All right, so you're always in one of these little frameworks
And there's just no getting them 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
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 because how the hell are you going to do that. There's too many variables
You know so you're aiming at some handleable amount of time and you
Posit a goal in there, and you plot your route and then that tells you
What's up?
and tells you what's down because up moves you towards the goal and down moves you away from the goal and that sets up your
Motivation framework so that you have some worth detaining
You know that's a really interesting thing to know too - it's like why have a goal? Well, it's easy. No goal
No positive emotions
Because you experience positive emotion by noticing that you're moving towards a goal, and so 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 going to 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 your 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
Game it 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 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 is 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 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
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 tough problem
It's not like you've solved your problems by winning that game. You just introduce 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?
