Potential ways of Developing

a philosophical approach

to your research:

 

Developing a heuristic + -


What is a heuristic?
A heuristic, or a heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving that uses a practical method or various shortcuts
in order to produce solutions that may not be optimal, but are sufficient given a limited timeframe or deadline. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts
that ease the cognitive load of making a decision.

Examples that employ heuristics include using trial and error, a rule of thumb or an educated guess.

There are positive and negatives about heuristics. Stereotyping is a type of heuristic that people use to form opinions or make judgments about things they have never seen or experienced. They work as a mental shortcut to assess everything from the social status of a person (based on their actions), to whether a plant is tree based on the assumption that it is tall, has a trunk, and has leaves (even though the person making the evaluation might never have seen that particular type of tree before).
Stereotypes, as first described by journalist Walter Lippmann in his book Public Opinion (1922), are the pictures we have in our heads that are built around experiences as well as what we are told about the world.[38][39]
For more info on heuristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

 

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Charts of Philosophies:

Western Philosophy at a Glance

Western Philosophy: https://superscholar.org/history-of-philosophy/

 

A Chart of some Eastern Philosophy: https://superscholar.org/eastern-philosophy/

 

Western and some Eastern Philosophical resources: https://plato.stanford.edu/

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy organizes scholars from around the world in philosophy and related disciplines to create and maintain an up-to-date reference work.

 

Does your thinking about your research involve one (or combinations) of the following?

 

Or new areas of thinking that include, rather than exclude women, https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/09/20/the-philosopher-queens-why-two-ex-philosophy-students-are-crowdfunding-for-a-book-on-women-philosophers/ minorities, and thinking that is typically excluded from most global philosophical discussions? Games have the potential to create new philosophies as they are able to show contingencies. What is your framework?


Deductive Reasoning
Deductive reasoning is a type of logical thinking that starts with a general idea and reaches a specific conclusion. It's sometimes is referred to as top-down thinking or moving from the general to the specific.

Greek theater Aristotle and Space Invaders

 

Ontology
Ontology is the study of the nature of reality (all that is, or exists) and the different entities and categories within reality.
Examples within the field of ontology are “isms” such as monism, pluralism, idealism, materialism, dualism.

You would be attempting to prove this reality,  or give your viewpoint about the reality.

A set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them.
"what's new about our ontology is that it is created automatically from large datasets"

In computer science and information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming and definition of the categories,
properties and relations between the concepts, data and entities that substantiate one, many or all domains of discourse.

It is the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being.

 

Metaphysics

Metaphysics being the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things,
including abstract concepts such as knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space. It asks, is there a God? Do we have free will? What is the fundamental nature of reality?

 

 

Epistemology

Epistemology is the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion. It asks what do we know, and what do we merely believe? Do we really know anything? Is it rational to hold beliefs without strong evidence that they are true, and that the opposing views held by others are false? It is the study of how we can prove the view point or carry out the study in order to prove our viewpoint which will contribute towards reality.

 

 

Ethics

What is right way to live? What are our moral obligations to other people?

 

 

Political philosophy

How should society be organized? Is it fair for some people to have so much while others have so little?

 

 

Philosophy of law

 What is the purpose of the law? Should we legislate morality? When is it appropriate to punish people for their actions, and why?

 

 

Empirical

Provable, verifiable, theoretical, qualitative, analytic, quantitative, methodological,

Based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

 

 

Conversational

Having a detailed conversation about your topic with your reader.

 

 

Dialectical

The dialectical method involves the progression from thesis to antithesis to synthesis, in which thesis and antithesis are two opposing forces whose reconciliation through integration results in synthesis.

 

 

Phenomenology

A phenomenological approach concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.

It is about the lived experience. Uncovering the essence of something. 

 

Transcendental phenomenology (Edmund Husserl) 

The essence of the way you look at something is important.

Intentionality - fundamental property of consciousness or our awareness of something

Phenomenological reduction- the intentional consciousness using process of bracketing, reduction or “epoche.”

Suspending your judgements and setting them aside. Being like a stranger in a strange land. Look at something clearly and objectively.

Noesis - to think about or interpret phenomena

Noema - what is thought about

Horizon- present experience, which cannot be bracketed, therefore nothing is fully seen in its entirety as none of us are omniscient.

 

Hermeneutic phenomenology (Martin Heiddiger)

He believed there was no way we could bracket our experiences because we are always in the circumstances of existence.
Dasein “being there”- each person is within their experience

Hermeneutic Circle- interpretation as revision, a description of understanding. Seeing the whoe analysis of it into parts and make a synthesis. A repetition and revision as the whole meaning emerges.

Lenses:

- researcher must make personal biases explicit

- preunderstandings or fore- conceptions

- modified nature of understanding and interpretation is created by the constant process of renewed projection

                     

Gadamer, author of Truth and Method, took Heiddiger’s hermeneutic circle: fore-conceptions or preunderstandings, renewed projection.

Look through your biases through the various lenses: preunderstanding, attachment theory, new meaning, in the hermeneutic circle.

Katarzyna Peoples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGSn-AQS804&ab_channel=KatarzynaPeoples

 

 

Continental Philosophy

Continental philosophy is often characterized by a focus on the importance of history, and the repetition of history over time, politics (particularly the politics of gender and sexuality), the self and self-consciousness, freedom, desire and the will. The techniques of continental philosophy are as wide-ranging as its subject-matter, from close historical analysis of texts, to creative reading of ancient and modern literature, to reflection on one’s own lived experience. 

 

 

Anglo-American Philosophy

Anglo-American philosophy is focused on questions about the nature of language, meaning and thought, and on questions about how the mind relates to the world. It evolved out of the tradition established by the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth philosophers Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. It is marked by a focus on questions about the nature of language, meaning and thought, and on questions about how the mind relates to the world. It fosters a belief in technological solutions to problems.

 

 

Visitor: Dr. Tony See Sin Heng, University of London SIM Global Institute, Singapore, Political Science and International Relations, Political Philosophy and comparative East-West Philosophy

He will visit us later in the semester.

 

Eastern Philosophical Approaches

In the Eastern Asian regions of India and China, philosophies were intimately tied to their respective religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism and were concerned with larger questions of our relation to the cosmos.
https://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/110/4-eastern.htm

 

 

Philosophy of Science
Does science represent the world objectively in a way that non-scientific ways of understanding the world do not? What is the scientific method, and how does it work?

 

 

Philosophy of Mind

 Do you have an immaterial soul? Is it possible to survive the death of your body and brain? What is the mind, and what is its relationship to the body and brain?

 

Other new emerging approaches:

- Eastern and Western approach

- Activist 

- Feminist

 

 

The Fog of War

“War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth.” — Carl von Clausewitz[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_of_war

but also there is a type of 

Fog of Living uncertainty, a “twilight”, a hypnogogic state (the state between wakefulness and sleep) of not knowing fully how to proceed, what to do, asking ourselves are we making the correct decisions as we feel our way through life. Stories help us.

We are able to learn, in safe ways,  about life and understand others more readily. We can step, literally, into another’s shoes and see the world from their point of view….virtually in games. Games of all sorts. 

Games, most times, provide a goal, but life does not.  We find our goals through experiences, teachings, readings, customs, and even games. Resonating our thoughts through gameplay, finding, or fighting, our way through gameplay - gameplay that was engineered by others. We can examine our lives through these various lived, immersive experiences. What do we learn from the games we play?

This does not need to be something profound, it can be as simple as persistence (either from gameplay, or by mission), valor, or it could be a deeper investigation of something as profound as free will. Does that exist, if so what is it? Do we actually have it when we feel and desire freedom?

Take for instance the indy game, The Stanley Parable https://store.steampowered.com/app/221910/The_Stanley_Parable/ There are 18 or so endings and a large building to explore. This could provide a sense of freedom, but when playing further one realizes that this sense of freedom is an illusion.

In one ending the player ends up in a museum with monitors telling how the game is made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5_kId6Fww&ab_channel=PhiloteosGames

The player realizes that the entire quest, turns out to be a result of a deterministic program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch v=0TX_jc20Bwo&ab_channel=MightBeAwesome

Baruch Spinoza,  the 17th century dutchman of Jewish descent was a freethinking philosopher, excommunicated from his own Jewish community because of this, he made a meager living as a lens-grinder, a job which, sadly, eventually damaged his lungs and killed him. He puzzled away at the problem of substance - mental and physical, riffing off of Rene Descartes  earlier ideas about mind/body, perceiving and thinking, cogito ergo sum. (I think, therefore I am.) Spinoza concludes that rather than this dualism, of mind and body, there is only one substance, God, in which everything exists. So, thought (mind) and extension (body) are the same thing, but differently expressed. His ideas about determinism held that absolutely everything that happens occurs through the operation of necessity.

 

Games have a philosophy
How do we weave the successful interplay of narrative, game mechanics, level design, interaction; and how do the aesthetics in art, animation, camera, person, sound design and music work toward engineering a successful experiential encounter where we viscerally feel the overarching philosophy and message of the creator?

 

There are philosophies expressed in simple games as well as more complex games.

Goose Game simple graphics, lots  of  feeling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Z_ubqoyUw

Hollow Knight  atmospheric, colors white: communal Black: individuality  Orange: divergence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAO2urG23S4

Ashen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqvDr7P6OL0

Gris  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvECQlxrhbw

Cuphead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN-9SQXoi50

Fran Bow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJSxwRHAam0

Master Kohga - Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QDptkl4lW4

DETENTION Gameplay Walkthrough https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&ei=orNtXM_gFOGVjwSb_rbYCw&q=detention+gameplay&oq=detention+gameplay&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i67j0i22i30l4.25095.25095..25782...0.0..0.95.95.1......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71.Y0gh-MkQQ28

West of Loathing Launch Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDmOmxv2U4k

The Witness by Jonathan Blow http://number-none.com/blow/ first-person 3D puzzle video game (Creator of Braid, the 2d platformer that enables the manipulation of time through rewind, slow, advance and alter time) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brd0F7rlXCI
http://the-witness.net/news/

Journey by Xinghan (Jenova) Chen That Game company http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/

Molleindustria by Paolo Pedercini http://www.molleindustria.org/

Kathleen Ruiz http://homepages.rpi.edu/~ruiz/projects.html

Operation Human Shield  by Shawn Lawson http://www.shawnlawson.com/operation-human-shield/

 

A tech Demo Masters Project:
Museum of the Microstar
by RUST LTD.: Anton Hand anton@xrevere.com
http://rustltd.com/projects/the-museum-of-the-microstar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-63AjgnaAAQ

Zineth by Arcane Kids http://zinethgame.tumblr.com/    www.arcanekids.com

Perfect Stride by Arcane Kids http://pstride.tumblr.com/

 

Papo & Yo  by Minority Media
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkrjby0lKRE An autobiographical game, telling the story of the company's owner and his alcoholic father. You play as a young boy, trying to make your way through a somewhat surreal version of a South American city. The gameplay mainly consists of puzzles, and to help you solve them you have a fierce-looking but generally friendly Monster helping you out. He's a lot taller, bigger, and stronger than you, and most of the time you really need him. He doesn't seem to mind helping you either, not until he finds his favorite type of frogs to eat anyway. When he gets the frogs, he'll turn into an unstoppable, huge, and horrifying monster. He'll come after no matter what, and all you can do is to run and hide until he falls asleep. The creator, Vander Caballero, states,

 "You have to start with, 'I want to take someone on an emotional journey. What is that emotional journey?'" he says. "Then the question is 'what can I bring to someone's life that's going to be important and meaningful for them, a lesson that will help people in their life?'" 
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/215340/Designing_for_empathy_with_Papo__Yo_dev_Minority_Media.php

 

Invisible Threads by  Stephanie  Rothenberg http://www.pan-o-matic.com/
http://www.pan-o-matic.com/projects/invisible-threads
Invisible Threads: a mixed reality performance installation exploring labor and emerging virtual economies.

Stephanie Rothenberg is a performance, video and net-based media artist who creates interactive situations that question relationships between individuals and socially constructed identities, lifestyles and public spaces. Her work merges popular forms of advertising and market research with participatory experience involving role-playing and fantasy, in a critique of corporate models and their infrastructures. Stephanie creates provocative interactions that question the boundaries and social constructs of manufactured desires. Through participatory performance, installation and networked media, her work investigates the mediation of the physical, analog body through the digital interfaces of commodity culture. For instance, Invisible Threads, a mixed reality performance installation created by Jeff Crouse and Stephanie Rothenberg, explores labor, emerging virtual economies and real life commodities through the creation of a designer jeans sweatshop in the online, 3-dimensional world of Second Life. [40] She is gifted in her seamless traversing of the concrete world of the sweatshop into the ideational world of simulation and back out again into the active participatory role of the audience.

 

Alan Wake by Sami Järvi better known by his artist name Sam Lake
http://www.alanwake.com/alan-wake/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAqZJNCINfo

http://www.alanwake.com/

 

Mass Effect by Bioware
http://www.bioware.com/en/games/

Mass Effect 3: Lesbian romance with Liara http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R6sqiamV1I&feature=related

Mass Effect 3 Gay Love Scene with Kaidan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWwh4KljLHI

Mass Effect 2 Romance - Jack Part 2 - Love Scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybRGbFTIbEI

Mass Effect 2: Lesbian romance between Miranda and Jack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q8RTCnp4h4

 

 The Importance of the Aesthetics of Sound design and Music:
Music of Assassin’s Creed  Winifred Philips
https://store.steampowered.com/app/260210/Assassins_Creed_Liberation_HD/
https://soundcloud.com/winifredphillips/liberation-main-theme
God of War and others
https://soundcloud.com/winifredphillips

 

No photo description available.  by Julian Volyn

 No photo description available.

Tic a game with environmental concerns built into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qRwqYT8myU&ab_channel=RedCandyGames