There were lots of games that your ancestors were playing across that immense span of time
many many, you know, lizard games and tree dweller games and- and- and-
what- and crustacean games you know, that huge set of games and
You're adapted to win across those games, all of them, and that's built into you man
That's- that's your central human nature
That's what makes you social and it's not some mere cultural construct quite the contrary
It's it's so deeply embedded in you. It's what you are
All right, so well
This is a story. It's a game too that's another way of thinking about it. You know like that's a monopoly game well
What's the frame?
Well, that's the rules of the game and are they- why do you accept them? Well it's kind of arbitrary right?
It's like that happens to be the rules hockey has different rules
Basketball has different rules, but what they share is that they have rules
Okay, so there's a frame. That's the rules and then within the frame
There's a goal and the goal is whatever the rules dictate. You know, there's usually it's usually the construction of a hierarchy of
success
within a frame and
So that's what you play, and so you play monopoly. It's like well, we'll accept the rules
That's the social contract, and then we'll each try to win, and that'll be fun. We find that amusing and if you lose
What do you say? Well you say well,
there's always another game and
So that's great so if you have that attitude and and you play fair then doesn't matter that much that you
Whether you win or lose although
You still want to try to win because otherwise you're not a good player
But you accept defeat gracefully because you can play again
and so- and you win some and you lose some and so that's not so bad you know and
Even if you lose well, maybe you learn something and and you're doing a lot more than one thing while you're playing Monopoly
You know you're having a conversation and learning how to interact with people and learning how to regulate your emotions
And so even if you lose if you have any sense you win
And if your kids have any sense they know that and so that way you buffer them against defeat. It's like yeah, yeah, you know
next time it's like
It's okay
and he should try, but it's okay, and- and- that's- that's-
That's useful information for people to know so
All right, so you're always in one of these little frameworks
And there's just no getting out of it so and that's because you know at any given moment
This is like it's like field theory there used to be
Psychological theories that talked about the field of human experience something like that and this is kind of what that is
this is a field and
basically, what happens is you parse out a little part of the world say and
so
An amount you can handle, so let's say it has some duration you're not aiming at something 50 years in the future
It's cuz how the hell are you gonna do that? You- there's too many variables
You know so you're aiming at some handleable amount of time, and you pause it a goal in there
And you plot your route
and then
that tells you what's up and
tells you what's down cause' up moves you towards the goal and down moves you away from the goal and that sets up your
Motivational framework so that you have some worth attaining you know that's a really interesting thing to know too is like
Why have a goal? Well that's easy no goal, no positive emotion
Because you experience positive emotion by noticing that you're moving towards a goal, and so if you don't have a goal
Well, you can't have any positive emotion, so you better have a goal and so you might say well
What should the goal be? Well we could start by saying well any goal is better than none?
And then we might say well
It should be a goal that other people will let you pursue because otherwise it's gonna be kind of difficult
and maybe they'll be even happy to help you pursue it that would even be better and
Maybe it's a goal that would enable you to learn how to pursue other goals, while you pursue that goal
Boy, that would really be good, and so you can see that your goal is parameterised
But that doesn't mean that any old goal works it means
There's some goals that work nicely and some not so nicely. There are playable games and non playable games
That's a good way of thinking about it, and you want to have a playable game
And there's a lot of them: lawyer, plumber, you know
Actor, whatever. They're- they're playable games, and- and it's not obvious which one's better
But it's certainly obvious which ones are sustainable in which ones are worth, so there's a set of playable games
And you need to extract from that set of playable games, a game that suits you and that would be partly due to your temperament
you know because extroverted people want to play an extroverted game and
highly neurotic people want to play a safe game and agreeable people want to play a generous game and
Disagreeable people want to play a game that's highly competitive so they can win and you know fine, but they're all
within the realm of playable games and that means they're socially acceptable as well and so that means it isn't just
Arbitrary it isn't just relative what you decide to do. It's heavily parameterised. There's only
There's a set of playable games, and it's large the set is large, but it- it- there are commonalities within it
And that's why there are commonalities
That's why morality has a common basis
Fundamentally and so that's partly what we're trying to investigate is like
What's up? What does up mean? What does it mean? Is there such a thing? Now,
One thing to remember is that,
If you don't erect a hierarchical structure with a something to aim at you got no positive motivation
Because you experience positive motivation in relationship to a goal not from attaining the goal. That's
Satisfaction and besides it's fleeting you know perfectly well you graduate from university- poof! Next day you have a problem
Which is what do you do next? And that's a- that's a tough problem
It's not like you've solved your problems by winning that game. You just introduced the problem of having to introduce another game
So it's unreliable as a source of positive emotion
But what's reliable is you set a goal and you try to attain it and then that gives your life that-
literally
Provides your life with meaning. That's what meaning is, now
It's more than that, but that's that's what it is and so then you might ask yourself well
What's a really good goal?
Well, that's what we're trying to figure out. What's a really good goal? And now...