Is this your answer, then,' he asked. 'Surely it is, great lord.' And the Kha Khan nodded."

I rolled again. A four and a six. A lucky roll, allowing me to move two pieces in unison.

" 'Indeed,' spoke the Great Khan from his high throne. 'Chess, the game of our generals and wise men, is a game of pure strategy. But in the heat of battle, victory often hinges upon the luck of a single man. A single misplaced step, a fortunate sword thrust, or a stray arrow can lead to defeat with but a moments notice. Truly, the greatest strategist will know only failure without the blessing of Fortune. Thus, it is this game that truly captures the essence of battle. Of life.'' The Khan's advisers bowed their heads at this, for the knew the wisdom of the Kha Khan's words and the folly of their own. The Kha Khan moved his armies, and spared the city. And this is how the game of Backgammon came to be." The sheik finished his story, moving his final piece into position. His strategy was perfect, leaving me no openings.

I rolled the dice.

Closing Times

The closing of a bar is an odd thing.

Regardless of the region, every local bar seem to subscribe to some collective agreement on closing times. As soon as that first bar decides to close its doors, those around it quickly follow suit, one by one in a most profoundly sad domino effect.

The deserted streets are then flooded with the human dregs of the evening. Men and women either unable or unwilling to go home, thrust themselves onto a black asphalt river that carries them to their respective harbors of safety, if not rest. They're like water, flowing through the gutter, carried out and away to the far-off sea. How strange a phenom.

A young man looks desperately for a woman to warm his bed during the night. A group of maenads, released form the Dionysian trance, slowly slip away leaving behind a shop-girl, a seamstress, a secretary. A bachelor party, still drnk on their companion's upcoming nuptials, sings a bawdy song, meandering through the crowd. A stoic police officer wants to go home to a tolerant wife and blue-collar children.

The streets smell of salt and copper. Shoes splash through the low points, where water has inevitably pooled into oily puddles, even though its has not rained in several weeks. Pale yellow street lights reflect in the windows of shops that closed hours ago, catching reflections of sad, weary faces.

I'm always saddened by such scenes. By the people who've stopped laughing. The people who are left to wander god-knows-where under the neon street lamps.

Do they also have no home to return to?

The Curse of the Traveller

I recently ran across an interesting account of something called the Curse of the Traveler.

An old vagabond in his 60s told me about it over a beer in Central America, goes something like this: The more places you see, the more things you see that appeal to you, but no one place has them all. In fact, each place has a smaller and smaller percentage of the things you love, the more things you see. It drives you, even subconsciously, to keep looking, for a place not that's perfect (we all know there's no Shangri-La), but just for a place that's "just right for you." But the curse is that the odds of finding "just right" get smaller, not larger, the more you experience. So you keep looking even more, but it always gets worse the more you see.

At the same time, the more you travel, the more numerous and profoundly varied the relationships you will have. But the more people you meet, the more diffused your time is with any of them. Since all these people can't travel with you, it becomes increasingly difficult to cultivate long term relationships the more you travel. Yet you keep traveling, and keep meeting amazing people, so it feels fulfilling; but eventually, you miss them all, and many have all but forgotten who you are. And then you make up for it by staying put somewhere long enough to develop roots and cultivate stronger relationships. But these people can never know what you know or see what you've seen, and you will always feel a tinge of loneliness. You will want to tell your stories just a little bit more than they will want to hear them. This gets worse the more you travel, yet travel seems to be a cure for a while.

None of this is to suggest that one should ever reduce travel. It's just a warning to young Travelers, to expect, as part of the price, a rich life tinged with a bit of sadness and loneliness, and angst that's like the same nostalgia everyone feels for special parts of their past, except multiplied by a thousand.

This was paired with an excerpt of a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to his nephew on August 10, 1787: 

Travelling. This makes men wiser, but less happy. When men of sober age travel, they gather knowledge, which they may apply usefully for their country; but they are subject ever after to recollections mixed with regret; their affections are weakened by being extended over more objects; & they learn new habits which cannot be gratified when they return home. Young men, who travel, are exposed to all these inconveniences in a higher degree, to others still more serious, and do not acquire that wisdom for which a previous foundation is requisite, by repeated and just observations at home. The glare of pomp and pleasure is analogous to the motion of the blood; it absorbs all their affection and attention, they are torn from it as from the only good in this world, and return to their home as to a place of exile & condemnation. Their eyes are forever turned back to the object they have lost, & its recollection poisons the residue of their lives. Their first & most delicate passions are hackneyed on unworthy objects here, & they carry home the dregs, insufficient to make themselves or anybody else happy. Add to this, that a habit of idleness, an inability to apply themselves to business is acquired, & renders them useless to themselves & their country. These observations are founded in experience. There is no place where your pursuit of knowledge will be so little obstructed by foreign objects, as in your own country, nor any, wherein the virtues of the heart will be less exposed to be weakened. Be good, be learned, & be industrious, & you will not want the aid of travelling, to render you precious to your country, dear to your friends, happy within yourself. I repeat my advice, to take a great deal of exercise, & on foot. Health is the first requisite after morality. Write to me often, & be assured of the interest I take in your success, as well as the warmth of those sentiments of attachment with which I am, dear Peter, your affectionate friend.

Thoughts on Abortion - 1

I think the break-down between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Advocates is the contention that a fetus constitutes a Person. This represents a fundamental philosophical gap, with no clear way around.

Assuming for a moment that a fetus is actually a Person, I've run into a few interesting thought experiments.

If a fetus is a Person, then it follows that it could most likely be treated as a child. But if it's a child, then it's the parents job to look after it. The parents are responsible and liable for its well-being. If a child is malnourished, then the parents are criminally liable. If a child arrives at school bruised, then the parents are criminally liable. Given the expansive reach of Child Protective Services, parents responsible for almost every aspect of their children's lives (except for raising the damned things, we let our teachers take responsibility for that!)So let's say that the fetus's parents are entirely responsible for its well-being, as if it were a child.

What happens if the mother has a miscarriage?

Is that potential manslaughter? Are the parents criminally responsible for that death?

In his work the Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton argues that man is not simply a specialized animal, but rather a unique and special element of God's creation. Although his prose are beautiful, but his logic is fatally flawed.

The basis of Chesterton's claims lies in his interpretation of man's inherent desire to create art. He claims that Man is the only entity known to create Art; thus, he is far more than an animal, an uneducated brute. Man's Artistic Intent forms the foundation for the arguments Chesterton present during the rest of his work, culminating in the conclusion that Jesus Christ could have been nothing other than the true-born Son of God. But alas, Chesterton's arguments crumble like a Grecian temple amidst the passing of time.

My counter-argument is quite simple: Elephants. It is a solid fact that Elephants can and do paint. Painting produced by these Elephants are often sold in order to raise funds for various conservation groups. So, immediately we come upon an example of yet another creature that can, at the very least, paint. Scientific fact proves wrong Chesterton's basic assumption, and any logical construct founded on wrong assumptions is also wrong.

But now we must really dig into the meat of the issue. Chesterton did NOT claim that Man alone can paint, but that Man alone can create Art; and, herein lies the rub. What constitutes Art?

Can we really classify an Elephant's trained chicken-scratches as art? How can we know that the Elephant possesses no creativity?

Now that it has been shown that Animals can also create, Chesterton's arguments rely on making and proving distinctions between those respective creations of Men and Animals.

One of my gaming groups recently had a bit of a TPK, the fallout from which led to an interesting discussion regarding  some epistemology between myself and my Game Master.

My lines are illustrated in Blue, while his are in Red.

 

So Role playing has a really unusual dynamic when it comes to Player and Character knowledge.

 

The idea is that there is a vast set of things that a Player *cannot* know, but that a Character *must*.

Examples: If I'm playing a Forest-type Ranger, it *must* be assumed that the Ranger knows how to clean and prepare a deer, while Blue has trouble opening cans. A Magic-User has a grasp of how magic *works* that Blue can't have. A Fighter can use a sword to defend himself, while the most Blue knows is that the pointy end goes in the *other* guy.

 

These are basic examples, and may seem fairly obvious. But if we extrapolate to the rest of the campaign world we see that there are fundamental aspects about the Game World that a Player can't know, but that a Character would. We get to things like the name of the local Sherriff to the names of specific flowers.

This might seem obvious and reasonable thus far, but here's where it gets tricky.

*It is impossible for the Player to know that he doesn't know.*

 

We boil it down to this

There are two kinds of ignorance.

A) Primary Ignorance is when someone doesn't know something; but, he knows that he doesn't know. For instance, I know I can't clean a deer, but I know someone else does. I know it can be done, and I just have to find a way to learn.

B) Secondary Ignorance comes when a person doesn't know that he doesn't know. For instance, an Amazonian tribesman has no inkling of what Quantum Mechanics is, so it doesn't even occur to him to ask about it.

 

The Player's knowledge of what his Character knows falls into the latter category.

As a Player, I have no idea how the Game World works, born as it is from the deepest, dankest recesses of a mind so nightmarishly twisted and vile, fueled on the soulless soda-husks of diet mountain dew and and dessicated corpses of stale Cheetos (i.e. the GM thinks it up).

So the Player is forced into a state of imposed pseudo-ignorance, knowing that he doesn't know a thing, but not knowing what that thing is, left ever-grasp at the gray edges of his consciousness.

This is just something that I've been pondering over the last year.

Its a problem that simply can't be avoided, and it's literally only one of two things that can rub me the wrong way about GMing.

Side Note:
The other thing is actually what Red was mentioning about the oil flasks as grenades. When the players can get away with completely stupid stuff, it takes away a critical sense of consequence. But that's another discussion.

But issues that fall into the domain of this Knowledge Gap always irk me. It's really the only thing that bugged me when Steve or our freind Mike GM-ed. It bugs me more when I do it.  But it literally cannot be avoided. It persists.

And whats weird is that the more in-depth a GM makes their world, the more he prepares, the worae the problem becomes. A rigid game world creates rigid world-physics (i guess ill call it that), which makes the problems more apparent and blatant. So the "better" a GM is, the more he faces this challenge.

Its a problem endemic to roleplaying, not any one person

 

Generally, I find discussions about epistemology as frustrating as I find discussions about physics. When they involve epistemology or physics within the context of gaming, I have even less interest. 

Sorry I'm not going to be any help here.