Right Write

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Philosophical Concepts During a Team Building Exercise?

After only a short and undetermined time at this undisclosed company, Cassie could no longer feign interest in these weekly meetings. She glanced out the window, as she'd so often done last year at some university, and took in the bland view of something outside. Monotonous voices discussing an unknown topic pattered in the background. She wished, in a way that was not foreshadowing, that she could be at the beach instead.

“And now I'd like to introduce our new employee” she caught her boss, Johnson, say. “He'll be taking over for Susan, may God rest her soul, as logistics engineer”

“Well actually sir...” Susan quietly mumbled

“Anyway,” Boss Johnson continued, “introduce yourself Ken”.

Cassie refocused her gaze to see the young man on the other side of the table rise.

“Hey I'm Ken. I'm the author of this story”

Cassie, still only half listening, wasn't sure what to make of this. It was probably just a joke that landed poorly. Cassie herself was always nervous to speak in front of people, afraid of making exactly that kind of gaffe. She decided to try to help out.

“Then why'd you write a boring story like this?”

She quipped. She was relieved to hear some polite chuckles from unnamed co-workers.

“Well,” Ken replied, “this is only the beginning of the story. As of the end of this sentence, we're only 247 words in”

Cassie was a bit annoyed, she didn't want to have to maintain this banter.

“Now I know you don't want to maintain this banter” I said, “because I just wrote that you don't. But don't worry, the story will progress pretty quickly”

Susan, wanting to change topics and receive some clarification, chimed in, looking at Boss Johnson. “Yes, but about his position...”

“Ok look” Ken said “this office setting has served its utility and I want to get this thing moving, so let's go to the beach or something, yea? I guess only three of you have names so that'll do”

Cassie now found herself on a beach with Susan, Boss Johnson, and Ken. As she felt the hot sunlight on her face and the sand in her hands, an audible gasp escaped her.

“Oh My God! Susan, you're alive!” Boss Johnson screeched.

Cassie pointed a sandy finger at Ken. “What's going on!?”

“Well, this is a story. All of you are characters. And so from your perspective, as the author, I effectively control reality”

Cassie stared, not quite processing anything. This was too elaborate to be a joke, but she couldn't help but feel that she was being made fun of. Her temper began to flare as she stood.

“Now listen here PAL-” she started,

“This is pretty easy to prove” Ken interrupted. “I can do anything. Look, I'll make Cassie a horse”

Cassie stomped her hooves furiously. She'd never been so angry or confused. Her bellowing neigh pierced the heavens while her beautiful mane glistened in the strong summer sun.

“I love horsies!” Boss Johnson screeched.

“Alright” I began again, “readers are smart people, ok? They understand the premise of the story at this point. Let's not waste their time by requiring me to provide further displays of proof that I'm the author”.

Suddenly, everyone believed that Ken was the author of this story.

“Great” I, Ken, said.

Susan, having only spoken 2 lines and needing more involvement, spoke up.

“So we're in a story?”

“Yes” Ken replied.

“So we don't.. exist?”

The existential gravity of the situation began to set in. Cassie's face grew long. This was a lot to be saddled with, a lot to process in the spur of the moment. Would she be able to pony up? Yes, emotions were high, but she would have to reign it in. She couldn't hoof it. She thought to herself

“Given that I, for whatever reason, now have an unbridled trust in Ken's claim, what does that mean? Susan's question is insightful. The characters in short stories and novels are lively, but not alive. Despite all of their richness and complexity, they don't existence. They're merely words on the page, thoughts in the mind. They have no, never had any, physical reality. Am I to accept that as my reality? Perhaps a motivated realist could contort their ontology towards a belief in a reality of forms inhabited by fictional characters, but I've always maintained a more nominalist position. What does it even mean for me to not exist? I'm experiencing my own existence at this very moment. I wouldn't call myself a solipsist, but how could anyone doubt their own existence? (ect!)”

Cassie needed clarification. She needed answers. She needed guidance. She needed to convey her thoughts and concerns with the only one who could have a credible response.

She looked to Ken and opened her mouth. This was in vain, as she quickly remembered that she was currently incapable of human speech.

She was still a little hoarse.

Ken replied to Susan.

“Well, those are rough questions. I can say that from my perspective, you definitely don't exist”

“From your perspective?” Susan inquired.

“Right. To me, you're just words on a page. Exactly in the same way that characters in books are to you. So to me, no you don't exist.”

“But to us... we do exist? Even having certainty that you're telling the truth doesn't invalidate our own experiences of self. It's fair for you to say that we don't exist from your perspective, but we have to believe that your perspective is wrong. Is existence relative to perspective?”

“Hmm...” I considered. “That's an intuitively disagreeable idea to me. The category of 'existent entities' being inherently tied to something as relative as perspective just feels wrong? But that doesn't mean that it is. Maybe it's true that you don't exist to me, but do exist to yourselves. But I doubt it.”

“Well for one, you have incentive to doubt it” Boss Johnson didn't screech.

“You'd have a tremendous ethical responsibility to this entire world if you thought we actually mattered”.

“But so would every author. So would you. Certainly you've written a story before? Actually I know you have because I'm making that part of your back story”

In fifth grade Boss Johnson wrote a story. Possibly more before and after.

Boss Johnson reflected. “Ok right. It's not that I don't see where you are coming from. If I weren't in this particular situation my intuition would be the same as yours. It's certainly the case that when I've written in the past, these are never things I've considered”.

“Neigh!” Cassie neighed.

Susan stepped in. “You mentioned 'adding' things to Boss Johnson's 'backstory'. If this is a story, then everything detail about us was created by you?”

“Now that really is an interesting question. At this point I don't think I've even given any of you physical descriptions. Not only have I not created every detail about you, I don't even know what you look like!”

“But you're looking at us!” Susan exclaimed.

“This is trippy” I typed. “Actually, while I guess from your perspective I have some physical form in front of you on a beach, from my perspective I'm just sitting in a chair in front of a computer. I can't see you at all! I think I described that 'avatar' of myself as a “young man” earlier, but besides that I don't know what it looks like either!”

Ken paused. “But I take it that you know all of this information about yourself?”

“Of course we do!” Susan responded. “We know what we look like, what our childhoods were like, what our favorite foods are. We know what the 'you' in front of us looks like! And you must know that we know, allegedly every word I speak is just dialogue written by you!”

“Right, that last question wasn't sincere on my part, I knew approximately what you were going to say because I was just about to type it. But that's not always the case, if I asked a question before considering your response then it could be considered sincere, in some sense. Ultimately, from my perspective, I'm going to end up answering it myself anyway. But from your perspective it shouldn't matter. In any case the idea that you have so much information about your world that I don't have access to is wild. I can make declarations about your world but you have to wonder. Do the declarations I make about these things change your world, or am I somehow bound to only make declarations that conform to how your world already was? Do I only have the illusion of control? And for the moment, those are sincere questions.”

The three considered this. Boss Johnson was the first to speak.

“When writing a story, I could make characters do or believe anything. And, this is key, I can change those facts and details whenever I want. Likewise, I have to assume, that you could make me have been very tall since childhood, and then later change that detail so that I have instead been very short since childhood. The fact that you can do both seems to mean that you aren't being bound by pre-existing specifics about our world, which matches our normal intuitions about the story writing process”.

“Yea makes sense” I said, “thinking it through through you was helpful”.

“Which brings brings us to the uncomfortable topic of free will” said Johnson.

“Right. Well free will is a bit of an issue even independent of your particular circumstances. There's a seemingly inherent conflict between natural laws of the universe and the freedom of choice that we intuitively feel ourselves to hold.” Ken pointed out.

“Yes, but we definitely have additional problems. In additional to laws of physics making us wonder what our agency really means, we have you literally dictating everything we do, say, think, and are” Susan commented.

“Again, a lot of those details remain unfilled in by me. But yes, it's true that from my perspective you certainly don't have external agency. But from your perspective does it even matter? How freewill can be compatible with a God is another long standing topic of discussion”

“Ok but in those discussions the God is omnipotent and omniscient, but generally not an interventionist. While you do appear to be omnipotent, by your own admission you lack the omniscience. More importantly, you are actively in control of everything we say here, no?”

“Yea, I certainly control your words. Everything you've spoken about for the last few minutes was written by me, if we can indeed say that you existed at all before then. But there are plenty of things I'm not explicitly writing about. I am mostly not writing about your thoughts, posture, gestures, appearance, ect. There are a wide number of actions that, if you've done them, I didn't dictate and have no knowledge of them. For instance, go do something for an hour”

Cassie, Susan, and Boss Johnson walked away and did something for an hour, and then returned.

“Ok, you just spent an hour doing something, and I have absolutely no idea what it was because I didn't specify. So in so far as you did anything (and you didn't because I don't think you exist), whatever you chose to do was chosen with what I would have to describe as some sort of free will? Also I guess Cassie can talk now.”

Cassie then became a talking horse, which, as an interesting piece of bonus trivia, are identical in physical appearance to regular horses.

“Hey” she said.

“Hay is for horses” everyone replied in unison.

“So,” Cassie continued, “from our perspective, you don't dictate everything about us. You only dictate the things about us that you choose to dictate. You believe that, in so far as we exist at all, this leaves open room for some type of free will?”.

“I'm not a philosopher, just some dude who can type, your guess is as good as mine (in fact, I guess they are the same thing). It seems plausible to me that important, real conceptions of free will could potentially be salvaged even if I was explicitly dictating more. So yes, I think that in so far as you exist (which is to say 0 because I don't think you exist at all) you have free will in some real sense”.

“But then why write any of this?” Susan said. “If you don't think we exist, what are you even doing? Under the model you suggest, we may have some level of autonomy (from our perspective), but it all goes out the window the moment you have something in particular you want from us. When we speak to you, it's really only you speaking to you. Why engage in these weird dialogues with yourself? Do you think this makes for an interesting story? Is this simply a way to act out your God complex?”

“Uh yea” I said. “I just thought if would be a neat story premise, and it would be fun to think things through with you guys (which is to say, myself)”.

“So now what!?” Boss Johnson interjected. “We're just going to stand here existentially reflecting until you get tired? And then what??”

“I dunno fam. I didn't like, have an end in mind or anything” the very attractive narrator typed.

“Can I make a suggestion?” said Susan.

“Yea sure” said Ken.

“You can write anything right?”

“Yea I guess. I only know English though”.

“I mean yes ok. But could you write impossible things? Not just implausible things, but impossible. Things that violate logic. Things like square-circles”.

“Yea sure check it”.

And an object that was both a perfectly square and perfectly circular appeared before them. It is literally and fundamentally impossible for such an object to exist and yet it was there, before their very eyes. Everyone was suitably impressed.

“Alright sweet” Susan said. “If you can do bonkers crap like that then just write 'and all of their philosophical and existential problems and questions were resolved', aye?”.

“You got it!”.

And all of their philosophical and existential problems and questions were suddenly resolved. There were no more contradictions, everything made perfect sense to everyone, and their new found philosophical clarity brought them happiness.

“Thanks!” said Susan.

“Yea sure. Anyway this thing is over 2,000 words, I should start wrapping it up, it's not a novel.”

“I would normally be inclined to ask things like 'but what will happen to us when the story ends? Will we die?'. But now, given our new philosophical clarity, I already know the answer!” Cassie pointlessly stated.

“Great. Additionally, I'll write in the happiest of happy endings to clear my conscience on the off chance you really do exist” Ken said.

“Prudent and ethical!” said Boss Johnson.

And so every being in the universe felt the maximum amount of happiness, joy, euphoria, and bliss possible for all eternity. Everything became and remained flawless and perfect forever. And I stopped writing this story.

The end