Creating Santa Claus as a deity for my upcoming 3.5 campaign. What's some of your favorite absurd/funny pieces of homebrew?

Beauregard_Nanners · 7 days

Hi! Wizzardfolk the wizard lizardfolk here! /extends scaly hand/
... /plane shifts/

tommcqn · 7 days

Its basically the story of animal crossing told from the perspective of a kid being shipped off to a camp full of mutant animal-people, and thus the plot thickens through wage slavery, beatings, mystical hypntoic statues, insurance fraud, baloons, and fluffy organ donation.

It's really just an incredibly well written suspense/horror story that happens to be based on animal crossing, but it always comes back to haunt me when I see those characters

tommcqn · 9 days

ever since reading this, seeing animal crossing in any context scares the hell out of me. butts or not.

FiveWordAccount · 9 days

It's probably ringworms. Put him/her/it/zit in a bubble dimension with plenty of dark matter (don't forget to poke a few wormholes!) and provoke the vet to collapse it's wave function.

Worked for that time I abducted that Argentinian guy anyway.

Edit: Almost forgot. Pages from any Leibniz book over 333 pages work great for sopping up that mess, just be sure to safely dispose of them in a cyclotron.

bittertitties · 10 days

This made me do a double-take. Absolutely stunning.

Knov · 10 days

Top right: "A Stranger Publication"

That it is.

Knov · 10 days

Well...whats the story?

Edit: ah, nevermind

missface · 11 days

Let me preface this by saying that I am very much biased in my suggestion here given that this is actually the direct focus of my studies:

-A.N. Whitehead's Process and Reality seems very much just along these lines. Many of the general notions you're working with here are not put the same way in the book, but allow me to give some quotes which have some significant parallel. For a bigger picture, well, its a long book; you might just have to trust me when I say that the parallels are there in that regards. Also, the terminology is rather technical sometimes, and some terms need a lot of explanation, however I've tried to supply quotes which I think relate to what your saying before and after one takes the specific technical usages into account; in other words, just try to get a general sense from the more technical quotes.

The only universe we will ever know is completely based on the focal length of our perception. Our perception is made up of our ability to receive sensory input from our bodies...what we believe the universe to be is one in the same.

"...perception in the mode of presentational immediacy solely depends upon the 'withness' of the 'body,' and only exhibits the external contemporary world in respect to its systematic geometrical relationship to the 'body'." (Pg. 333)
"...A young man does not initiate his experience by dancing with impressions of sensation, and then proceed to conjecture a partner...The true empirical doctrine is that the genetic process of concrescence introduces the elements which emphasize privacy." (Pg. 316)
"We see that a feeling of presentational immediacy comes into being by reason of an integration of a conceptual feeling drawn from bodily efficacy with a bare regional feeling which is also a component in a complex feeling of bodily efficacy. Also this bare regional feeling is reinforced with the general regional feeling which is the whole of our direct physical feeling of the contemporary world; and the conceptual feeling is reinforced by the generation of physical purpose." (Pg. 316)
"There is nothing in the real world which is merely an inert fact. Every reality is there for feeling: it promotes feeling; and it is felt. Also there is nothing which belongs merely to the privacy of feeling of one individual actuality. All origination is private. But what has been thus originated, publicly pervades the world. Thus the geometrical facts concerning straight and flat loci are public facts characterizing the feelings of actual entities. It so happens that in this epoch of the universe the feelings involving them are of dominating importance." (Pg. 310)
"It is the mark of a high-grade organism to eliminate, by negative prehension, the irrelevant accidents in its environment, and to elicit massive attention to variety of systematic order...In this way the organism in question suppresses the mere multiplicities of things, and designs its own contrasts. The cannons of art are merely the expression, in specialized forms, of the requisites for depth of experience. The principles of morality are allied to the cannons of art, in that they also express, in another connection, the same requisites." (Pg. 317)

buzzing system of billions upon billions of tiny, private, interacting universes being born, grown and snuffed out at an incredible speed.

"The actual world, in so far as it is a community of entities which are settled, actual, and already become, conditions and limits the potentiality for creativeness beyond itself. This 'given' world provides determinate data in the form of those objectifications of themselves which the characters of the actual entities can provide...Thus, relatively to any actual entity, there is a 'given' world of settled actual entities and a 'real' potentiality, which is the datum for creativeness beyond that standpoint. This datum, which is the primary phase in the process constituting an actual entity, is nothing else than the actual world itself in its character of a possibility for the process of being felt. This exemplifies the metaphysical principle that every 'being' is a potential for a 'becoming.' The actual world is the 'objective content' of each new creation." (Pg.65)
"In the mere continuum there are contrary potentialities; in the actual world there are definite atomic actualities determining one coherent system of real divisions throughout the region of actuality. Every actual entity in its relationship to other actual entities is in this sense somewhere in the continuum, and arises out of the data provided by that standpoint. But in another sense it is everywhere throughout the continuum; for its constitution includes the objectifications of the actual world and thereby includes the continuum; also the potential objectifications of itself contribute to the real potentialities whose solidarity the continuum expresses. Thus the continuum is present in each actual entity, and each actual entity pervades the continuum. This conclusion can be stated otherwise. Extension, apart from its spatialization and temporalization, is that general scheme of relationships providing the capacity that many objects can be welded into the real unity of one experience." (Pg. 67)

I could go on, but there's no digital version, and I think this is probably enough. Apologies for length here.

Anyway, it is a relatively long book (351 pages in my version), and a complicated one as well. If you really are interested in diving into ideas like this, I think this would make for a very good challenge to you; by the time you really 'get' Process and Reality, you'll probably have had to do enough other work in philosophy that you'll be able to really grasp the full implications of the ideas here. On the other hand of course, not everyone has that kind of time or interest. Modes of Thought represents something like a summery of his ideas in P+R, and Elizabeth Kraus's Metaphysics of Experience, while intended as a companion to P+R, such that one might read along with both books open so to speak, manages to serve as a pretty good introduction and explanation itself I feel.

imh · 13 days

I'm not sure if this is really an appropriate answer, but Logicomix might something along these lines, it's a graphic-novel style biography of Russel which goes into a lot of the history of philosophy of math and analytic philosophy on the whole - plus it's a pretty good read.

Like I said, not sure if this would be the book you're looking for, but it might be a fun one to pick up while you're looking for that one.

boredatworkinSK · 20 days

Given what you describe here, I might make (or second, if they've been mentioned already) two suggestions.

Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. This is something of a standard intro suggestion (at least for me), but there's a reason for that; it presents the field in the form of a historical narrative, and so, even if you're going over a philosopher which you don't find particularly interesting at the time, you can still read on without boredom. More importantly however, it manages to get across most of the major fields of philosophy rather well (with the exception of Medieval Philosophy unfortunately, as well as more contemporary thought obviously), and this is useful because it allows the novice reader to find just what sort of philosophy he is interested in, such that he might know just where to go next - it's something of a 'gateway-book' for philosophy I find - he'll be an addict in no time ;o)
Judging by your description, as well as the discussions he's having, I might also suggest Sartre (as I see others have as well). The problems of freedom, choice, and meaning are readily apparent in many of his works ('No exit' is always a good place to start, but 'existentialism and human emotion' is also not bad), and existentialism as a 'life-philosophy' is one which I would suspect to be rather pertinent for a 13 year old, when better to wrestle with the notion that it is one's choices in life which define who one is in that life?

At any rate, as others have said, thank you for caring enough to foster this in your students, I can say from personal experience that this sort of thing is simply not done enough.

Superkroot · 21 days

This is a bit more of a technical sort of drawing I guess, but how about this?

Take one 'Chakram' of Xena fame, enlarge it to roughly twice the size of this, and put that in one of these (heavily modified of course). What do you get? Well, possibly nothing, but I've always wondered if it might make for an effective siege/anti-siege weapon, and it'd be very cool to be able to see what it might look like!

Thanks! cool stuff here!

colki · 22 days

A'ight, so its not exactly short, but check out Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy.

Shit reads nicer than most, hits up a bunch of the major playas, and gives all dat historical context an shit. Basically the guy gives you all the philosophy and shit through a big fuckin historical story - everything just falls into place. Now you might not wanna walk into your local philosophy department with just this under your belt, less' you wanna get smacked upside da head, but shit, gotta start somewhere amiright?

jason-samfield · 24 days

I don't know of any answer to this, but it has been a question of mine for some time. I have my own pet theories as to how it might be possible, but have yet to hear anything substantial on the topic.

BearnardOg · 29 days

It's probably not your demeanor, myself and others I know have experienced just this sort of thing. I usually follow it with something like 'yeah, I'm a complete philosophy nerd' (philosophy grad student here), implying that it's something of an interest-related obsession of mine more than anything else.

Of course, it isn't an obsession more than anything else, but this seems to dispense with the snob/loser assumption, and it puts the whole thing in a context that those not in academia can relate to - just about everybody knew some 'nerds'/'geeks' in high school.

watchoutacat · 1 month

Thanks, glad I could help. The combining of Whitehead and Hoffstadter I'm working with here is not nesecerilly strictly based on either of their works however. Basically I've just taken the Hoffstadterian notion of a 'strange loop' ('self-system') (mainly from the book 'I am a strange loop'), and applied Whitehead's 'ontological principal' (from his 'Process and Reality') to this via a notion of the 'self-system' being it's effect upon 'other-systems'.

Anyway, if you're interested in this stuff, I definatly recomend those two books, though Process and Reality is a bit long and dense, and his book 'Modes of thought' might be a good place to go first.

Arsonade · 1 month

Thanks for the response, this is helpful.

As to my concerns: I'm a grad student of philosophy working mainly on A. N. Whitehead's 'Process and Reality', which was published in 1929. The subtitle to the book is 'an essay in cosmology', but it has been described by many scholors as a metaphysics. I've been wrestling with the question of why 'cosmology' was the term used (and I believe he allows for an answer, but I'll spare you), rather than 'metaphysics'. So, I realized that if the historical meaning of the term was different than what I took it to be, then this change might be an answer to such a question. Also, it should be mentioned that Whitehead was a scientist and a mathematician as well as a philosopher (he actually proposed a rival theory to Einstein which proved to be influential), so I would very much doubt that his conception of the usage of the term was very different from it's usage in scientific discourse.

Arsonade · 1 month

Well, seeing as this post now has -2 points (Perhaps this was the wrong subreddit?), I don't think I'll be getting a much better answer than the etymology of the term. Just letting you know.

nerdfighters · 1 month

I doubt it.

wrong_game · 1 month

Is there a sub-reddit for these sorts of internet-characterizations? If not there should be, and if so, I want in.

watchoutacat · 1 month

I feel like at this point meaning and distraction from his ongoing panic attacks take precedence over being my asshole rational self.

Seriously, on behalf of someone who has experienced something similar to this, thank you for that. The friends who were willing to slightly forgo that rational-asshole self of theirs were always the most helpful on at least an emotional and personal level. As for Norse-paganism, I'm frankly at a loss, but I see no real reason why such an encouragement would have to be incompatible with further discussion.

In regards to the perpetual question of 'afterlife', I personally say that I would subscribe to a Whitehead/Hofstadter notion of the question, as explained below. Feel free to skip this if it's not really pertinent for you or your situation of course.

As briefly as possible: The idea here is in the notion of self and consciousness being an extremely complex and active system. A system of what? It doesn't matter; it must 'merely' be a system of a certain type, with a certain level of overall complexity. In so far as self is a system, and others may take account of said system via recognition (re-cognition), that same system may be implicated in their self-system as 'mimicked' or 're-enacted'. In so far as a system is 're-enacted' in another system, it influences and effects that system, thus changing that system. In so far as that other-system is being effected, or has been effected, via my self-system, that self-system is playing a (more-or-less explicit) role in that other-system, and is thus (more-or-less-directly) acting on and through that other-system. As this other-system encounters more systems, the 're-enactment' of these systems will gradually interact more with each-other, until they are less and less distinct, and more and more complex. Thus, my self-system is, and will, become more complex as it is 're-enacted' in other-systems, and in this sense 'I' may spring up 'anywhere' where the system is just right. Will 'I' exist? yes, but not in a duration such as the one presently experienced, and probably not in the same way. Thus, what I am 'giving up' or 'loosing' in death is not 'I', but rather the sustained level of complexity, and the stable duration, of that 'I', and this is something which I do not fear in the same way. My fear has, in this way, been moved from a fear of the end of 'I' to a fear for the future of such systems which might allow for the 're-enactment' of this 'I'; thus my fear is for the future of the world (and it's people), because a lack of said future would be the most likely true end of 'I'. I still have fear and anxiety, but now it is a fear and anxiety which I might in some small way do something about.

At any rate, this was where I found myself as I began to climb out of that hole, and this has remained so as I have continued to climb.

sospechoso · 1 month

And thank you! I'm not gonna lie, the compliment as to me being a professor (I'm not, just a masters student working his way there) is very much appreciated.

That research does indeed sound very much applicable, and just the sort of example which might lend support to a thesis along the lines of that first idea (and probably the other two as well in some way). Also, ruffletuffle's comment looks to me like it indicates just the sort of scholarship and reading you should be looking at for all of these ideas. These sorts of theories and philosophers are not really my main field of study, so defiantly take those suggestions into account.

sospechoso · 1 month

Well, as this is to be a thesis for a paper, a few more practical considerations might be in order:

You should try to work with a thesis that is manageable. What I mean by this is that it should be a thesis which can be adequately argued for given the size of the paper. I'm not sure if this is for an undergraduate or graduate class, but in the first case professors tend to be a little less strict with this consideration - you should still do your very best to constrain your paper in this way though. The three ideas you're working with here seem to be rather big ones; a fully argued thesis on any one of them looks to me like it might be the size of a whole book, and I doubt that's what you're going for.

So, you should try to narrow the ideas down a bit. Think about the specific points that an argument for each idea would require, and then pick one (perhaps some of these ideas share points? Those are always preferable to work on I find) to develop and argue for, given what you've read in class.

For example: in your 'Reconciliation of the Ego' idea, what would be your argument behind the statement that "people's perception of the world is skewed in such a way that they can continue to feel comfortable with themselves"?

Going off my own interpretation of what you've said in your post and comment, the following are a few argumentative points which might together start to make for an argument for that thesis. This isn't complete of course, and I'm sure I could go on, but this should give an illustration.

1 - The definition of the terms 'ego', 'validation', 'self-conception', 'world', 'perceive', 'want'/'desire', 'objective', 'subjective', ect.
1.1 - The support for these definitions given scholarship and argued interpretation
2 - Our self-conception influences how we perceive the world, and yet this very self-conception is conditioned by the world.
3 - The determination of a self-conception is conditioned by the 'ego' in such a way as to validate that 'ego' in it's relation to the world.
4 - We can know:
4.1 - The specific way in which a self-conception influences how we perceive the world
4.2 - The specific way in which the world may condition a self-conception
4.3 - The specific way in which a self-conception is determined
4.4 - The specific way in which an 'ego' conditions the 'determination' mentioned in 4.3
4.5 - The specific way in which an 'ego' relates to the world
4.6 - The specific way in which an 'ego' can be said to 'want' or 'desire' 'validation' in it's relation to the world, as mentioned in 3.5
5 - The above points, and the thesis itself, may be positively stated despite that very statement being just such a 'relation to the world'.
6 - It is possible to determine an 'objective effect' or 'pseudo-objective effect' of one's actions, given points 1-5.

So, for a thesis relevant to your first idea there, I would suggest picking a point which takes one of the points above (or any other similarly narrowed-down point), and making that your thesis, arguing for it within the paper. What you might then do at the end of such a paper is give a conclusion paragraph explaining that the implications of the argument and thesis you have developed throughout the paper may be potentially taken as 'pointing to' or 'suggesting' a notion along the lines of your 'Reconciliation of the Ego' thesis, with a further qualification along the lines of 'more work needs to be done'.

I'm not saying any of this to criticize, belittle, or argue against your ideas here (on the contrary, with certain qualifications, some with more than others, I quite agree with them), I simply want to suggest how you might go about making a more manageable starting thesis. I would also suggest you make similar point-by-point constructions of the other ideas, and see if there's any overlap; that way you might be able to make progress towards two (or perhaps all three) of these arguments at once.

I hope this is helpful in some way. Please forgive me if you're already familiar with this method, but I felt it would be good to mention given that you are new to philosophy.

Now, with all that being said, in regards to the actual ideas themselves, a few suggestions/questions:
In regards to the first idea, I think you may want to find examples of this sort of thing taking place that are as concrete as possible - the fields of law and clinical psychology come to mind in regards to this. One question I have (implicit in point 6 above) is; how might we have ever come to know (or know of) this idea given the 'ego's desire for validation? What sort of (presumably emotional) response might we expect from the positive stating of this idea, assuming it's truth?
The second idea I think might be more difficult to argue for, but if it was it would likely have to be done with a very big eye towards history - you would need to show just how notions of religion have 'hung over' into today. A prompting question in this regard: how else could we possibly conceive of humanity if not through the 'eye' of humanity-based notions? What would be the practical or moral use of such a conception?
The third idea/question is an important one, but in regards to these notions of 'dark age' and 'socially liberal', you might do well to qualify these via a careful historical study - I think you may find that the terms are indeed rather loose, and perhaps less than helpful. In terms of some questions here; What does this sociological shift look like from the perspective of these fundamentalists (or at least the ones that are 'looking' at all)? Is there any analogy behind the worries involved in these shifts from the perspectives of these fundamentalists to those who are more 'socially liberal'? Is there perhaps some way of making such an analogy more 'active' in society such that both groups might come together on this very analogous 'worry'?

Apologies for length; again, I hope this has been helpful. (edited for grammar/spelling)

ShirtlessBacon · 1 month

As others said, I do this when a cigar I'm smoking gets too far-gone to hold properly without burning myself, but I also do this to smoke cigars which I've put down and saved for later - it tends to make it easier to re-light evenly, and it's a bit easier to pull from I find. I don't use a filter, so I'm not sure how that would factor in. The taste is a bit...strange - like the taste of a cigar but much harsher and more ashy - at least for me anyway. It takes some getting used to.

I enjoy a good cigar as much as a good pipe, but I'm personally a bit of a nicotine fiend, and cigars pack more punch for me in that regard. So in the rare occasions that I'll have one, I try to get as much out of it as possible in that regard.

Arsonade

TROPHY CASE

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