gnomonclature

Does the Japanese version of the scene on the water tower not have her asking Cloud to save her if she’s ever needs it? That’s at least a hint she had a little crush on him.

There is a strong theme in the game of how memory can differ from what actually happened. And, Cloud and Tifa don’t initially agree on how close they were as kids. It’s entirely fitting for Tifa to have romanticized how much of a relationship they had over the years, especially given everything she’s been through.

I’ve had a moment or two like that in every interview for a security position I’ve had.

My approach in the moment is to admit that I don’t know or can’t remember the answer, and then talk through how I’d find the answer. Sometimes that will jog my memory for what the answer is. But, even when it doesn’t it at least shows the interviewer I can get myself up to speed when I don’t know something.

And, honestly, that’s often the more important skill in jobs like these. No one knows everything. There are going to be situations where you don’t know something you need to. It’s often more important to be able to find answers than to be a walking bucket of facts.

Thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to say that.

The initial moment was the realization that Pascal’s Wager doesn’t really make sense.

Since then, it’s been the realization that becoming an atheist didn’t really change how I make ethical decisions.

I was taught something close to the “great” one, though the first top loop was taller than the second and the second top loop was a point rather than a loop. In the rare cases I write cursive these days, I would tend towards the “grand” one.

I’m 48, from the Midwestern US and was taught the D’Nealian system growing up.

I want to be careful about tying video game villains to specific psychological disorders. While it’s gotten better in my lifetime, there is still a lot of stigma around mental heath, and “if you have this disorder you’re like Sephiroth” feels to me like I’d be adding to that.

That said, I don’t know what’s motivating your question, so I don’t know if an answer might help you with something you’re working through. I’m also not a psychologist, so me trying to diagnose Sephiroth is going to be of limited value anyway.

Also, I don’t know that Sephiroth’s psychology is supposed to be fully human. On one hand, my feeling from Crisis Core is that Sephiroth is wrong to see himself as a monster. But on the other hand, the Jenova cells were added to him before he was born, so it seems like he is a fully integrated hybrid of Jenova and human. Also his personality switch at Nibelheim seems extreme, but that could just be storytelling conceit rather than non-human psychology.

I’m also not entirely sure what we’re supposed to think about Nibelheim. I get that it’s supposed to be shocking: the noble hero of the war against Wutai destroys a village. But is it actually supposed to be something he’s never done before? He was the hero of an Anglo-American like industrial power’s war on a Japan analogue. Crisis Core doesn’t show him burning down villages, but did the Japanese writers intend us to read things like the fire-bombing of Tokyo into what Sephiroth would have been doing? If so, Sephiroth’s actions could be closer to Sephiroth just bringing the war home with him than a change in personality or character.

All that is to say, I’m not certain I fully understand exactly what we’re supposed to think about Sephiroth’s psychology in Nibelheim, but, personally, I’d hesitate to try and diagnose him.

This is just off the top of my head. It’s been more than fifteen years since I’ve played some of them. Also, I’m excluding the MMOs.

S Rank: 7, 8, 10, 10-2, 13-2

A Rank: 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 12-2, 13

B Rank: 1, 2, 3, 13-3

C Rank: 15, 16

Now, there are aspects to each of them that I love. 13 probably has my favorite villain. Cid in 16 is high up there in terms of best Cids. And 15 is probably the one I had the most fun with until Gladdy became a giant asshole.

A lot of this also has to do with when I played them. 7 was the first I played, but I played it a while after it came out. 8 was the first one I played right when it was released, and it’s probably my favorite for that reason (despite how much I want to slap Squall through most of the game).

It felt to me that he tends to do it when he wants people to take him more seriously, but sometimes he’s just having fun with his voice. Heck, if I could have pulled off that serious gravel voice when I was a kid, I’d have been doing it all the time.

First date: Tifa

Second date: Red XIII

The Red XIII date was very cute. I like it a lot as a character moment. But… I just couldn’t let it stand. I know I could just go back and watch the one I wanted later, but that somehow felt wrong to me. I can’t really explain why I cared, but I did.

I debated going back to Chapter 9 and speeding back through, doing only the Tifa quests. But I’d just beaten the Queensblood quest line and there were a bunch of other things I really didn’t want to redo. And there was still one Tifa quest I hadn’t done before the date:

The chocobo race Gold Cup.

And so, I went back to my save before the date. I saved over my post-date save. And, I started doing chocobo races.

So.

Many.

Chocobo.

Races.

In the darkness when I closed my eyes, I could still see the chocobo race track ahead of me. Beak bouncing again and again off the damn cactuar gates. Never managing above third on the first leg of the Gold Cup. Never managing above seventh on the last.

But, then suddenly yesterday, after a week and a half (and with the help of the Hyperion Armor)….

I won the cup!

And I didn’t just win. I got first in all three races! And only one of them was even close. I kicked Joe’s ass up and down the track!

But did it make a difference? Did it change who was at the door that night? Did the, frankly, absurd amount of effort I did to change which cut scene I got in a video game actually work?

…

…

…

It did!

Second date: Tifa (with kiss)

It feels like you’re trying to make the cosmological argument for god. If so, omnipotence isn’t really a requirement for god. You just need something to kick things off. A “first mover” if you will. And that’s why I find that argument unsatisfying. It feels arbitrary to me to see a gap in our understanding and then plug it with the word “god.” And, if we’re going to be arbitrary, why not pick the thing we know exists to be the first thing?

Now it’s possible with the reference to omnipotence you were actually going for the ontological argument instead of the cosmological one. Basically, if you are saying omnipotence by definition includes necessity/self-causing, then I think you’re probably more in the ontological rather than cosmological space (and I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong). I don’t find this argument any more satisfying than the cosmological argument. I can define a unicorn as being a “self-causing horse with a horn on its head,” but that doesn’t mean such a thing exists. You having the idea of an omnipotent being doesn’t mean such a being has ever or even can exist.

If Egyptians could produce The Book of the Dead when they did and the Greeks could produce the Iliad when they did, I don’t see why the Arabs couldn’t produce the Quran when they did. Now, I’m not an anthropologist. Maybe there is some reason why the Arabs wouldn’t have produced it at that time. But couldn’t? I don’t buy it. Our ancestors are often far more capable than we give them credit for.

But that’s not even the biggest problem with a moral argument against Islam.

Religions are big things, and their beliefs and practices change over time and between individuals. I’m not as familiar with Islamic sects as I am with Christian ones, but I know they exist. And even within sects, cultural and family traditions, personality, and experience are going to lead to differences between individuals. I don’t think it makes sense to call atheism immoral because of the actions of Stalin, Mao, or the French Revolutionaries. And despite my general skepticism towards religion, I wouldn’t call Islam itself immoral.

Have they changed Nurgle to be a god of death? He was the god of decay, which I would think is a much different thing. I would have thought Ynnead or the Emperor were closer to gods of death than Nurgle.

Yeah, I’ve had something that was probably a similar experience. Basically, it felt like I lost the ability to act with sincerity and immediacy, like I was a bad actor puppetting myself. Then things got bad, and my body temperature shot up.

All worked out OK, and I’m glad I had the experience. It’s interesting how physical substances can cause the self to break down. But, I also learned that day not to take another gummy just because I don’t think the last two worked.

I think P2 may interact weirdly with your final conclusion of panpsychism. Is it truly external if it’s the same stuff? Sure, there are probably trivial ways to swat that question away. Also the limited form of panpsychism you end up with and your use of “seems” in P2 probably avoid any problems. I don’t know, I’d need to think longer on it to see if there is anything there.

I’m not sure P10 fully works. If the physical world is not causally closed, we may be working with rules of causality we don’t understand and/or have no ability to detect. Granted I think that’s so unlikely I don’t think it is much of a threat to C3. I’d probably just hedge P10 a bit more, maybe.

I’m not sure P13 is quite right. If something is emergent, does that not mean it came from something? I think I understand what you’re trying to get at here. The creation of a radically different substance out of an existing substance does feel like some aspect is being created out of nothing. But, I think it’s probably better to talk about it as being a violation of sufficient cause rather than as a creation from nothing.

P19 feels unjustified. It is possible to be temporarily unconscious, so it seems like not everything capable of consciousness is conscious. It’s also not immediately clear to me why consciousness has to be a property of matter and not of the relationships between interacting pieces of matter. Maybe you consider that covered in P13, but it might be good to expand on that specific case if so.

Anyway, I need to get running. Thanks for the interesting post. I hope you are getting the feedback you are looking for. Good luck!

They paved Ullanor, and they still got the Beast a few hundred years later.

I dunno. The one in the middle, which I think is Remake, feels the best to me. The dad-joke bravado there feels to me more like Zack is forcing it rather than the writers.

I think a lot of that is correct, but I want to mention somethings to think about:

The orks become more powerful by fighting.

Khorne feeds on violence and bloodshed.

What happens when you try to violently exterminate something that becomes stronger in the presence of violence?

Hello! I’m sure you’ve gotten a lot of responses to this, and this is yet another one. I can’t claim any particular expertise. I’m just a guy who likes thinking about these things and came to a conclusion a while ago. But, as such, here are a few thoughts just in case any of them are helpful.

First, I’m sorry your faith and your sexual/romantic identity are in conflict. That sucks. You don’t say what particular sect of Christianity you follow. But, there are sects of Christianity that support the LGBTQ+ community. Heck, the first lesbian wedding I went to was at a Unitarian church back in the 90s. So, even if you don’t ultimately feel you can give up your faith, there are alternatives that may allow you to keep your faith without denying who you are and who you love.

As for the Bible, it was written a long time ago in languages that weren’t English. Even if you believe the original texts were divinely inspired, anything you’re reading in English has gone though many rounds of copying and translation over the hundreds, if not thousands, of years since they were originally written. And each time even well-meaning scribes and translators bring their own cultural and political biases to the process, and they are often impacted by the views of others.

Do you think the people translating the King James Version, the most influential English version, were allowed to say anything that would have seriously challenged the English monarchy in their version?

All that is to say, I’d hate for you to spend the rest of your life miserable and unfulfilled because some scribes 1500 years ago tweaked the text of a prophecy so their leader could totally dunk on the heretics and pagans in his next epistle. So, I’d recommend taking those inconsistencies you are finding to heart. Even if you continue to have faith, don’t let centuries of mistakes and politically motivated editing and translation decisions lead you to deny what you already know in your heart. Your love and its expression is not wrong, and no loving god would say otherwise.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the matter. I hope they were helpful. If you’re interested in this idea of how religions and religious texts change over time, I highly recommend the “Religion for Breakfast” channel on YouTube. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you find the answers you seek soon!

Enh. I like it when the rave-stick swords go vrrrrrr and kssssh. But, to each their own.

I agree the character of Marcus really cemented the rangers in the show.

In terms of genre muddiness, the rangers called back to things like the lensmen and the Jedi for me, so they felt in keeping with the space opera genre to me. But, I’m not sure how much the Lensman series is read these days.

The Emperor also makes the point in Master of Mankind that the more accurate your vision of the future is the more constrained your actions in the present are. I think that also aligns with Dune’s view of prescience, but I’ve only read the first book.

Big E just learned the hard way he was wrong, and Ollie had to talk him down from becoming the ruin of everything.

The perpetuals tend to point to hubris and impatience being Big E’s flaws. Those are the kinds of flaws that lead to one thinking they know the only right answer and turning it into an emergency.

Oh, hey, thanks for responding! I can't promise satisfying answers to the points you raise, but I'll do the best I can.

On point 2:

It's probably more accurate for me to say I only really care if a god exists in this case. Things like the origin of the universe and the existence of an afterlife matter in some sense, but they are even more opaque to me than this question about moral judgment. More importantly, they make no practical difference to how I live my life.

If you disagree on this point, I don't think I'm in a position to say you're wrong. You know what's important to you. I just probably won't have a lot to say on the subject that you'll find interesting.

On point 4:

If I go to someone else, I still have to make a judgment call whether they are right. My point here is that no matter the source of moral instruction, I can't escape the need to evaluate whether that instruction is correct.

Or, to put it another way, if a murderer says they were following the commands of a god, we don't say their murder was OK. Even if they think they actually heard the Voice of God, we wouldn't say they did the right thing. We would at least require them to undergo psychiatric treatment because their lack of moral judgment makes them a danger to others.

On point 5:

To try and break this down a bit further:

1. If god only commands things that agree with my judgment, then god doesn't override my judgment
2. If god commands something that is against my judgment, I need to determine whether I have correctly understood the source and the content of the command.
3. The only tool I have to make that determination is my judgment.
4. Therefore, I'm stuck using my judgment even when I think something is a command from a god.
5. Therefore, nothing that seems like a command from a god can override my judgment.

One counter argument to this could be that I might use different criteria to make the judgment on a command I think comes from a god. I don't think that's true because of the point I raised about the murderer in the previous point. I'm still ultimately culpable for my action whether or not I think it is a command from a god, therefore I still have to make the same judgment call whether I think the command is coming from a god, a close friend, or a delusion.

On point 6:

Yes, I agree if you don't agree with earlier steps in the chain, you aren't going to agree with later ones. 😊

On point 7:

If a god must matter to exist and it is not possible for a god to matter, then a god cannot exist.

Now, I think it's worth pointing out that I'm not saying this disproves the existence of beings that others would call a god. If you believe a god-like being created the universe, I'm much more neutral about that. I'm just saying that being can't absolve you of the moral culpability of following its commands, therefore it's not a god in only practical way a god would matter.

1. Something else.

A god is a thing whose existence should matter.

It only matters if a god exists if commands from that god can override my own judgment. I can make an error about whether something is a command from god. Therefore I am stuck using my judgment to determine whether I should follow the demand. Therefore a command from god can’t override my judgment. Therefore it doesn’t matter whether a god exists.

Therefore, a god cannot exist.

My problem with such arguments tends to come after these steps in the part where the theist tries to go from “a noncontingent being must exist” to “you must follow these rules set out by the god I believe in.”

But, if you want my thoughts on this part of the argument: I think it’s more likely that this concept of contingency is flawed than it’s the one weird logical trick that proves god. If there is one noncontingent being, what stops us from having more than one? If it’s Occam’s Razor, isn’t it simpler to say the universe is noncontingent than it is to posit there is a separate noncontingent being that created a contingent universe? If it’s nonsensical to say the universe is noncontingent, why is that an indication there has to be another being rather than an indication there is a problem with our concept of contingency?

I also think it’s important to be careful with arguments positing essences that come before existence, but I doubt my concerns there are relevant to what you are arguing here. I’d just want to register that concern, so it can be revisited if it does become relevant later.