Europa universalis 4 sistema de comércio explicado

Quadriformisratio.
Quatro vezes pensando.
31. Uma perspectiva gnóstica.
A gnose, uma maneira de saber.
A gnose (literária: conhecimento) é um substantivo coletivo para uma crença que coloca sua própria percepção como uma característica central. A Gnose é, num sentido mais específico, o sistema teológico-filosófico cristão-egípcio, que floresceu entre 80 e 200 dC. O modo de pensar oferece uma visão nos estágios finais da narrativa tetrádica egípcia em relação à adaptação cristã desse tema.
A descoberta do & quot; Naq Hammadi & # 8216; biblioteca, perto da cidade egípcia superior de Nag Hammadi em 1945, deu uma visão melhor no mundo espiritual-gnóstico, que existiu no Nilo-delta e sua principal cidade Alexandria nos primeiros séculos da era cristã. Os textos gnósticos cristãos eram traduções coptas de cerca de 350 a 400 dC do trabalho original, datado entre 120 e 150 dC (PAGELS, 1979).
Os seguintes axiomas são essenciais na perspectiva gnóstica:
1. O autoconhecimento é o mesmo que o conhecimento de Deus. O eu (do homem) e o divino são idênticos.
2. Jesus viveu para a iluminação e não para trazer uma mensagem de pecado e arrependimento.
3. Jesus não se distingue da humanidade, porque Deus e a humanidade são idênticos. Ele não é Deus, mas um líder espiritual.
A gnose leva ao insight e à liberação (apolitrose) e tem a função de uma descoberta criativa, que influencia a vida do crente. Antes que o insight seja alcançado, a atenção do crente é apontada para o Deus errado, o Demiurgos. Depois que o poder do Demiurg (Criador) é quebrado, a perspectiva é deslocada para o Deus correto, a Grande Profundidade. Este é um elemento dualístico na Gnose.
FERGUSON (1970), que considerou o final do segundo século dC como "o período mais fascinante" & # 8217; no desenvolvimento das religiões no Império Romano, tipificou o caráter da gnose como: "o dualismo é persa, a linguagem platônica, o humor helenístico e o sistema anti-judaico". O gnosticismo era, segundo ele, um "culto da Grande Mãe sob outro nome", com referência ao arquétipo feminino na adoração de Isis (Egito), Artemis (grego) e Cibele (mundo romano).
Plotino usou a acusação do elemento dualista na gnosis para criticar suas credenciais (FILORAMO, 1990). No entanto, Plotino pode não ser a pessoa certa para criticar, porque seus próprios pensamentos e gnose estão ambos enraizados na "tradição secreta". do pensamento tetradic egípcio, que passou por um renascimento em Alexandria e no baixo Nilo-delta no período em torno de 200 dC.
A velha tradição previa uma divisão dicotômica na série 2 & # 8211; 4 & # 8211; 8, correspondendo aos tipos de pensamento de divisão. Valentino (c. 140) foi um poeta gnóstico, que usou os diferentes passos como um esquema em seu trabalho de compilação: Pistis-Sophia & # 8216; (HOPPER, 1938/1977). O mundo consistia em duas partes: uma parte visível (física) e invisível (espiritual). Na parte invisível é uma ordem espiritual (pleroma) (fig. 213).
Fig. 213 & # 8211; A ordem espiritual na crença gnóstica como a "bem-aventurança" da figura 8 (ogdad). O primeiro tetrad dá uma partição do mundo desconhecido, e o segundo tetrad faz o mesmo para o mundo imaginável. Ambos consistem em quatro quadrantes: I. A invisibilidade invisível (profundidade / palavra); II. A visibilidade invisível (ideia / vida); III. a visibilidade visível (intelecto / humano) e IV. A invisibilidade visível (verdade / igreja).
O elemento não hierárquico da crença gnóstica, negando o poder dos bispos e sacerdotes, resultou na condenação da jovem igreja cristã. Os elementos masculinos, que são tão típicos para as crenças semíticas do judaísmo, cristianismo e islamismo (pai, rei, senhor, mestre e juiz), foram rejeitados pelo & # 8216; pneumatici & # 8217; (o espiritual iluminado). Suas reuniões foram realizadas de maneira não autoritária e rotativa, nas quais as diferentes funções sociais foram decididas por acaso.
O modo de vida gnóstico tem sido freqüentemente obscurecido na história cultural européia, embora muitas características estejam diretamente relacionadas ao conhecimento antigo. O movimento monástico consistia, por exemplo, em crentes que buscavam a solidão individual ou a reclusão coletiva para celebrar sua percepção e conhecimento, e mostravam: em particular nos primeiros séculos AD & # 8211; um aspecto gnóstico. Mais tarde, outros motivos de natureza dualista também foram envolvidos.
Um bom exemplo foi a ordem bem-sucedida dos cistercienses (SCHNEIDER et al., 1977; LEKAI, 1980), que se tornou, em um período relativamente curto, um poder multinacional, colocando em ação a organização do trabalho agrícola. Seu sucesso material foi em grande parte devido à simbiose entre Deus e a Terra, usando o primeiro para explorar o segundo e acabar rico no devido tempo. Naquela época, o modo de pensar gnóstico / tetradico foi substituído por uma perspectiva material / dualista. O ditado beneditino "Ora et labora! & # 8217; (Ore e trabalhe), pregado por uma ordem, que floresceu no mesmo período que os Cistercienses, deixa pouca dúvida nessa direção.
A gnose é, na atualidade, um conceito bastante vago e de pouca utilidade prática, se a intenção não for claramente expressa. Há indicações, do ponto de vista psicológico, de que o original & # 8216; gnose & # 8216; foi uma renovação do modo de pensar tetradico do antigo Egito. No entanto, os escritos Naq-Hammadi acrescentaram pouco à compreensão do seu significado original (assim como o Novo Testamento & # 8211; exceto pelo Livro de Revelações & # 8211; tem pouca referência ao sistema gnóstico). O trabalho de "gnostics" mágicos posteriores (europeus) obscureceu ainda mais o assunto.
FERGUSON, John (1970). As religiões do Império Romano. Thames e Hudson, em Londres.
FILORAMO, Giovanni (1990). Uma história do gnosticismo (tr. A. Alcock). Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
HOPPER, Vincent F. (1938/1977). Simbolismo numérico medieval. Suas fontes, significado e influência no pensamento e expressão. Universidade de Columbia Estudos em inglês e comp. Aceso. No. 132, Edições Norwood.
LEKAI, Louis J. (1980). De orde van Citeaux: Cisterciënsers em Trappisten. Idealen en werkelijkheid (Os Cistercienses, Ideais e Realidade; A Kent State University Press, 1977; tr. V. Hermans e D. Metze-maekers, Abdij Achel). Uitgeverij Sinite Parvulos VBVB, Achel.
PAGELS, Elaine (1979). Os evangelhos gnósticos. Weidenfeld e Nicolson, em Londres.
SCHNEIDER, Ambrosius; WIENAND, Adam; BICKEL, Wolfgang & amp; COESTER, Ernst (1977). Die Cistercienzer. Geschichte. Geist. Arte. Wienand Verlag, Köln. ISBN 3 87909 074 2.
32. Para uma nova terapia.
A importância do símbolo foi anteriormente enfatizada na introdução. O símbolo & # 8216; & # 8217; é o elemento de comunicação do Segundo Quadrante (II), seguindo o sinal & # 8216; sinal & # 8217; do primeiro quadrante (I). Simbolismo é o nome de um complexo de abordagens em uma comunicação, centrada no símbolo.
LADNER (1979) descreveu a história do grego & # 8216; symbolon & # 8216 ;, originado em & # 8216; symballein & # 8216 ;, o que significa reunir, coletar ou comparar. & # 8216; Symbola & # 8216; expressa em seu sentido original um contraste entre pelo menos dois parceiros, em que se buscou uma comparação.
Na história cristã, o símbolo & # 8216; foi visto como uma expressão de poderes de união. Simultaneamente, o sinônimo & # 8216; semeion & # 8216; ou & # 8216; signum & # 8216; desenvolvido no signo. Este sinal & # 8216; & # 8217; é ainda incompreensível e & # 8216; symbolon & # 8216; apontou para um signo com um significado espiritual e místico.
A primeira interpretação simbólica dos textos do Antigo Testamento foi dada por Fílon de Alexandria (ALLERS (1944, p. 329). Textos e números foram colocados em um contexto mais amplo. Philo pagou, em seu livro & # 8216; De Opificio Mundi & # 8217; (48), atenção especial ao número quatro e seu significado simbólico (VIRET, 1983). BARKAN (1975, p. 29) chamou-o de "talvez o inventor da interpretação bíblica simbólica". # 8217;
Os Padres da Igreja usaram no devido tempo o mesmo método (numerológico) e interpretações. Clemente de Alexandria (c. 150 & # 8211; antes de 215 dC) distinguiu três níveis: literal, ética e mística. Gregório de Nissa (c. 330 & # 8211; 395 dC) aplicado, em seu & ndash; Vita Moysis & # 8216; (A Vida de Moisés), uma explicação simbólica para a vida de Moisés. Sua vida foi vista como uma jornada mística da alma para com Deus.
O esclarecimento, como dado por Agostinho (354 & # 8211; 430 dC) em seu "De Doctrina Christiana", foi quatro vezes. Ele distinguiu em simbolismo o seguinte & # 8216; signa & # 8216 ;:
1. signa naturalia o fato dado.
2. signa sinais de dados, cetros, atributos.
3. signa propria palavras.
Finalmente, Gregório, o Grande (Gregorius Magnus, c. 540) estabeleceu o método interpretativo como uma explicação padrão para as idades vindouras. Ele afirmou em seu "Super Canticum Canticorum expositio": a palavra é um sinal ou uma coisa, e essa coisa pode ser um sinal ou símbolo de outra coisa. & # 8217; Em termos (modernos) de pensamento quadralético, isto significa: a palavra é um elemento de visibilidade visível (principalmente nos quadrantes III e IV), que também é aplicável nas áreas de invisibilidade invisível (I) e / ou visibilidade invisível (II). .
O desenvolvimento do pensamento na história europeia revelou "# 8211; a partir do segundo século dC em diante & # 8211; um aumento gradual na importância de um & # 8216; significado & # 8217 ;. Irineu de Lyon (c. 202) desempenhou neste processo uma parte inicial. Ele acreditava em encontrar o "código", que abriria o caminho para o céu.
GUZZARDO (1975/1981) chamou o século XII de "Idade do Simbolismo", quando a busca por implicações (mais profundas) atingiu um pico. Alternativamente, como ALLERS (1944, p. 386) coloca: “muitas vezes acontece que as idéias, imediatamente antes de serem lançadas no esquecimento temporário, desabrocham violentamente, tendem a se expandir e a se tornar fantasticamente exageradas”. Nas idades seguintes, o simbolismo continuou a repetir, repetidamente, os "significados mais profundos". Estudiosos como Rupert de Deutz coletaram as intenções em seu "De Divinis Officiis". Ele tratou o símbolo em Lib. II, Cap. I da edição de 1541 deste trabalho. & # 8216; Symbolum & # 8216; foi identificado como um "Credo in unum deum", virtualmente indicando a falência do símbolo como um elemento criativo.
O século XX, com um desenvolvimento explosivo da multidão, trouxe de volta o ressurgimento do simbolismo. SPENGLER (1927) observou que: & # 8216; Alles, era ist, ist auch Symbol & # 8216; e afirmou que "Symbole gehören zum Bereich des Ausgedehnten". & # 8217; A multidão oferecia um espaço ilimitado para uma linguagem simbólica, escrita para novos crentes (não necessária no mesmo Deus que foi deixado para trás no século XII).
O psiquiatra suíço Carl Gustav JUNG (1963) procurou o símbolo no sonho. Ele considerava os sonhos como um reflexo das ocorrências, ocorridas no inconsciente. Suas idéias eram parte de um rápido desenvolvimento da psicologia como meio para um novo simbolismo. O comportamento humano foi interpretado como uma resposta a tópicos como comportamento sexual (Freud), circunstâncias familiares (Adler) ou ambiente (Skinner). Para aqueles que querem se beneficiar dos efeitos terapêuticos desses métodos, é crucial entender a linguagem simbólica e a crença em seu significado.
Claramente, o desenvolvimento psicológico ocidental do século XX se baseou fortemente no modo de pensar judeu-cristão. A importância do estado consciente e inconsciente da mente, a ênfase nos opostos sexuais (pai e mãe), estar desperto ou sonhando e a ênfase no poder eram todas características, que encontram suas raízes no raciocínio oposicional. Muitas interpretações psicológicas estão diretamente relacionadas ao pensamento em termos de identidade: o conhecimento do ego & # 8211; expresso em símbolos terapêuticos & # 8211; deve liderar o caminho para uma melhoria do self.
O problema de identidade & # 8217; torna-se obsoleto em um mundo quadrático: o ego (ou identidade) é uma fase ou posição em um processo eterno de comunicação, em que uma certa percepção alcançou um tipo particular de visibilidade. O valor ligado a essa posição é uma questão pessoal, relacionada à consciência da divisão a priori e sua subseqüente apreciação.
A tendência atual na psicologia, como uma ciência relativamente jovem e inexperiente, se beneficiaria de um estudo filosófico do histórico da divisão humana. A & # 8216; juventude difícil & # 8217; pode ser atribuído a um pai dominante, a uma mãe neurótica ou a circunstâncias terríveis. Essas influências podem ser apagadas, é a idéia comum, em um tratamento baseado em uma cognição psicológica.
Também é possível, de um ponto de vista quadrático, colocar tal período à luz de um erro "errado". modelo de divisão. Terapia, no último caso, envolveria uma análise da situação passada e presente em termos de um tipo particular de pensamento de divisão. Essa abordagem é fundamentalmente diferente da abordagem do simbolismo do poder, que é a prática atual na psicologia.
ALLERS, Rudolf (1944). Microcosmo & # 8211; de Anaximandros a Paracelso. Pp. 319 & # 8211; 407 em: QUASTEN, Johannes & amp; KUTTNER, Stephan (Ed.). Traditio, vol. II. Cosmopolitan Science & amp; Art Service Co., Inc. Nova Iorque, 1944.
BARKAN, Leonard (1975). Obra de Arte da Natureza. O corpo humano como imagem do mundo. Yale University Press, New Haven & amp; Londres. ISBN 0-3-01694-8.
GUZZARDO, John J. (1975/1981). Simbolismo de número medieval cristão e Dante. The John Hopkins University (Ph. D. Tese 1975). Microfilmes da Universidade Xerox, Ann Arbar, Michigan 48106 (1981).
JUNG, Carl G. (1963). Recordações. Sonhos Reflexões Random House, Nova York.
LADNER, Gerhart B. (1979). Compreensão Medieval e Moderna do Simbolismo: Uma Comparação. Pp. 223 & # 8211; 256 in: Speculum, um jornal de estudos medievais. Vol. LIV, abril de 1979, n. 2.
SPENGLER, Oswald (1927). Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer morphologie der Weltgeschichte. I: Gestalt und Wirklichkeit; II: Welthistorische Perspektiven. CH. Beck & # 8217; sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, München. Também como: O Declínio do Ocidente (tr. Charles F. Atkinson) (1962). Biblioteca Moderna, Nova Iorque.
VIRET, Jacques (1983). Le Quaternaire des éléments et l 'harmonie cosmique selon Isidoro de Seville. Pp. 7 & # 8211; 25 em: BUSCHINGER, Daniëlle & amp; CREPIN, André (1983). Os elementos do quatre dans la culture medievale. Université de Picardie, Centre d'Etudes Medievales. Nr. 386. Kümmerle Verlag, Göppingen. ISBN 3-87452-606-2.
33. Em busca de harmonia.
Sistemas para entender o mundo.
Sistema & # 8216; & # 8217; é definido aqui como uma coleção de símbolos relacionados mútuos, que são considerados como uma unidade. Um sistema é um esforço para trazer ordem em uma infinidade de possibilidades (abstratas). O design do & # 8216; world-systems & # 8217; & # 8211; como um esforço consciente para desenvolver e definir uma compreensão do mundo & # 8211; pode ser historicamente traçada nas áreas de transição entre a multidão e a unidade e vice-versa. As áreas a serem procuradas em uma comunicação quadralética estão situadas nos dois locais do Terceiro Quadrante (III) (fig. 214).
Fig. 214 & # 8211; Áreas de transição na história cultural européia com uma grande mudança no pensamento de divisão. O CF (Fator de Comunicação) é uma medida para a & # 8216; distância & # 8217; entre os parceiros de comunicação. Valores mais altos (do valor de deslocamento CF) apontam para uma remissão / alienação e valores mais baixos indicam um intensio / atração.
O interesse especial na história cultural européia deve se concentrar nos anos 1200 e 1800, porque eles indicam o começo (subjetivo) e o final do Terceiro Quadrante (III). Os construtores de sistemas do primeiro período de transição (1200 A. D.) foram o mestre de Paris Hugh de St. Victor (SCHNEIDER, 1933), Odo de Morimond, Theobald de Langres, Wilhelm de Auberive (Guillelmus de Alba Ripa) e outros. Eles desenvolveram, com ou sem meios míticos, um tipo de visão geral da vida e da história no espírito do particionamento.
Hugh de St. Victor colocado, em sua Eruditius didiscalica & # 8216; (Didascalicon & # 8216; um guia medieval das artes), o mecânico e & # 8216; artes liberais & # 8216; lado a lado (DUBY, 1976/1984). O livro foi uma elaboração de Hrabanus Maurus & # 8217; & # 8216; De Doctrina & # 8216; (ROBERTSON, 1951) (figo. 215).
Fig. 215 e # 8211; Hrabanus Maurus (c. 780 & # 8211; 856) é visto aqui à esquerda, apresentando seu trabalho a Otgar de Mainz. As obras de Hrabanus foram muito utilizadas pelos construtores de sistemas da primeira onda do século XII. Em: KUNSTMANN (1841).
Hugh de St. Victor desenvolveu uma ciência dos números, que poderia ser aplicada em um sentido prático (como a arquitetura). Odo de Morimond estava interessado no & # 8216; mysteria numerorum & # 8216; (1147) e Theobald declarou: "De quator modis, quibus significationes numerorum aperiuntur" # 8216; (Paris, Nat. Lat. 2583 (XIII), f. 25 & # 8211; 35). Wilhelm de Auberive foi atraído por “de significationes numerorum & # 8216; (BEAUJOUAN, 1961). Todos tentaram criar uma percepção mais profunda por números, as pedras de construção de um universo dividido, que poderiam ser medidas e quantificadas.
A lista de construtores de sistemas em torno do outro ponto de transição (do Terceiro Quadrante) no ano de 1800 é ainda maior. Os seguintes representantes são arbitrariamente escolhidos, uma vez que a maioria dos cientistas naquela época poderia ser chamada de "construtores de sistemas".
Uma boa ilustração é Charles FOURIER (1772 & # 8211; 1837), que desenvolveu a sua teoria de movimentos do mundo e os destinos mais gerais & # 8216; (1808/1841). Existe uma analogia entre quatro tipos de movimentos, segundo Fourier: 1. Material (material); 2. Orgânico (organique); 3. Animal (animal) e 4. Social (social) ou, como ele chamou, uma analogia de modificações da mãe com a matemática matemática das paixões do homem e dos animais. . & # 8217; Suas "criações desreções" # 8216; (ordem de criação) compreendeu quatro fases, que foram consideradas como "universais". (fig. 216).
Fig. 216 e # 8211; Teoria dos Quatre Mouvements et des Destinees Generales. Em: FOURIER (1841).
Fourier imaginou um método quádruplo de divisão, aplicável a todas as formas de criação:
1 Juventude (Enfance ou incoherence ascendante).
Esta fase foi subdividida em sete períodos e durou 1/16 da história humana, ou seja, 5000 anos. Terminou com um salto repentino do caos para a harmonia (& saut de chaos en harmonie & # 8216;).
2. Crescimento gradual (Accroissement ou combinaison ascendante).
Esta fase consistiu em nove períodos com sete harmoniques & # 8216; com duração de 4000 anos. A duração total é 7 / 16th da duração da história (humana) ou 35.000 anos.
A meio caminho (porque Fourier ainda estava amarrado aos laços do pensamento dualista) está um apogeu e du bonheur & # 8217; , que ele chamou de "periode pivotale ou amphiharmonique & # 8216; com uma duração de cerca de 8000 anos.
3. Declínio (Declin ou combinaison descente).
Esta fase também consistiu em nove períodos, com sete harmoniques & # 8216; (de 4000 anos). A duração total é 7 / 16th da história humana ou 35.000 anos. A fase terminou com um & quot; saut d & # 8217; harmonie en chaos & # 8216 ;.
4 Decadência (Caducite ou incoherence descendante).
Esta última fase compreendeu sete períodos, mostrando uma "posterimagem subversiva da criação". Eles são uma imagem espelhada da primeira fase, mas agora há um salto para o caos, a agonia e a selvageria, fechando-se em uma série & # 8216; confus é s & # 8216 ;. A duração deste período é 1/16 da história humana ou 5000 anos.
O animal de estimação e vegetal & # 8216; ocorre de acordo com Fourier, "apres une duree de 80.000 ans". Neste caso, ele não incluiu a duração de 8000 anos do seu "periode pivotale".
A principal linha de pensamento no livro de Fourier sobre a Teoria dos Quatre Mouvements & # 8216; (composto em 1807) era um ascendente (& # 8216; vibração ascendente & # 8216;) e um movimento descendente (& # 8216; vibração descendente & # 8216;) no & # 8216; Ordre des criations & # 8217; (Ordem da Criação). Essa simetria formal dos dois lados apontava para uma mente dualista e não tetradica de Fourier como um inventor social criativo.
A história do livro de Fourier indicava que o escritor nem sempre estava certo. Ele falou de um & quot; ballon d & # 8217; essai & # 8217; (empinar pipa) e admitiu que "la Teoria n & # 8217; etait pas compl è te & # 8216 ;. Ele arquivou o manuscrito em 1808 por causa dos erros que ele continha (& nbsp; uma causa des erreurs qu & # 8217; il contenait & # 8216;). Em outro de seus livros de 1822 ("Association of domestic-agricole"), ele nem sequer mencionou o "Theory of quatre mouvements".
A divisão quaternária da cultura em "enfance, accroissement, declin et caducite" # 8216; é, na verdade, uma divisão dupla com um movimento para cima e para baixo. E, geralmente, se as previsões são feitas dentro desse contexto, a tendência é para baixo: estamos na terceira fase, no declínio (p. 133: “elle est actuellement en troisieme phase”, en declin & # 8216;). E Fourier também sabia o motivo, por causa de seu progresso social ("Une société peut tomber en declin par et effet de ses progres sociaux & # 8216").
MANUEL & amp; MANUEL (1979) dedicou em seu livro inspirador sobre o & # 8216; Pensamento utópico no mundo ocidental & # 8217; um capítulo para Charles Fourier (cap. 27). Eles notaram que "Fourier estava constantemente coletando, contando, catalogando e analisando" # 8217; (p. 642). Seu veredicto de sua personalidade era explícito: "Os elementos paranóicos estão quase sempre latentes nos grandes construtores de estruturas; em Fourier, eles sobem à superfície & # 8211; nada está oculto & # 8217 ;.
Quando Fourier, como um jovem vendedor ambulante, percebeu a grande diferença no preço das maçãs em Paris e no campo, viu-se como parte de uma grande tradição: "Havia quatro maçãs no mundo: duas estavam destinadas a semear discórdia e dois para criar concord. Enquanto Adam e Paris trouxeram a miséria para a humanidade, a maçã de Newton inspirou a descoberta da lei básica da atração, que governa o movimento físico, e seu complemento, a maçã de Fourier, o motivou a formular a maçã. lei da atração apaixonada, que inauguraria a felicidade universal. & # 8217;
Charles Fourier viu-se como um redactor da teoria geral da harmonia e o seu sistema de pensamento baseava-se numa "atração de sentimentos" que existia entre os seres humanos (em analogia com a atração de partes materiais). A atenção às emoções (sentimentos) é & # 8211; apesar do seu modo confuso de apresentação & # 8211; a chave para o Quarto Quadrante na civilização européia.
Fourier distinguiu quatro tipos principais de sentimentos em sua análise da mente humana:
1 Sentimentos de unidade; esse tipo foi chamado (com um neologismo) de unitismo. Foi apresentado como um tronco de árvore, com três ramos principais:
2. Sentimentos de luxo; ligada aos desejos dos cinco sentidos.
3. Sentimentos do grupo ou paixões afetivas & # 8217; composto por quatro grupos:
4 Sentimentos de continuidade, também chamados de serial ou distributiva, consistindo de três grupos:
O naturalista e zoólogo francês Georges Cuvier (1769 & # 8211; 1832) encarnou outro delegado da nova era. Ele chegou a Paris em 1795 e estava ansioso para encontrar uma solução para os problemas evolutivos dos animais. Ele propôs que os quatro grupos principais na natureza & # 8211; vertebrados, moluscos, articulata (insetos) e & # 8216; radiata & # 8216; (animais radial-simétricos) & # 8211; se desenvolveram cada vez mais depois de uma grande catástrofe. A divisão quádrupla foi, de acordo com Cuvier, a especificação ideal & # 8217; da natureza (TOULMIN & GOODFIELD, 1965).
O rival de Cuvier, Lamarck (1744 & # 8211; 1829), sugeriu & # 8211; em uma palestra no ano de 1800 e # 8211; uma solução diferente. Não as catástrofes causaram as mudanças, mas as espécies mudaram-se. Ele apontou para as quatro classes no reino animal (mamíferos, aves, répteis e peixes) e sua complexidade decrescente. Eles poderiam se adaptar (dentro das aulas) a mudanças nas circunstâncias. É curioso notar que o termo & # 8216; biologia & # 8217; foi usado pela primeira vez no ano de 1800 para descrever a ciência do reino vegetal e animal (JORDANOVA, 1984). Aparentemente, a necessidade de tal palavra surgiu no momento em que o estudo da natureza se tornou um assunto sério.
Ordem na natureza também foi procurada na classificação das rochas. Robert Jameson (1774 & # 8211; 1854), geólogo e professor de história natural na Universidade de Edimburgo, deu em seu livro & # 8216; Elements of Geognosy & # 8217; (1808; SWEET, 1976) quatro grupos principais:
Os então conhecidos (23) minerais foram agrupados de acordo com a idade:
1 as mais antigas formações primitivas (molibdena, menachina, estanho, scheele, cério, tantálio, uran, cromo, bismuto);
2. antigas formações primitivas e montanhas mais novas (arsênico, cobalto, níquel, prata, cobre);
3. período intermediário (novas rochas primitivas, de transição e antigas floetz (sedimentárias) (ouro, silvestre, antimônio, manganês);
4 período posterior (chumbo, zinco, mercúrio). O ferro é finalmente encontrado em todas as rochas (e, portanto, muito jovens).
O nome & geologia & # 8217; # 8217; era & # 8211; assim como "biologia" & # 8211; inventado nos primeiros anos do século XIX, e ganhou supremacia sobre a palavra introduzida simultaneamente & # 8216; geognosia & # 8216 ;.
Uma clara exposição dos aspectos filosóficos nas ciências da terra por volta de 1800 foi escrita por Jay GOULD (1987). Seu livro & # 8216; Seta do tempo & # 8211; Ciclo do Tempo & # 8216; provou de forma convincente, que James Hutton (1726 & # 8211; 1797), e seu livro sobre & ldquo; The Theory of the Earth & # 8216; (1795), procurou por um & # 8216; a priori & # 8216; das mudanças, que ocorreram na história da terra. A busca de Hutton foi, em termos quadraléticos, uma descoberta do Primeiro Quadrante (I) & # 8211; onde o & # 8216; telos & # 8216; (ou significado final) de Aristóteles estava situado. Gould sugeriu, com razão, que isso ... telos & # 8216; foi, no tratamento de Hutton, apenas mais uma palavra para "Deus".
O início do século XIX estava em busca de um novo terreno espiritual. O poema de William Blake, intitulado & # 8216; Os Quatro Zoas & # 8216; (escrito entre 1796 e a morte de Blake em 1827) foi um grande esforço. O poema descreveu sua própria mitologia em onze partes (Night I & # 8211; XI) (WILKIE & JOHNSON, 1978).
Blake inventou um universo de quatro Zoas (esferas), sendo representativo das qualidades humanas primordiais (fig. 217). Os Quatro Zoas estavam reunidos em torno do trono de Albion (o ser humano arquetípico). Dentro do & # 8216; Mundane Egg & # 8216; (a parte branca na fig. 217) há um choque entre Urizen (Ratio), Luvah (Paixão) e Tharmas (Instinto), que é reconciliado pelas forças da Imaginação em Urthona (a capacidade de ser criativo e imaginativo).
Quatro Poderosos estão em todo Homem: uma Unidade Perfeita.
Não pode existir. mas da Irmandade Universal do Éden.
O homem universal. Para quem seja Glória Sempre Mais Amém.
Fig. 217 e 8211; A peregrinação espiritual do poeta Milton por William Blake. Atravessando o território de Satanás, ele fica cara a cara com Adão, onde ele encontra as "Portas da Percepção" bem abertas.
Uma tentativa mais científica de construção de sistemas foi feita pelo filósofo alemão F. J.W. von Schelling (1775 & # 8211; 1854), em seu "Erster Entwurf Eines Systems", da Naturphilosophie & # 8217; , publicado em 1799. "Conquistar a multidão" foi seu primeiro objetivo. Ele continuou uma linha de pensamento, iniciada por John Brown (1735/36 & # 8211; 1788) em seu livro & ldquo; Elementae medicinae & # 8217; (1780). A pesquisa de Brown levou à conclusão de que o movimento da multidão (observado em pequenos animais microscópicos) era governado por & # 8216; incitabilitas & # 8216; (excitabilidade). O livro do médico escocês só se tornou conhecido no continente depois de uma década. A teoria de Brown causou uma agitação nos círculos científicos. Mais de duzentas publicações sozinhas foram emitidas na Alemanha entre 1796 e 8211; 1808 (SCHULLIAN, 1960). Os "movimentos brownianos", como eram chamados posteriormente, representavam uma forma de caos organizado, iniciado por uma influência externa ("Leben eine von aussen erzwungener Zustand & # 8216;").
Von Schelling estava ciente desses resultados e enfatizou a relação entre receptividade (de sensibilidade) e irritabilidade. Essa relação oferecia a chave para ordenar a multidão (de movimentos). Causa e efeito foram conectados de maneira lógica.
PRIGOGINE & amp; STENGERS (1985) seguiu essa linha de pensamento & # 8211; a criação de ordem no caos & # 8211; nos tempos modernos. Também o estudo de & # 8216; fractals & # 8216 ;, como iniciado por MANDELBROT (1982), tem a ver com a descrição do & # 8216; caos & # 8217 ;. Mandelbrot chamou movimentos brownianos & # 8216; conjuntos fractais & # 8217; e afirmou que "o movimento browniano físico é um fractal natural".
Fig. 218 & # 8211; Fractals do livro & # 8216; A beleza dos Fractals & # 8217; por H. O. Peitgen e P. H. Richter (1968). Estas criações matemáticas oferecem uma melhor compreensão dos movimentos aparentemente aleatórios, que ocorrem em fluidos e gases na natureza.
Benoit Mandelbrot (1924 & # 8211; 2010) forneceu um exemplo da & # 8216; nova & # 8217; visibilidade na representação de um litoral em um mapa. O limite entre o mar e a terra é & # 8211; se mapeado & # 8211; uma aproximação, relacionada à escala do mapa. Sempre é possível entrar em mais detalhes. A representação da realidade é uma questão de escala, chegando ao infinito. Mandelbrot introduziu o termo & # 8216; fractal, referindo-se ao caráter irregular e fragmentado da natureza (fig. 218). O nome é oposto à denominação & # 8216; álgebra & # 8216; & # 8211; que é derivado do árabe & # 8216; jaraba & # 8217 ;, significando juntar-se. Foi descrito como um aspecto não-topológico da forma & # 8217 ;. O fractal é, em um cenário quadrático, a caracterização de um objeto invisível & # 8216; fato & # 8217; no quarto quadrante. Este tipo de invisibilidade visível (da multidão) & # 8217; é surpreendente, em particular, para aqueles que pensam em opostos.
escreveu Georg Cantor (1845 & # 8211; 1918) para seu colega matemático Richard Dedekind (1831 & # 8211; 1916) em sua carta de 29 de junho de 1877. Foi uma reação ao seu sucesso para mapear uma superfície em uma linha em tal uma maneira de cada ponto da superfície corresponder a um ponto da linha (e reciprocamente que, para cada ponto da linha, um ponto da superfície poderia estar relacionado). Ele chegou a uma correlação, que mapeou exclusivamente as variáveis ​​x para y em termos de quatro equações (DAUBEN, 1979; p. 55).
O trabalho de Cantor é importante, porque explorou o & # 8211; de uma maneira matemática & # 8211; os infinitos (do quarto quadrante). Ele teve um vislumbre da incrível profundidade de visão, que é possível se o modo de pensar quadrilético for realizado em toda a sua extensão. Cantor pointed to the difference between Aristotle and Epicurus with respect to the subject of the continuum and its consistency.
Aristotle, he said, believed in a continuum composed of parts, which were divisible without limit, while Epicurus regarded the continuum as a synthesis from atoms, which were imagined as finite entities. In a modern, quadralectic, sense this observed opposition is a discussion about the place of the entity ‘continuum’ in the visible spectrum of the Fourth Quadrant. Aristotle placed it in the Second ‘Quadrant’ (of the Fourth Quadrant; IV, 2), and Epicurus positioned the continuum in the Third ‘Quadrant’ (IV, 3)
Cantor himself aimed at a position in the Fourth ‘Quadrant’ (of the Fourth Quadrant; IV, 4), the ultimate position of any visible continuum before it disappears in the ‘absolute’ invisibility of the (following) First Quadrant. He objected to the compromise of Thomas Aquinas, who believed that the continuum must be composed neither of infinitely many nor of a finite number of parts but of no parts whatsoever. The continuum is, in Cantor’s view, not an indivisible concept or an a priori intuition. He refused to place the continuum in the First Quadrant, because in that position it would defy all analysis. It would relegate the problem of the continuum to the level of a religious dogma. Instead he insisted to treat the subject as a ‘mathematisch-logischen Begriff’ (CANTOR, 1883; p. 119).
Any system to understand the world, in a modern sense, should include all four aspects of visibility. The quest for ultimate explanation – as researched by John D. BARROW (1991) in his book ‘Theories of Everything’ & # 8211; has to take depth of division into account. The great Unifying Theory, to which Einstein devoted himself in the latter part of his life, is an effort to eliminate division from nature. Even Einstein had, just like Cantor before him, to admit defeat here. The main forces of nature are four in number: the gravitational force, the electromagnetic force, the weak interaction and the strong interaction. They are related to the position of the observer and the distance taken from nature. As long as the observer – and therefore, the division – exists, the ultimate unity will remain a fiction.
BARROW, John D. (1991). Theories of Everything. The Quest for Ultimate Explanation. Oxford University Press/Vintage, London. ISBN 0 09 998380 X.
BEAUJOUAN, Guy (1961). Le symbolisme des nombres a l’epoque romane. pp. 159 – 169 in: Cahiers de civilisation medievale , 4.
CANTOR, George (1883). Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre. Ein mathematisch-philosophischer Versuch in der Lehre des Unendlichen. B. G. Teubner, Leipzig.
DAUBEN, Joseph W. (1979). Georg Cantor. His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts/London. ISBN 0-674- 34871-0.
DUBY, Georges (1976/1984). De kathedralenbouwers: portret van de middeleeuwse maatschappij 980 – 1420. Galllimard, Parijs/Agon, Amsterdam. ISBN 90 5157 134 8.
FOURIER, Charles (1808/1841). Theorie des Quatre Mouvements et des Destinees Generales. Tome Premier. Oeuvres Completes de Ch. Fourier, Aux Bureau de la Phalange, Paris.
GOULD, Stephen Jay (1987). Time’s Arrow – Time’s Cycle. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.).
JORDANOVA, L. J. (1984). Lamarck. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-287588-4.
KUNSTMANN, Friedrich (1841). Hrabanus Magnentius Maurus. Eine historische Monographie. Kirchheim, Schott & Thielmann, Mainz.
MANDELBROT, Benoit B. (1982). The Fractal Geometry of Nature. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco. ISBN 0716711869.
MANUEL, F. E. & MANUEL, F. P. (1979). Utopian Thought in the Western World. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 0-674- 93186-6.
PEITGEN, Heinz O. & RICHTER, Peter H. (1986). The Beauty of Fractals. Images of Complex Dynamical Systems. Springer Verlag, Berlin. ISBN 0-387-15851-0.
PRIGOGINE, Ilya & STENGERS, Isabelle (1985). Orde uit chaos. De nieuwe dialoog tussen de mens en de natuur (tr.: Order Out of Chaos). Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam. ISBN 90 351 0212 6.
ROBERTSON Jr., D. W. (1951). The Doctrine of Charity in Medieval Literary Gardens: A Topical Approach through Symbolism and Allegory. Speculum , A Journal of Medieval Studies. Vol. 26, 1951.
SCHNEIDER, W. A. (1933). Geschichte und Geschichtsphilosophie bei Hugo von St. Victor. Münstersche Beiträge zur Geschichtsforschung. III. Folge, II. Heft, Verlag der Universitäts-Buchhandlung Franz Coppenrath, Münster (Westfalen).
SCHULLIAN, Dorothy M. (1960). Alexander von Humboldt and Brunonianism. Notes and Events. Pp. 75 & # 8211; 77 in: Journal of Medical and Allied Sciences . Oxford Journals. Volume XV, Issue 1.
SWEET, Jessie M. (Intr.)(1976). The Wernerian Theory of the Neptunian Origin of Rocks. Facs. Repr. Elements of Geognosy , 1808. Robert JAMESON. Hafner Press, New York/Collier MacMillan Publ., London. LCCC 75-43364.
TOULMIN, Stephen & GOODFIELD, June (1965). The Discovery of Time. Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England.
WILKIE, Brian & JOHNSON, Mary Lynn (1978). Blake’s Four Zoas . The Design of a Dream. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London. ISBN 0-674- 07645-1.
34. Games, Fortuna and the Future.
Games of chance and the prediction of the future.
Every game offers an opportunity to study the way of thinking in a communication. Because every playful exchange between parties is a manifestation of intuition, ideas and strategies based on certain rules, leading to an outcome (winning or losing) which can be placed in a historical context (a tournament, a world champion, etc.), it is an excellent way to give an insight in the mechanism of division-thinking (fig. 219).
Fig. 219 – The game as a manifestation of division-thinking. The four-fold is a regular phenomenon. 1. Game board from the graves of Ur with division elements. (SCHMÖKEL, 1957); 2. The Lien Poh is a Hokkien gambling game played in South East Asia. The name means literally ‘turning treasure’. The cube is the Poh or ‘treasure’ and the metal box is the Poh Kam or ‘treasure cover’ (YOUNG, 1886).; 3. An Indian game with four players (GRUZINSKI, 1992). See also: Andrew McFarland Davis (1886). ‘ Indian Games: An Historical Research ’.
The connection of a game with a religious meaning has a long history. Fig. 220 depicts a Greek votive wheel, devoted to Apollo, and used to worship the gods.
Fig. 220 – A Greek votive-wheel, devoted to Apollo. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; William Amory Gardiner Fund. In: MEGGS (1983).
A well-known attribute in games is the die. By throwing the dices a decision is forced on a situation and left – so to speak – to the whim of gods (the Roman Fortuna, and its Greek equivalent Tyche, were the goddesses of luck and fate). ‘Luck’ represents, in a quadralectic setting, the uncertainties of the Second Quadrant, while the outcome of the throw produces a (Third Quadrant) certainty (fig. 221).
Fig. 221 – Dice players in classical Rome are seen here as a portrayal on a wall in Pompeii (Italy). Apparently, these players were in conflict about the numbers thrown. In: DILKE (1975).
Throwing the dices is a very old way of decision-making. Originally, a crystal of pyrite was used, because it has the form of a cube. Pyrite (ferrosulfite) was also employed in the old days to make fire. An early connection between the cube and the (holy) light was for this very reason established, giving the game of dice a sacral content.
Unfortunately, the earthly application of the game results sometimes in human misery. Aristotle put out a warning against playing dices, and since ancient times the game (of dice) was associated with greed and crime. Creating visibility in a forceful way, provoking decisions and worshiping the world of opposites has seldom contributed to a peaceful communication between human beings. Nevertheless, it is the material of which a great part of history is made of.
Alongside the cube was – in classical times – a heel bone of a sheep used for a game of chance (knuckle bones). Aristotle mentioned this game, called ‘ astragalos ’, in the second chapter of his ‘Historia Animalium’ . The heel bone is elongated and has four planes of different dimensions. The convex plane is opposite to a concave plane. The individual planes were numbered: 1, 3, 4 en 6. These numeric values had no meaning in a hierarchical sense, because the Greek were not interested in the laws of chance. Four ‘ astragaloi ‘ were thrown together, resulting in thirty-five possibilities. The combinations were given a specific name, mostly the name of a god or a mythical hero (SAMBURSKY, 1956). Examples were Midas, Alexander, Solon, Aphrodite, and the Romans used further names like Venus, King and Vulture. The highest throw in Greece, counting 40, was the Euripides. The lowest throw was the Dog.
The history of chess is – in the European cultural realm – an instructive game to demonstrate the way division thinking has changed over the years. Originally, the game was played with four players, with each eight pieces: a king, a rook, a knight and a bishop, positioned behind four pawns (MACKETT-BEESON (1968), fig. 222). The name of the game was then ‘ chaturanga ‘, a Sanskrit word meaning the four parts of an army. In the early versions of chess-with-four-players (in German: ‘ Würfelvierschach ‘) dices were used to move the different pieces. The dices disappeared in the gradual change to two players.
Fig. 222 – The four participants at the original game of chess, when it was called ‘ chaturanga’ (meaning the four parts of an army). The players had eight pieces: a king, an elephant (later a rook), a knight (or a horse), a ship (later a bishop) and four pawns. In: MACKETT-BEESON, (1968). A colored version can be found in: KIEFER (1958).
From its place of origin India, the game reached Europe, via Persia and Arabia. The Iranian writer Firdausi (940 – 1020 AD.) gave in his ‘Book of Kings’ ( Schah-Nameh ) in sixty-thousand double verses not only the Old-Iranian heroes-stories, but also a development-history of chess. KIEFER (1958) called chess ‘ein morgenländisches Spiel ‘. The influence of the Mores in Spain, around the year 1000, was mentioned as a possible introduction of the game in Europe. By 1283 the game was so well known that Alphonso the Wise (1221 – 1284), Spanish king of Castile and León (1252 – 1284), had a treatise written about the game (WHITE, 1913). The ‘ Libro de juegos ’ (1283) depicted the ‘ajedrex de los quatro tiempos’ (chess of the four seasons) a game with four players in a conflict with four elements and humors. The chessmen were marked in the colors green, red, black and white and the pieces moved by the roll of dice.
The visibility of games increased with the arrival of the printing press at the end of the fifteenth century (fig. 223). The chessboard was often depicted and well known as a game of the higher classes.
Fig. 223 – A woodcut from Caxton’s book about the game: Game and Play of the Chess (1482). In: ROSS (1976).
Another game with a chequered board and dices was called tremerel , also called nine mens merrils (from the French word merelles , or mereaux , pointing to the jettons or counters, with which it was played) (fig. 224). The leading number in this game is three.
Fig. 224 – The game of tremerel was played in France. Each party had three counters, which were to be placed in a line in order to win the game. The board on this illustration does not suggest a direct resemblance, but there might be a connection with the Nine Men’s Morris game in England and the Mühle (Mills) game in central Europe. In: GAY (1928/1971).
The distribution of card (games) was widespread all over Europe. The basic illustrations on the twenty-two Tarot-cards and the fifty-two (or fifty-three when the joker is included) game-cards changed little over the years (fig. 225). The original division in the playing cards reflected the four classes in the (medieval) society:
Fig. 225 – Left: The playing card as a symbol of the four classes. The ‘diamond jack’ printed from a wood block; around 1400 (MEGGS, 1983). Right: Backside of a card of the ‘Verenigte Stralsunder Spielkartenfabriken A. G .’, around 1915. The backside of cards often has a tetragonal symmetry (JANSSEN, 1985).
In every game are four phases:
1. The invisible invisibility. Most games have an invisible, mystical element. Every player knows about the experience of the undefinable forces of luck. Intuition and talent (how to play a game) are mystical commodities.
2. The invisible visibility. Some elements can be qualified, like the rules and the theory of the game. It is – theoretically – possible to reach a higher knowledge and capability to play the game.
3. The visible visibility. The actual playing of the game. The performance provides the moment of truth in this particular type of (regulated) communication.
4 The visible invisibility. Repetition of the game results in experience, which can be used in future games. Experience is an addition and a mirror image of the theoretical knowledge gathered in the second phase. Practical understanding can improve the performance.
Most games are played with the intention of winning. A game consists of a number of actions, performed individually or collectively, following certain rules and agreements, and resulting in a winning and a losing party. The game is a system for achieving superiority (Adler) within a dualistic frame-work.
Robert AXELROD (1984) studied an interesting ‘tetradic’ game in his book ‘The Evolution of Co-operation’ . The game is called the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma ‘ and has references to a four-fold way of thinking. Two players get maximum points if they both work together (mutual co-operation) and minimal points if they both work against each other (mutual defection). In the intermediate positions, the one who co-operates is more punished than the one who defects. The following scheme gives the possibilities and valuation of the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ - game (AXELROD, 1984; fig. 1, p. 8; NOWAK et al ., 1995):
PLAYER II (Column Player)
co-operation I = 3 I = 0 punishment.
II = 3 II = 5 reward.
both work together.
(Row Player) defection I = 5 reward I = 1.
II = 0 punishment II = 1.
The distribution of the (score)points in the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma Game’ is given above. The game is an archetypal communication between two players and two possibilities of choice (Player I/II and co-operation/defection).
AXELROD (1984) tried to analyze the traces of Fortuna by organizing a ‘Computer Prisoner’s Dilemma Tournament ‘, giving game-theoreticians of different disciplines (economy, psychology, sociology, political science and mathematicians) the opportunity to search for ‘solutions’. As it turned out, the best way to play this game was the ‘tit for tat ‘-method, which means that – after an initial co-operation – every move of the opponent was repeated (co-operation on reciprocity).
NOWAK et al . (1995), in their article on the ‘Arithmetics of Mutual Help’ , defined the possibilities to win more accurate by looking at the results of the previous round (and not only to the move of the opponent). The computer can generate patterns – in a spatial setting and under specific circumstances – which are similar to the four-fold symmetry of ‘Persian rugs’. LLOYD (1995) described a computer-program, which produced the outcome of the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ - game in tetradic-symmetrical patterns.
The conclusions in the game-theory confirm the behavior of the goddess Fortuna: only the reduction of the four-division (of the initial setting) to a two-division ( ‘tit for tat ‘) creates an environment to ‘win’.
This same element (of reduction to a dual concept) is present in the world of prediction. Prediction is always closely related to division thinking, of choosing positions and view points and – finally, for the time being – believing in the position of the observer. There must be a mutual trust and confidence in the acceptance of the boundaries within a communication if a prediction will be valuable.
The form and function of prediction in a society are an indicator of the way trust/belief is handled and worth studying. There were times when the rulers had great confidence in the words of soothsayers when important political events or wars were eminent. However, in other epochs, like the present one in Europe, the importance of detailed predictions is played down and regarded as ‘unscientific’. Despite this overall feeling, there is a lot of planning going on, in particular in big hierarchic organizations. Many civil servants are engaged in government-sponsored planning-offices, producing figures and graphs to assist the never-ending task of political decision taking. Figures are a necessity as political power tools.
In other cultures – like the Chinese – the element of belief has never faded away. Prediction – ritualized in acts of worship – is still alive as a means to communicate with a godhead. The more worldly derivatives of certain games of chance and gambling-in-general enjoy a long history in the Chinese culture (fig. 226/227). Lillian Lan-ying TSENG (2004) wrote an excellent article on the TLV mirror, which brought these subjects together.
Fig. 226 – Prediction was a holy and spiritual exercise in the Chinese Han Dynasty of the second century AD. Priests employed the so-called TLV-mirror to read the future. The mirror is believed to represent a square earth and a round heaven. This illustration gives a detail from the ‘Tomb of the painted Basket’ , Harada – Lo Lung, China. Drawing (detail) by W. P. Yetts in: HADINGHAM (1983).
Fig. 227 – Implements from the game of Liubo . Late third century B. C.E. The pattern found on the surface of Liubo boards is associated with the TLV mirrors, which were common in the Han Dynasty. Fig. 6 in: TSENG, Lillian Lan-ying (2004).
The connection between game, prediction and belief is long established. Alternatively, like WHITEHEAD (1926) put it: ‘Religion and play have the same origin in ritual. (…) A holy day and a holiday are kindred notions.’ He distinguished four elements in the manifestation of religion: ritual, emotion, belief and rationalization. The aim of religion is an increase of emphasis.
Whitehead’s division is, in quadralectic terms, an expression of the four quadrants: 1. belief (I); 2. ritual (II); 3. rationalization (III) and 4. emotion (IV). Whitehead (1926; p. 18) saw the ritual as the primary religious factor, followed by emotion. And he continued: ‘Perhaps it is true to affirm that the later factors are ever wholly absent. But certainly, when we go far enough back, belief and rationalization are completely negligible, and emotion is merely a secondary result of ritual.’ He pointed to loneliness as the cornerstone of every devout experience: ‘The great religious conceptions which haunt the imaginations of civilized mankind are scenes of solitariness.’
The (Second Quadrant) ritual offers the first insight in a ‘full communication’: an invisible god (I) is worshiped by rules and customs (II), supported by attributes (III), which are emotionally experienced by the worshiper (IV).
Fig. 228 – Left: An African divination tray of the Yoruba. Ifa-tribe, Ekiti, twentieth century. Wood, diameter 19 inch. See also: William Russell Bascom’s book ‘ Ifa divination: communication between gods and men in West Africa ’ (BASCOM, 1969). Right: Scheme of the positions of a plate by ‘ babalawo ‘ (father or master of the mysticism) Kolawole Ositola; Ijebe, Nigeria. A drawing by H. J. Drewal. In: DREWAL & PEMBERTON III (1989).
In certain parts of Africa, in particular by the Western African tribe of the Yoruba, the divination tray is used to predict the future (fig. 228). These trays are utilized by the diviner, who draws three lines (‘paths’) on the surface at the outset of a divination to ‘open’ channels of communication. The lines connect the countless competing forces of the universe as crossroads. Subsequently, the diviner reads their significance for an individual or group (DREWAL & PERBERTON, 1989). The holy act to establish a better awareness of the position in the universe has all the ingredients of a ritual game.
The attention to the game as an independent means of communication was raised around the year 1500 and clearly expressed in the work of Hieronumus Cardanus (1501 – 1576). His book on the games of chance – ‘Liber de ludo aleae’ (GOULD, 1953/1961; ORE, 1953) – was written around 1520, when he was a rector at the university of Padua. Cardanus’ life was an example of the ‘pivotal’ times in which he lived. His autobiography provided a good insight in the dualistic character of the European cultural history. He wrote ‘De Vita Propria Liber’ in 1575, a year before his death.
The year 1539 was a turning point in Cardanus’ vida. He reached the state in which he ‘ceased to be poor because he had nothing left to lose’ (STONER, 1962), but then fortune came his way. He personified his time as a physician, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and oneirocritic (FIERZ, 1977), with the attraction of extremes as the central theme.
Aristotle’s’ warning against gambling (in the ‘ Ethica ‘) was never taken seriously and particular with the arrival of the printing press and the cheap availability of playing cards – games of chance became a widespread pastime. GOULD (1953/1961) stated: ‘in times of great fear and sorrow, when even the greatest minds are much disturbed, gambling is far more efficacious in counteracting anxiety than a game like chess.’
Henry Cornelius AGRIPPA von Nettesheim (1486 – 1535) gave – in his book ‘De Occulta Philosophia’ (1531; 1651/1986) – a methodical description of the cabalistic system. This body of knowledge had its roots in the (dualistic) Jewish culture, but found a fertile feeding-ground in the twelfth and thirteenth century, when the European culture itself was searching for an identity. Southern France – with the Cathars, carrying a rejuvenated form of dualistic thinking – and Spain – with the intermingling of Arab and Jewish ideas in a spirit of dualism – furnished the mind-material to (gradually) break down the reign of tetradic thinking.
The Book ‘ Zohar ‘ was written in Spain at the time of Raymond Lull (around 1280/90) and became the main text of the Cabala. Four-fold aspects were present, but they were derived from a dynamic two-division, rather than a tetradic environment. The Book ‘ Zohar ’ mentioned, for instance, four cabalistic principles:
A possible explanation of the four phases in cabalistic thinking from a quadralectic point of view is given as follows:
1 The ‘En-Sof ‘, the infinity, or boundless nothingness, is here compared with the First Quadrant. Four emanations are envisaged to develop from the ‘En-Sof ‘:
These characteristics resemble the characteristic dynamic principles of the four quadrants (in quadralectic thinking);
2. An original unity emerges from the Nothingness, identified as the Crown (the Will) above the wheel of life. This unity differs from the (quadra-lectic) Second Quadrant, which is a distinct area of pluriformity (ideas), of which unity (in its ‘Third Quadrant’, II,3) is only a subdivision;
3. The Division of Opposites results in the First Man ( Adam Kadmon ). This visibility coincides with the (quadralectic) Third Quadrant;
4 The Union of Opposites takes place in the fourth phase. This stage is comparable with the Fourth Quadrant, but there is – novamente & # 8211; a reversal from uniformity to pluriformity. The Unity (of the fourth phase) should be placed in the ‘Third Quadrant’ of the Fourth Quadrant (IV,3). Unity is symbolised in the ‘ Sefiroth ‘ & # 8211; a ten-division – offering a view of the celestial man. ‘The Sephiroth of the Cabala are really Divine Names as creative principles’ (YATES, 1966; p. 178).
The cabalistic system puts an emphasis on boundaries and, subsequently, projection of the boundaries into the future is a tempting option. Divination is a logical outcome of a dynamic communication, when a belief (in division) is combined with a certainty (future).
In the same period as Cardanus lived the French apothecary and seer Michel de Nostredame, also known as Nostradamus (1503 – 1566). The first complete edition of his predictions dated from 1568 (CENTURIO, 1977/1985). The – often cryptic – description of future events, combined with a chaotic sequence of the quatrains, allowed a great variety of interpretations. Maybe this is one of the reasons, that his work has shown such a remarkable historical resilience.
Nostradamus envisaged in the early twenty-first century the biggest battle of all times against a yellow invasion from Asia. We will be saved by Henry the Happy of France, ‘the phoenix of the good king Henry IV’ and a united Europe will enjoy seventy-five years of peace. To quote dr. Centurio:
‘If the beginning of this period is placed around 2040, then our future offspring will reap the harvest of peace of the seeds which we and the next two generations scattered in blood and tears’.
In the meantime, Henry the Happy lives in the area of Le Mans, where he was born on Thursday the 21th January of 1981… (fig. 229).
Fig. 229 – Location Le Mans (France, September 2001).
AGRIPPA, H. C. (1651/1986). Three Books of Occult Philosophy. A Complete Edition (facs.). Chthnios Books, London. ISBN 0-948366-00-1.
AXELROD, Robert M. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. Basic Books, Inc., Publishers. Nova york. ISBN 0-465-02121-2.
BASCOM, William R. (1969). Ifa Divination. Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis. ISBN 0-253-32890-X.
CENTURIO, Dr. N. Alexander (1977/1985). De profetieën van Nostradamus. (tr. E. M.J. Prinsen Geerligs). Uitgeverij Skarabee, Utrecht. ISBN 90-6071-384-2.
DILKE, O. A.W. (1975). The Ancient Romans. How They Lived and Worked. David & Charles, Newton Abbot, England.
DREWAL, Henry John & PERBERTON III, John (1989). Yoruba. Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought. The Center for African Art/Harry N. Abrams Inc. Publishers, New York. ISBN 0-810901794-7.
FIERZ, Markus (1977). Girolamo Cardano (1501 – 1576). Arzt, Naturphilosoph, Mathematiker, Astronom und Traumdeuter. Birkhäuser Ver-lag, Basel und Stuttgart. ISBN 3-7643-0892-3.
GAY, Victor (1928/1971). Glossaire Archeologique du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance. Tome H – Z. Paris. Kraus Reprint, Neudeln/Liechtenstein.
GOULD, S. H. (1953/1961). The Book on Games of Chance ( Liber de ludo aleae ). Princeton University Press/Holt, Rionehart & Winston
GRUZINSKI, Serge (1992). Painting the Conquest: the Mexican Indians and the European Renaissance (transl. Deke Dusinberre). Unesco/Flammarion, Paris. ISBN 2-08013-521-X.
HADINGHAM, Evan (1983). Early Man and the Cosmos. William Heinemann Ltd., London. SBN 434 31108 1.
JANSSEN, Han (1985). De geschiedenis van de speelkaart. Elmar, Rijswijk. ISBN 90-6120-467-4.
KIEFER, Alfred (1958). Das Schachspiel in Literatur und Kunst. Verlag Münchner Buchgewerbehaus GmbH.
LLOYD, Alun L. (1995). The Amateur Scientist. Computing Bouts of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Pp. 80 – 83 in: Scientific American , June 1995. Volume 272, Number 6.
MACKETT-BEESON, A. E. J. (1968). Chessman. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London.
MEGGS, Philip B. (1983). A History of Graphic Design. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York. ISBN 0-442-26221-3.
NOWAK, Martin A.; MAY, Robert M. & SIGMUND, Karl (1995). The Arithmetics of Mutual Help. Computer experiments show how cooperation rather than exploitation can dominate in the Darwinian struggle for survival. Pp. 50 – 55 in: Scientific American , June 1995. Volume 272, Number 6.
ORE, Oystein (1953). Cardano. The Gambling Scholar. Dover Publications, Inc. New York.
ROSS, Charles (1976). The Wars of the Roses. A Concise History. Thames and Hudson, London.
SAMBURSKY, S. (1956). The Physical World of the Greek (transl. from Hebrew by Merton Dagut). Princeton Paperback (1987). Princeton University Press, New Jersey. ISBN 0-691-08477-7.
SCHMÖKEL, Dr. Hartmut (1957). Ur, Assur en Babylon. Drie millennia in het twee - stromenland. Uitgeversmaatschappij Holland, Amsterdam.
STONER, Jean (Ed.)(1962). The Book of My Life. Jerome Cardan ( De Vita Propria Liber , 1575). Dover Publications, Inc. New York.
TSENG, Lillian Lan-ying (2004). Representation and Appropriation: Rethinking the TLV Mirror in Han China. Early China, 29 (2004). Annual Journal of the Society for the Study of early China. YATES, Robin D. S. (Ed.)
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WHITEHEAD, Alfred North (1926). Religion in the Making. The Macmillan Company/ The New American Library, Inc., New York.
YATES, Frances A. (1966). The Art of Memory. Routledge & Kegan Paul/Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England. ISBN 0-529-02076-9.
YOUNG, J. W. (1886). Bijdrage tot de kennis der Chineesche hazard - en kaartspelen. Tijdschr. voor Indische Taal-, Land - en Volkenkunde. Deel XXXI, fig. 4.
35. Thoughts of an elementary nature.
The four elements.
The elements, as an expression of material nature brought back to its most essential form, are closely related with division thinking. The human effort to reach for a unity (of visibility), by ignoring the pluriform, leaves the last divisions very important. A language is analyzed to sentences. Sentences are broken down to words. Words to letters and letters to an alphabet.
This process was expressed in a more literary way in a poem by Pamela Alexander titled ‘Table of Elements’ (and calligraphically printed by Nancy Leavitt in the ‘Calligraphy Review ‘) (GILMAN, 1992):
Knowledge of the elements is about the elementary. In terms of division thinking, it can be interpreted as a search for the final unity, or – in quadralectic terms – a quest to the First Quadrant. Mankind poses the crucial question repeatedly: Where do things begin or end?
The Greek philosopher Thales, living in Milete around 600 BC, was one of the firsts to provide an answer: water. Other pre-Socratici opted for different features to find the origin of phenomena (SHIBLES, 1971): Anaximander of Miletus (c. 560 BC) pinpointed the boundless invisibility (infinity) as the ultimate source of unity in nature and stated that all things were infinite. He provided a simple geometrical model based on circles. Anaximenes regarded ‘air’ (mist/vapor) as the starting-point for the cosmic process: heating and cooling resulted in evaporation and condensation. Heraclitus of Ephesus spoke of the Logos (Word) as the root of all things.
Parmenides crowned the search for unity (around 500 BC) with his philosophy of monism , establishing the identity of thought and objects: ‘The only thing that exists for thinking is the thought that it is.’ All these philosophers used an inductive method (working from an assumption) in a speculative-dogmatic way. Creative thinking was more important than proof.
Empedocles (c. 500 BC) returned to quantity. He developed a ‘ Theory of Nature ’ based on four elements. These parts were indivisible, eternal and immutable. All beings were derived from this basis, and change was merely a rearrangement of roots. The tetradic elementary theory was later described by Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) and Theophrastus of Eresus (372 – 287 BC). These writers and the Church Fathers made the European culture aware of another tetradic world, different from their own ‘Celtic’ heritage.
An important contribution in the study of the elements was made by Isaac (Judaeus), a patriarch of Alexandria between 686 and 689 AD. He wrote a ‘Liber de elementis’ and a ‘Book of Substances’ . These books were published in his ‘Opera omnia’ , printed in 1515 at Lyons. A biography of Isaac Judaeus was written by Epicopus Mina (in the Coptic language) and recounted the life of this early naturalist (PORCHER, 1974).
The interest in the elementary – and related division thinking – found a rich feeding-ground in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. This city had a long pluriform tradition and encouraged the fourfold way of thinking. LADNER (1983) noted: ‘Symbolism of the number four is particularly prominent amongst the Alexandrine heretical Gnostics of the 2nd Century (Valentines, etc.)’. Philo of Alexandria gave examples in his work ‘De Opificio mundi ‘. Philo, living from 20 BC to 50 AD, used allegory to harmonize Greek philosophy and Judaism.
Further to the east, in the belief of the Zoroastrianism, was the four-fold division not unknown as an extension of basic dual concepts. A Sogdic ossuary along the Silk Road, dating from the sixth century AD, symbolized the elements fire, water, earth and air (fig. 230). The Sogdic merchants of the sixth and seventh century provided a cultural link between the countries along the Silk Road from Persia to China, mixing Zoroastrianism with Buddhism. Their language was the ‘lingua franca’ along the route, before Turkish, Chinese and Arab speakers got the upper hand (KLIMKEIT, 1988).
Fig. 230 – A reconstruction of the front of a Sogdic ossuary near Bija-Najmana (Tashkent), from the sixth century AD, gives a representation of the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. In: KLIMKEIT (1988).
The middle of the eighth century was the start of the ‘visible’ part of the European cultural period. The Patristic/Celtic tetradic division was revived by Bede (the Venerable) in manuscripts like ‘De Natura Rerum ‘ and ‘De Temporum Ratione ‘. These texts treated the calendar, the four seasons, elements and humors). He positioned the four elements in their mathematical dimensions (fig. 231).
Fig. 231 – A scheme of the elements and their interconnections. The sequence is here: Fire ( Ignus ) – Air ( Aer ) – Water ( Aqua ) and Earth ( Terra ). The illustration – one of the very few in the grandiose standard work of MIGNE’s ‘Patrologia latina’ (1844/64; part XC, p. 195 – 196) – was derived from the ‘Bedae Opera Omnia’ edition (1563) of Hervagius, printer in Basel. JONES (1939) described the edition as ‘notoriously corrupt’. See also: HENINGER (1977).
A reason for the corruption of text could be found in the inability of a sixteenth century scholar to imagine the full width of tetradic thinking due to the dual character of his own time. Hervagius was not able to see the balanced character of Bede’s original intentions in his concern with opposites and extremes. This misunderstanding (or misinterpretation) was not present in the twelfth century, when the tetradic spirit was very much alive. Elementary thinking reached a peak (fig. 232).
Fig. 232 – A renewed interest in the elementary combinations became evident in the twelfth century, when a hunt for an empirical visibility started in the European cultural history. The initial aim to support the belief in God changed into knowledge for its own sake. After the Renaissance the collecting of empirical data reached their days of glory in the eighteenth century, but ended towards the close of that century into scepticism and revolt. Left: The combinations between the elements and their possibility to cooperate. From an edition of Boethius’ & # 8216; De Consolatione Philosophiae ‘. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, Ms Vit. 20.1, f. 54v; end of the eleventh century. Right: Combinations of the elements. Oxford, St. John’s College, MS 17, f. 13, around 1110. In: BOBER (1961).
The four elements were treated in an almost mathematical way, whereby the interrelationships became of prime importance to form a structural framework of nature. However, there was a change in the air. From the twelfth century onwards the nature of the ‘prima materia ‘ was more and more sought (and found) in a rational approach of the ‘forma corporeitatis ‘. This deliberate choice aimed at an empirical visibility and at a reduction of the power and influence of invisibility (or intuition). The best and most elegant way to achieve this goal was to reduce the numbers in the initial primary division (of thoughts). Tetradic division – with four, equal visibilities – was gradually replaced by a three - or two-division, to enlarge the material visibility (and gain in worldly power).
The scholar Marius, working in Montpellier (Southern France), wrote between 1150 and 1175 his ‘De Elementis’ (On the Elements). He treated the relation between the elements in a mathematical way (fig. 233) and knew that his doctrine of substance was ‘the key to the whole of philosophy’. What he did, in fact, was to establish a framework for a dynamic approach to nature, based on combinations and their subsequent valuation. DALES (1976) pointed to Eriugena’s ‘De Divisione Naturae’ & # 8211; in which Gregory of Nyssa’s doctrine of form was incorporated – the adaptation of Plato’s ‘ Timaeus ‘ by Calcidius, William of Conches’ & # 8216; Dragmaticon ‘ and the ‘ Metafysica ‘ of Algazel as possible sources for Marius’ trabalhos.
Fig. 233 – An illustration from ‘De Elementis’ , a book by the twelfth century scholar Marius, copied between 1190 – 1200 in Bury St. Edmunds (British Museum Cotton Galba E. IV). In: DALES (1976).
The manuscript of Marius’ ‘De elementis’ (British Museum Cotton Galba E. IV), written between 1190 – 1200 in Bury St. Edmunds, was a genuine quest to the nature of the elements, without a touch of any magical or animistic notions. The book was written, just like John Scotus Eriugena’s ‘ De Divisione Naturae’ , as a dialogue between a student and his master. Book II ( Liber Secundus ) of ‘De Elementis’ treated the combinations of the elements: at first two elements at a time, afterwards three at a time and finally with all four elements. The numbers of (unequal) combinations are respectively 18, 52 and 75. The combinations of elements offer an explanation for the processes in nature. Marius gave as an example the drinking of milk. Milk contains much water and less earth (solids). There is even less air and least of all fire. Therefore, a man is warming pursuant to drinking milk, because the (four) elements aim at equilibrium. No elementary energy or material is lost. It just changed in another form.
The width of (division) thinking with regard to the elements suffered badly in the hands of rationalistic thinkers of later ages. Equilibrium became, in the view of the latter, a balance between two forces, not four. The division of the world into four basic elements had given the scholars a logical and workable model of nature. The ideas were still very much alive in the beginning of the great discovery voyages. There might have been a (dualistic) idea of a flat earth, but there was also a spherical world view, with a round earth amidst water, air and fire (fig. 234).
Fig. 234 – The earth in a sphere of water, surrounded by a sphere of air and fire. This illustration is from Johannes de Sacrobosco’s ‘ Sphaera ‘ (Venice, 1485/1490). The small booklet by John of Holywood (c. 1195 – c. 1256) was a very influential brochure, since it stated clearly the Ptolemaic universe. It described the earth as a sphere and not flat. (RANDLES, 1990).
The pivotal point in the European cultural history (1500 AD) was symbolized by the work of Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528). His world, based on practical visibility and direct confrontation, was still familiar with the four elements, but they were treated in a monumental way (fig. 235).
Fig. 235 – The goddess Philosophia is seen here amidst tetradic features. This woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (Neurenberg, 1502) was used as the title page of the ‘Libri Amorum Quatuor’ by the German humanist scholar Conrad Celtis (1459 – 1508). The book was devoted to German nationalism in the spirit of the number four. Conrad CELTIS – & # 8216; Amores et Opuscula varia ‘ (1502), containing the ‘ Libri Amorum Quatuor ‘. ANONYM (-). De houtsneden van Albrecht Dürer 1471 – 1528.
Albrecht Dürer (his signature is above the lower emblem of the ‘Latinorum Poetae et Rhetores’ ) designed the title page for a curious book by Conrad Celtis called ‘Amores et Opuscula varia’ (1502), which contained the ‘ Libri Amorum Quatuor’ . The woodcut, produced in Nüremberg in 1502, was a compilation of quadripartite themes around the goddess Philosophia.
The emblem above the throne incorporates the Egyptian wisdom of Ptlolemaeus and Chaldean insight. Plato represents the Greek wisdom to the right. The lower emblem exhibit Cicero and Virgil as personifications of the Latin ‘poetae et rhetores ‘ and to the left is Albertus (Magnus), the symbol of European (German) knowledge. In the corners are the exhaling faces of the four winds: Eurius, Zephyr, Auster and Boreas. Their physiognomy corresponds with the human types, which are associated with the elements fire ( Eurus ), air ( Zephyr ), earth ( Boreas ) and water ( Auster ) and the temperaments: choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic.
The static representation of the goddess Philosophia by Albrecht Dürer reflected a numerological reference to tetradic thinking. The actual width of thoughts had dramatically narrowed towards the Pivotal Point (PP) of the European cultural history (1500 AD). Nationalism and numerology were only two of the symptoms.
Celtis highlighted the four areas of Germania (with illustrations):
These areas were described from the viewpoint of ‘Quatuor aetates, anni tempora, mundi plagas et quatuor urb. ger. tetragona, ventos, humores et complexi, coeli signa, qualitates, elementa en colores ‘. The chapter ‘Germania Generalis ‘ gave an extensive description of Noringberga Quadrifinia (Nürnberg).
The elements were often – like in the given example – used in a motionless way, as relics of the time when tetradic reasoning was actively and dynamic employed (fig. 236). This same stagnation was noted in the alchemical work of the time. There were, for instance, four phases of purification (BURCKHARDT, 1960)(fig. 188):
The four colors (red, yellow, black and white) are the elementary colors, which were already known in the classical past. The ‘minima naturalia ‘ were characterized by their homogeneity.
Fig. 236 – Four female figures represent the four stages in the alchemical process. They are situated at a background of the four classical elements: fire, air, earth and water. An illustration from Johann Daniel Mylius’ ‘Philosophia reformata’ (1622). This book gave three series of emblems. The first series of twenty eight are unique to Mylius. The second series consisted of a reworking of the twenty emblems of the Rosarium philosophorum sequence, and the third group of thirteen images was a re-engraved version of the Azoth series of Basil Valentine (Adam McLean). In: GOODMAN (1989).
The setting changed around the fifteenth and sixteenth century under the influence of dual thinking: the ‘ xanthosis ‘ (also called ‘ citrinitas ‘) was gradually abandoned and the alchemy turned to three processes and their corresponding colors: black, white and red (JUNG, 1953/68).
The Renaissance physician Paracelsus (1493 – 1541), being the most distinguished of the earlier alchemists, centered his alchemical theories around three ‘ principia ‘ or ‘tria prima ‘: salt, sulfur and mercury.
Robert Boyle (1627 – 1691) launched, in his book ‘ The Sceptical Chymist’ (1661), a successful attack on the static aspects of the classical doctrine of the elements. He was careful in his approach and suggested other possibilities, rather than outright criticism. His suggestions – that the ‘Aristotelian’ elements could be cracked like a nut – caused enough alarm to give a serious blow to (static) tetradic thinking. The elements lost their appeal, and also the associate way of thinking.
Marie-Louise VON FRANZ (1966, p. 347) specified, in her commentary to the ‘Aurora Consurgens’ , ‘the classical theory of the four elements as largely symbolic, and that it really expressed a projected psychic content – the quaternary structure of the self and its reflection in the four-function structure of ego-consciousness. The quaternary structure is inherent both in the starting point (the preconscious totality) and in the end product (the actualized totality).’ The power over the elements, by either God or man, which was enjoyed for such a long time (fig. 237), disappeared from the human consciousness, just like the dynamic setting of the elements as (symbolic) representatives of certain stages in a tetradic philosophy.
Fig. 237 – God or human being in the center of the four elements was a symbol of the connection with and power over the elements. Fire and air are carried in the hands (with a possible reversal of left and right) and earth and water are the points of support of the feed (also with reversal). This type of illustration is associated with tetradic diagrams from the period of Bede and Isidore of Seville, and also with the diagrams of categorical propositions in the logic van Aristotle. The roots are ultimately found in the (Greek) cross and the connection of the pairs of opposites. Top left: HENINGER (1977); Top right: Woodcut from H. Burgkmair uit: L. Reinman – Practica von warer Erkentnis des Wetters … Zwickau, 1530. Titlepage. In: TEICHMANN (1985); Bottom left: After a woodcut from: H. Welditz. In: C. Plinius Secundus – Historia Naturalis (Frankfurt, 1582). In: SEIBERT (1980). The same figure, but with additions (p. 72), in: BETTEX (1977); Bottom right: GOODMAN (1989).
The (old) idea of ordering the elements gained new momentum at the end of the eighteenth in the periodical system of the chemical elements. The form of grouping – as proposed by Dmitri Mendelev (1834 – 1907) and Lothar Meyer (1830 – 1895) – was based on the number of atoms in the core and the electrons moving around it. The different ‘shells’ can only contain a limited number of electrons. This limitation is governed by the numbers 2 and 4 (BINDEL, 1960). The following example gives the distribution of the shells around the core and the number of electrons in the outer shells:
shell electrons in outer shell gas total.
Period Ia/b 1 – 2 2 Helium 4.
IIa 3 – 10 8 Neon.
IIb 11 – 18 8 Argon 16.
IIIa 19 – 36 18 Krypton.
IIIb 37 – 54 18 Xenon 36.
IVa 55 – 86 32 Radon.
The list of totals can be divided by four and gives the figures 1, 4, 9 en 16, which are the squares of the figures 1, 2, 3 en 4.
Fig. 238 – This refraction photograph by an electron microscope illustrates the molecule structure of the element tungsten (symbol W and atomic number 74) with a distinct geometric structure of light-energy (Photo: E. Müller, Pennsylvania State University). In: LAWLOR (1982).
The (chemical) elements – and through them the organization of nature – are in a mysterious way related to the four-fold. The space taken up by the electrons around the core point to a natural law, which is related to a tetradic universe. The photographic representation of electrons in the tip of a tungsten needle (fig. 238) is just an attractive glimpse in a basic type of arrangement.
ANONYM (-). De houtsneden van Albrecht Dürer 1471 – 1528. Chronologisch gerangschikt. N. V. Foresta, Groningen.
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BINDEL, E. (1960). Les Elements spirituels des nombres. Payot, Paris.
BOBER, Harry (1961). In Principio . Creation Before Time. In: MEISS, Millard (Ed.) (1961). De Artibus Opuscula XL. Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky. Vol. I. New York Univ. Press, New York.
BURCKHARDT, Titus (1960). Alchemie. Sinn und Weltbild. Walter Verlag, Olten/ Freiburg im B.
DALES, Richard C. (1976). Marius: On The Elements . A Critical Edition and Translation. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0-520-02856-2.
FRANZ, von, Marie-Louise (Ed.)(1966). Aurora Consurgens . A Document attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy. Bollingen Series LXXVII, Pantheon Books, New York. LCCC 65-10405.
GILMAN, Karyn Lynn (Ed.) (1992). Poem ‘ Table of Elements’ by Pamela Alexander. In: Calligraphy Review . Winter 1992. Vol. Nine. Number Two.
GOODMAN, Frederick (1989). Magic Symbols. Brian Trodd Publishing House Limited, London. ISBN 1 85361 022 4.
HENINGER, S. K. (1977). The Cosmographical Glass. Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
JONES, Charles W. (1939). Bedae Pseudepigrapha . Scientific Writings Falsely Attributed to Bede. Ithaca, New York/London.
JUNG, Carl G. (1953/1968). Psychology and Alchemy. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 12. Bollinger Series XX, New York. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. SBN 7100 1642 5.
& # 8211; (1953/1968). The Spirit Mercurius. The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 13. Bollinger Series XX, New York. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
KLIMKEIT, Hans-Joachim (1988). Die Seidenstrasse: Handelsweg und Kulturbrücke zwischen Morgen - und Abendland. DuMont Buchverlag, Köln. ISBN 3-7701-1790-5.
LADNER, Gerhart B. (1983). Images and Ideas in the Middle Ages. Selected Studies in History and Art (2 Vol.). Edizioni di storia e letteratura, Rome.
LAWLOR, Robert (1982). Sacred Geometry. Philosophy and Practice. Thames and Hudson, London.
MIGNE, J. P. (1844/64). Patrologiae cursus completus sive bibliotheca universalis … omnium s. s. patrum… Series secunda in qua prodeunt patres… ecclesiae latinae … (= Patrologia latina; PL.), Paris.
PORCHER, E. (Ed./tr.)(1974). Vie d’Isaac. Patriarche d’Alexandrie de 686 à 689 par Epicopus Mina (texte copte). Ed. Brepols, Turnhout, Belgique. Patrologia Orientalis . Tome XI, fasc. 3, no. 54. R. Graffin/ F. Nau.
RANDLES, W. G.L. (1990). The Evaluation of Columbus ‘India’ Project by Portugese and Spanish Cosmographers in the light of the Geographical Science of the Period. In: Imago Mundi 42 (1990), King’s College, London.
SEIBERT, Jutta (1980). Lexikon christlicher Kunst. Themen. Gestalten. Symbole. Herder, Freiburg/Basel/Wien. ISBN 3-451-18667-5.
SHIBLES, Warren A. (1971). Models of Ancient Greek Philosophy. Vision Press Ltd., London.
TEICHMANN, Jürgen (1985). Wandel des Weltbildes. Astronomie, Physik und Messtechnik in der Kulturgeschichte. Deutsches Museum/Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH., Reinbek bei Hamburg. ISBN 3 499 17721 8.

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Europa Universalis is a series of historical turn-based / real-time 4X grand strategy games for the PC and Mac (based increasingly loosely on a licensed French board game). Starting in the Late Middle Ages, it focuses greatly on the Early Modern Period. The games are produced, developed and published by Paradox Interactive.
Thus far there are four main games and a spinoff in the series:
Europa Universalis (2000) Europa Universalis II (2001) A more Asian-themed version, Europa Universalis: Asia Chapters was released separately for the Asian gaming market. For The Glory: A Europa Universalis Game (2009): the final tuning of the game, released after the initial disappointment of the third game, was made by the people responsible of the popular AGCEEP mod for Europa Universalis II Europa Universalis III (2006) And its four expansions: Napoleon's Ambition, In Nomine, Heir to the Throne, and Divine Wind . Europa Universalis: Rome (2008), a Roman Antiquity-themedSpin-Off, Sadly, many reviewers and fans consider this to be the Dolled-Up Installment of the series. The Expansion Pack made it much better. It was the first EU3-derived game to include detailed character mechanics, which led to (ultimately true) speculation that Paradox were working on Crusader Kings II . The general consensus is that Rome is a completely separate entity from the rest of the series, and there is a vocal minority in the fanbase that is pushing for a Rome II . Europa Universalis IV (2013) Conquest of Paradise , a colonial-focused expansion with the option for a randomized New World and Oceania, released in January 2014. Wealth of Nations , a trade-focused expansion released in May 2014. Res Publica , a republic-focused mini-expansion released in July 2014. The Art of War , a military-focused expansion released in October 2014, also coming with a free patch that brings a far more detailed map for the non-European parts of the world. El Dorado , a Mesoamerica and colonization-focused expansion, including a new Nation Designer, released in February 2015. Common Sense , a development-focused expansion coming with a major overhaul of the base tax system as well as new features for Protestants and Buddhists, released in June 2015. The Cossacks , released in December 2015, with a focus on Eastern Europe, new diplomacy features, and improved internal politics centered on managing the Estates of the Realm, as well as several multiplayer-oriented features. Mare Nostrum, released in April 2016, primarily reworks naval combat and espionage. It also substantially expands the cultural diversity and number of provinces in Ireland and Africa, adds the "corruption" mechanic for inefficiently-run nations, and introduces the State/Territory divide as another wrinkle when it comes to expanding. Rights of Man , released in October 2016, adds special diplomatic abilities, personalities and traits for monarchs, queens generated by royal marriages (and are regents if an underage heir ascends the throne), a faction system for revolutionary republics, the ability to abdicate and much more. The add-on content adds German and West African units. Mandate of Heaven , released in April 2017, focuses on Asia, with a Mandate of Heaven mechanic for China, an improved shogunate for Japan, a Banner system for the Manchu, new features for Confucianism and Shintoism, as well as state-wide edicts and an "Age" system giving bonuses to countries that fulfill particular requirements in each game era, among other features. Third Rome , released August 2017, is a smaller "content pack" for the Russian states, adding several unique Russian government forms, an improved system for Siberian colonization, and new features for Eastern Orthodoxy. Cradle of Civilization , released November 2017, focuses on the Middle East and Persia, including new governments for the region, reworked Islamic mechanics, new trade policies and resource exploitation, and a system for drilling armies.
Europa Universalis has you take control of a nation from roughly 1400 to the early 1800s. There are roughly 200 playable nations, although some are more playable than others. While not every nation is in the game, a good chunk of them are, and so apart from standbys like France or Britain you can try your hand at a world conquest as the Iroquois, the Duchy of Bavaria or the Sultanate of Makassar. Or Sweden.
The games have a history of buggy releases and somewhat impenetrable interface, with a variety of concepts not being adequately explained by game documentation (sometimes because they weren't in the original release version. ), making the learning curve something of a learning cliff, and this is arguably the least complex of the Paradox Interactive strategy games.
The games also have an impressive community of writers, whose dabbling in the artform known as After Action Reports is nothing to sneeze at. Some of their works are simple gameplay narrations, but others are intricate works of fan fiction indeed.
Europa Universalis is closely linked to three other series of grand strategy games, all of them made by Paradox: Crusader Kings , Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun and Hearts of Iron . Theoretically, they can all be played in one big historically chronological succession thanks to a pretty brilliant (though somewhat buggy) Old Save Bonus system created by the developers, and the modding community will often create their own converters to fill in any gaps.
This game series provides examples of the following tropes :
Ab Urbe Condita: The Alternative Calendar used in Europa Universalis: Rome, regardless of the nation being ruled. Actually Four Mooks: No matter how many tens of thousands of your troops are in a given province, they will only ever show up as a single soldier. Who's taller than mountains. Added Alliterative Appeal: For some reason, Genoa's unique missions in EU4 tend to be named this way. All Deserts Have Cacti: The "desert" graphics in EU2 have cacti. Even in Persia. Alternate History: A popular reason for loving the game series is because of the ability to "correct" things that went "wrong" in real history. A lot of it is really funny, especially when the player has had nothing to do with it. Some examples: Milan blobbed all over Europe, England eaten by Northumberland, Protestant Syria, the landlocked African nation of Sokoto winding up in control of Burma, and Ming China wandering around Egypt in the early 1400s. This has led to the concept of "hands-off games", where the player picks an out-of-the-way nation like Ceylon and disables popups, then leaves the game running for a few hours and comes back to see what hilarity has ensued. There's a console command that lets you enter "Spectator Mode", which lets you do just that. The AI controls every country and reveals the whole map, leaving the player to sit back and watch "history" unfold. "Henry IV of Lancaster led the 14000 strong French army against the 6000 strong Ottoman army, and their forces were triumphant." Importing a saved game from Crusader Kings II adds another layer of Alternate History, as you play on a map that's been changing since 1066 or as early as 769 . Sadly, it only effects Europe, the Middle East and India as Crusader Kings does not have a truly global map. Though a save where the Sunset Invasion DLC was present does DRASTICALLY change the North Amercian Continent by effectively giving the Aztecs a more powerful unique variant of Western Tech group and allowing nearby natives to Westernize long before Europeans come across the sea, possibly even resulting in a new Sunset Invasion as the natives invade Europe again instead of the other way around. Alternate History Wank: Taking obscure one-province minors (such as Navarre, Trebizond or Xhosa) and turning them into major powers is literally a hobby for some experienced players. Apathetic Citizens: Oh so averted. Your citizens are ANYTHING but apathetic and will revolt for a whole host of reasons. In the expansion to EU3 especially there are multiple kinds of rebels, who will do unpleasant things to you should you let them rampage (like converting your country to their preferred religion, change your government type, install a new monarch or declare independence) One type of rebel that crops up a lot are the Particularists. One joke among players is that they're called that because they don't want anything in particular, they just like revolting. note Particularists are the game's "default" protestors - that is, when the revolt risk in a province is above zero but there are no other valid types of rebels such as patriots, revolutionaries, religious et cetera, the particularists will revolt in that province instead. Rebel units may be weak compared to your army, but when you have low stability and high overextension they pop up ALL THE TIME. They slowly drain your army, deplete your reserves and destroy your economy by ocupying vast portions of your territory. They make you send your forces from one corner of your land to the other, and once you supress one uprising and leave, they rise once again. Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Averted; you can have an undefined number of soldiers and ships, with being actually able to pay and support them the only constraint. You can bankrupt yourself for all the game cares. There is however a soft limit based on your manpower, nation politics and traded goods that makes costs greater than normal if you go over it. Artificial Stupidity: Generally averted, but the AI has its moments. For example, the AI tends to declare war with the Dishonorable Scum (If the player's Bad Boy score is too high) even when he's a one province country and the player controls half of Europe. Although this can be seen as desperation to stop your country's inexorable advance. Countries that have burst their badboy/infamy limit have generally taken over a hell of a lot of land very quickly. It works too; even if a few countries fall a nation fighting the whole of Europe and a few nations outside it will find it will be overwhelmed eventually; the most said country can hope for is to knock out a few rivals quickly and then grimly hold the line. The AI can't deal with naval attrition, and no one's been able to solve the problem. The workaround? They don't get any! This has led to a tendency for the Baltic to become a kind of Weirdness Magnet, with the Ottomans, Castille, various Italian and Low Countries minors, and whoever else feels like it grabbing bits and pieces of the Baltic coast and Scandinavia. Not having attrition doesn't prevent them from screwing themselves on the sea, however. The AI occasionally sends out small fleets of just a few ships, even when they know the player's fleet is in the area. Sometimes this will happen so many times they'll have completely fed their fleet to yours piece by piece when they would have flattened you if all attacked at once. Ascended Meme: As of the Divine Wind expansion, "Poland can into space" is an achievement acquired by reaching maximum level in all technologies as Poland. This one has carried on to EUIV, which has a Red and White rocket being fired into space as its icon. "Spain is the Emperor" is achieved by becoming ruler of the Holy Roman Empire as Spain. Some of Gotland's ships have weird names, in Swedish: Spain is not the Emperor, Comet Sighted, Sweden is OP, Big Blue Blob, Forum Troll etc. One of the "Fantasy" Random New World themes, a Zoroastrian Danish republic, is called "Secret Denmark" in reference to a notorious Victoria 2 screencap. Awesome, but Impractical: The Napoleonic generals, including Boney himself, the absolutely best general in the game (6-6-6-3 in EU II ) that can only be used for a few brief years. Averted in EU III , where starting as the Ming in 1405 gives you Zheng He, an Explorer with 6 maneuver, who can be used to go off and discover America. Some players have had him last for something like 20 years. Badass Boast: Many events have their choices worded as what the ruler would have likely said as they occur. That leads to a few quite badass, if sometimes misguided, boasts. For example, if high instability causes insubordination in one's army, the ruler can declare "Fine, I'll lead the army myself!" (while army tradition is being lost), or if you manage to draw the country back from the abyss of religious turmoil, proudly proclaim "ONE FAITH!" (as the country gains stability and loses revolt risk). Balkanise Me: A prime strategy of the English against the French. France has dozens of releasable states making up over 75% of their territory. You can reduce France to the Ile-de-France and numerous minor countries over the course of two wars if you completely defeat them in both. Spain and England, along with several other nations, can also suffer this fate; England can lose Northumberland, Wales, Normandy (Calais) and Cornwall as sovereign nations. Castille can have Leon and Galicia ejected from it from the start, but by the time it becomes Spain it adds Granada, Aragon, Catalonia, and likely Navarra to the mix. Sweden has Finland and Sapmi to worry about, Denmark can lose Gotland and have the Kalmar Union (personal unions over Norway and Sweden) forcibly broken and have their vassalage of Holstein canceled, Austria can lose Styria, Tirol, and its exclave in Sundgau to reduce it to four provinces and get skipped over if/when the Burgundian Inheritance fires and otherwise allows them to claim a large amount of Burgundy's land for free, the Ottomans various nations including just about the whole empire if they are unlucky enough to suffer a smashing after subduing the Byzantine Empire, much like France, Ming can be reduced to just its capital and a mess of squabbling small-to-medium states, Poland and Lithuania can lose a variety of minors, especially in their East Slavic lands, and the Mongols and Timurids frequently collapse just trying to keep their various resurging nationals under control. Most major powers at the game start are highly balkanizable, and even medium nations like the Teutonic Order (can have the highly valuable trade port of Danzig released as independent) and the Livonian Order (can lose almost a third of its land if Estonia rebels or is forcibly released) are not immune. Furthermore, as the game goes on, almost any nation that becomes a major power will inevitably wind up with cores of conquered nations that can be released in war or rebellion. Beware the Nice Ones: Several peaceful minor countries at the beginning of the game can become world powers by the end. For example, Portugal, even under the AI, can become a force to be reckoned with due to their unwillingness to get involved in Europe and their proclivity towards colonisation. Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The American national ideas emphasize democracy and freedom and such, and are generally nice, but the last national idea you unlock is the Indian Removal idea, which automatically allows you to invade and conquer native American tribes. Bribing Your Way to Victory: Some gameplay DLCs in IV make it much easier to obtain certain nation-specific achievements. note Mandate of Heaven allows Ming to have tributaries, which is the easiest way of having subjects; the Kow-Tow achievement for Ming is to have a subject from each of the 5 religion groups. Third Rome allows Russian culture nations to slowly colonize uninhabited border regions; the Relentless Push East achievement is to own the East Siberian Coastline as a Russian culture nation by 1600. Buffy Speak: Not that the meaning of "blobbing" isn't immediately obvious, but it's not a word someone who doesn't play 'EU III would use that way. Into Spaced is now a common synonym for blobbing. 'Dat [blobbed country]' seems to be catching on these days also. Call-Back: Crusader Kings II has an Alternate History "Sunset Invasion" DLC where an advanced Aztec civilization invades Western Europe. If you import a CK2 game where you used "Sunset Invasion" into EU4 , civilizations in the New World will be far more technologically advanced than usual. The Cavalier Years: One of the eras covered by the games; in IV , the Age of Absolutism roughly corresponds to this era. Challenge Gamer: These are the guys who do World Conquest with one-province minors. As of III's Divine Wind , the current challenge du jour is to do it with Ryukyu while remaining true to the Animist religion. Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Up until the Heir to the Throne expansion, EU III was a serious candidate for the most triumphant aversion of this trope. France was dubbed by gamers as the "Big Blue Blob" for its tendency to conquer most of Europe. In the words of one poster: "France is the Final Boss of EU III ." Heir to the Throne played much closer to this trope, with a severely weakened France getting frequently eaten by Burgundy or by its minor vassals. Divine Wind seems to try for more of a middle ground. Still a really big aversion since the Burgundians are French as well, and the Final Boss tends to end up either France or Burgundy (and sometimes Burgundy changes into France after taking all the French provinces). As of the release of EU IV , the Big Blue Blob is back with a vengeance. Chokepoint Geography: When appropriate. Terrain and the layout of provinces tends to channel armies into certain paths. Church Militant: In IV , before 1650 (or, with Mandate of Heaven, before the Age of Absolutism), Catholic powers can ask the Pope to declare a crusade. Orthodoxy is basically a dream come true for militaristic nations. Asides natural stability cost reduction, it uses patriarch authority that increases manpower by 33% and decreases unrest by 3 in Orthodox provinces on 100% authority. "Third Rome" DLC introduces new mechanic, Icons, that takes this even further: You can commission an Icon that grants various bonuses, connected with expansion and maintenance of your militaristic empire. A positive Piety as a Muslim nation gives military bonuses. The Temples Faction gives military bonuses and is described as the following:
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Europa Universalis III Review.
Europa Universalis III is a game released by Paradox in January 26 th , 2007, which on top of that, as of writing this article, happy 5 th birthday Europa! Now Paradox is a company known by many for making games, such as Mount and Blade and War of the Roses, however Paradox’s biggest section of games is largely ignored, and those games being Grand Strategy. Grand Strategy is a genre of games in which you generally control a nation in the midst of a large campaign map, focusing on many aspects in detail such as politics, economics, and warfare. Grand Strategy games are Paradox’s specialty, and I guess they don’t quite appeal a crowd as wide as say, Mount and Blade. Mount and Blade, don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing game, I love it, in fact I even reviewed it here. However it seems odd that the type of game Paradox makes the most isn’t quite as in the spotlight, however I won’t go all hipster-y, I will say that most people that know their way around the internet have probably heard of Europa Universalis III, Victoria II, or Hearts of Iron III (more on top of that have probably heard of Crusader Kings II, that being a relatively new release). Anyway Europa takes place from about the year 1399 and extends to the late 1800’s, giving you about 400 years of conquest time. It has an extremely detailed map of the entire world and all of its territories, and you can even scroll forward the clock to start at a different date. As you move the time along, the world detail keeps up, keeping track of things such as wars that happened around that time, resulting in an extremely accurate setting of the world during the Late Middle Ages-Early Industrial Era. Anyway, something I think I should mention is that all of Paradox’s Grand Strategy Games link up together in time frames, Crusader Kings 2 takes place from 1056-1453(yeah, it goes a bit into Europa but it still connects together) Though Crusader Kings 2 is different in that it takes place during high feudalism, and there is much more emphasis on diplomacy and politics, being that you control a political family. Europa is less so, having you just in charge of your nation, there are many factors to consider in your nation, and admitted, some of Paradox’s strategy games have a tiny bit of a learning curve, but if you love history as much as I do then these games are a blast, Castile is one of my favorite kingdoms, I love the whole ‘Reconquista’ culture, and it’s cool to be able to play during that time. Also, you can start the game as any nation (even China, or perhaps the Incas over in South America), and start it at any time within the game’s time frame. Gameplay is fun, but not in an action packed sort of way, it’s a thinking game, strategy games on a complexity level of ones like this do take some thinking to do well in, but as you get better and better at the game; you’ll get better at making decisions. It will take a while to learn, and I promise you on your first campaign game you will screw up and do something stupid, but maybe you won’t be as stupid on your second campaign, and even less so on the third. I recommend at first playing a series of campaigns until you feel you’ve really screwed up, and then maybe try again at another campaign.
Graphics: The Graphics aren’t astounding by any means, the graphics on most grand strategy games aren’t. However it shows what it needs to without being a cluster of pixels, so it does the job, they’re not really ugly in any way either. I don’t think graphics should be that big of a factor if you’re showing interest in a game like this, most likely if you’re looking at a game built on decision making and thinking, you won’t need outstanding graphics for the perfect immersion experience. Anyway, the campaign map is very nice, it has hundreds (literally) of nations from whatever time period you select, and you can pick/play any one of them that you want, and its impressive every now and then to pause the game, sit back and take a look at the world.
Gameplay: The gameplay is that of an intense strategy game. There is always something going on, and both diplomacy and economy play a big role in this game. Both will either make you up to be great or destroy you (you can’t conquer mercilessly). It starts you off in control of your nation, you can modify diplomacy with any nation you’ve discovered, and there is a lot to do with diplomacy. You can embargo trade, you can increase relations with them with a gift of gold, and every nation on earth that knows you has an opinion score of you, represented by a number(from -200 to 200) and many things affect this relationship. If you are a major power next to them, they will feel threatened by you, diplomacy penalty. Royal marriages, gifts of gold, trade agreements, alliances, and having the same religion will boost your relationship; however things like embargoing trade, trespassing on their soil, and a history of wars will severely hurt your relationship with them. It’s all about diplomacy in Europa Universalis III, and I learned that the hard way after trying to attack a weakened Portugal while they were allied with England and Aragon, this is a dog eat dog world, and unless you have alliances it’ll be you against 4 other dogs every single fight. Aside from that this game is amazing, it’s one of the few strategy games I can sit down and play pretty much all day. Add some additional priority to get this game if you’re a history fan. Beware the learning curve(you will play the first couple of games confused, just watch Youtube videos, play the tutorial, or keep playing, that’s what I did.)
Audio: Soundtrack in a video game isn’t something I think is very important (as long as it’s not terrible), and some a good soundtrack can do a lot to make a game memorable (it’s the only reason at all I still remember King of Dragon Pass very well), and this game does have some nice music. It has music that you can sit back and listen to while thinking over your strategies.
Overall Europa Universalis III is an astounding game. If you are a fan of strategy, and like to sit down and play a game where you get to think about your strategies a bit instead of blowing through like it’s nothing, then it’s the game for you. This is an amazing game, for history fans, and for strategy fans. I love this game so much I cannot describe it in words, and you should seriously get it if you’re the kind of person I just talked about. I’m working on a Castile campaign, and a Mamluk campaign right now, and I can guarantee you I have many more hours to go on this game before I ever get tired of it.

Europa universalis 4 trade system explained

Alliance of the Sacred Suns (AotSS) is a game unlike many that you have ever played. It is foremost a grand strategy game, with 4X elements, but also character and House management. We call it a 5X – the 5th ‘X’ being ‘eXist’. You are a character in AotSS, and if you die, the game ends… so tread lightly, your Majesty!
MAIN GAME FEATURES:
Top – level management – you have Action Points that are finite and vary from turn to turn. You can do anything, but you can’t do everything You are the Emperor – you are a character in a game that has hundreds that you will interact with. If you die, or are deposed, the game is over Multiple layers of strategy – from a traditional 4X-type (exploring and scanning new systems, colonizing planets, establishing outposts, building militaries and trade) upwards to developing your Great House and managing the other Houses that all have specialties that you can only take advantage of if you are on friendly terms with them, to discovering and reaching out to other breakaway human civilizations, to your ultimate goal of uniting the Celestial Empire against a final attack by humanities’ oldest enemy, the Xyl Dynamic character relationship model – you can affect your relationships with Actions that you can take against characters, from giving a speech to challenging them to having them executed. Of course, they have relationships with others in the game too, so consider the knock-on effects of anything you do… Great and Minor Houses – Houses limit what you can do as Emperor. Houses own territory, armies, etc. and if you piss them off, they may even try to usurp the Empire. Build alliances to allow characters with special talents and traditions to develop the Empire the way you want. For example, if you want a strong economy, you need good miners to ensure your factories run at full capacity, so you’ll want House Ilioaia (who has a strong mining tradition) on your side so you can appoint their members as viceroys of high-mineral planets… e assim por diante. Don’t micromanage, create a Project! Unlike traditional 4X games, you don’t make build queues, you create Projects to get things done, from colonizing a planet to throwing a celebration to upgrading a logistical region. You must assign an Adminstrator who gains power and influence from this post, and determines how smoothly your project will go! Assigning characters to Projects is a great way for them to earn power and influence… but take care that they do not gain too much, especially if they are of a House that hates you…
WHAT’S AOTSS ALL ABOUT?
AotSS is a grand strategy game that takes place in the year 3050. Over 1,000 years ago, an alien race known as the Xyl came to Earth through a stargate that humanity had unwittingly built from wreckage that had been found 40 years prior. The Xyl used the stargate to attack Earth, and in the process nearly destroyed humanity. Earth was decimated, and only a small group of colonists escaped through the hastily reprogrammed stargate, to a part of the galaxy tens of thousands of light-years away. As the last remnants of humanity, they colonized a terran-like planet, New Terra, and seeked to rebuild civilization. For almost 500 years, humanity was allowed to grow and flourish, and the Terran Alliance was born, in an attempt to protect humanity from another such attack. Slowly, new races and sub-races evolved as humanity spread further and further from the warm core of Neo-Sirius and New Terra. But all were part of the Alliance, and peace and prosperity were the order of the day. Weapon research gave way to terraforming, economic enlightenment, and prosperity for any and all of the Alliance.
Until the Xyl, who had hunted the last humans for half an eon, finally found them and struck again.
Not equipped to wage full-scale war like their ancestors, the Terran Alliance was mauled, across planets to stars to provinces. One by one, whole provinces went dark, consumed by the Xyl. Finally, with the Xyl prepared to attack and defeat New Terra herself, a virus was developed that stopped the Xyl and ensured humanity’s survival – for the moment.
Enraged at the Terran Alliance’s inability to protect huge swaths of humanity, many of the far rim colonies and systems decided to break away and form their own civilizations, with their own cultures. At home, to prevent anarchy, the Great Houses rose to protect what was left of the Alliance and, to mollify an increasingly restless population, reformed the Alliance as the Celestial Empire, with the first Emperor, Magnus I, ordained to begin the reformation of humanity.
It is now almost 500 years since the Second Xyl war. With increasingly weak emperors and empresses, rising Houses who would claim their own part of the Empire, a stagnant scientific community that has lost technology from a thousand years ago, you are born. You are different from all other heirs… you have unexplained psychic abilities that allow you limited control over men and their motivations, but you also know one other thing:
The Xyl are coming, and unless you can rebuild the shattered Empire, develop technology to wage war, and lead your greatest people towards this goal, they will finish the extinction of humanity.
Welcome to your Empire, Your Majesty.
WOULD I LIKE IT?
If you like deep, grand-strategy 4X games, you probably would. HOWEVER, since you’re only one Emperor, even a divine one, you can only do so much every turn. So if you like to micromanage and min-max every little thing, you may not like AotSS as much. The game focuses on managing from a true top-down perspective, as a real Emperor might, as opposed to you personally requesting that planet X should build 4 mines in a specific region. That’s your viceroy’s job – let them do it! In summary, if you like some or most of the following games, you might like AotSS:
Crusader Kings MOO3 (the concept, anyway) Dominions Europa Universalis Emperor of the Fading Suns.
WHEN WILL AOTSS BE AVAILABLE?
We are doing a pre-alpha system. The full 1.0 game will be completed (hopefully) in late 2018, but we are releasing an alpha in stages. The first stage, ‘Archimedes’, will be released January 9, 2018 and will cost $7.99. You will be able to purchase and download AotSS here on this site once we release the game. Subsequent alphas will be released at roughly 2-3 month intervals. Purchase at any point allows you access to all future alphas, the beta, and the full game, as well as any enhancements of the game after 1.0. For more information, see this post.

Best PC games of all time.
By RPS on November 24th, 2017 at 9:00 pm.
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There are more wonderful games being released on PC each month than ever before. In such a time of plenty, it’s important that you spend your time as wisely as possible. Thankfully, we’re here to help. What follows are our picks for the best PC games ever made.
You can navigate this article using the arrows under the header image on each page, or using the arrow keys on your keyboard.
When we say, “our picks,” that’s exactly what we mean. We’re not interested in building a canonical list or paying heed to ‘important’ games in the history of the PC. All we care about are which games we love. The resulting list is personal and eclectic, includes some traditional classics and excludes many more, and is listed in chronological order. That means there’s no ranking system, so you won’t find one game sitting above all the others on a big throne. They all get a throne.
Don’t see a game you love on the list? Let us know in the comments why you love it, why you still play it, why it’s important to you .
There’s also a good chance your favourite game is on one of our previously published genre-specific lists. Those are linked below, so you can open them for reading after you’re done with this new feature.
The article you’re reading right now is concerned with the best of the best, however. Let’s celebrate PC games in all their breadth and glory. Press the arrows underneath the header image, or the right arrow on your keyboard, to begin.
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168 Comments.
Top comments.
By the time I complete reading it, it wouldn’t matter what I comment. I dont think people will go all the way down whene theres an everest worth of comment scrolling.
BTW Dune II was my first RTS aswell.
Same here, had some issues playing it since i had not yet started really learning english, but i loved it anyway! and continued playing it as i started learning english and well after haha :D.
Great game, oh so many fond memories in my room with some friends trying to figure out how to beat some levels :D.
I’m gonna cynically hitch a ride on your comment up here…
Lots of great picks on this list. Original X-COM! Civ IV (not V or VI…)! Deus EX (the good one)! STALKER: SOC!
But then… halfway through it gets weird. Legend of Grimrock? Invisible Inc? Papers, please? Proteus?? These games are… Está bem. Just ok. They are nowhere near, IMHO, “best PC games of all time” território.
And a few others indicate that this list is not entirely serious (Google… Stick Shift… Deadly Premonition…)
So in the end I’m not sure what to make of this. Is this meant to be taken seriously or not?
Hijacking this hijacking to thank the hivemind for not numbering their list. You’ve reduced the amount of bickering we now have to do in the comments by at least 40%.
I don’t agree with everything (Dragon Age over Baldur’s Gate 2?) but I do agree with much of it. It’s probably impossible to even remember all the best games you’ve ever played anyway, especially when you’ve spent decades doing it for a living. So good job everyone!
You have to remember that this list is made up of the games that the staff of RPS loved – their opinions of their favourite games so there is no right or wrong in this list just peoples opinions.
Yes, this is a list of RPS’s writers’ favourite games. Your disagreeing is welcome, but in no way undermines our sincerity.
Well, the article says it’s “our picks for the best PC games ever made”, which is arguably a little different from just “our favourites”, but I get what you’re saying.
Even then, I find it hard to imagine anyone sitting down to list their personal top 10 or 20 or even 50 and putting some of the titles mentioned in that list. Mas isso é só para mim.
It also says, “All we care about are which games we love. The resulting list is personal and eclectic,” which I think covers it.
The headline of “The Best PC Games of All Time” is misleading then. It’s an invitation to come argue about this list, and frankly there’s a lot to argue about in that list.
I am quite happy that you also asked Tim Stone for this run, and in a lot of ways this list is also what I like about RPS: It gives obscure indie titles from decades ago the same amount of reverence as the mainstream hits of today (And everything in between!)
No System Shock 1 or 2 but you include Bioshock? System Shock 2 is probably better than every single game in that list.
At least you got Thief 1/2 and Stalker SoC in there.
I’d have included Prey. It’s like what System Shock 2 would have been if it were made today.
Agreed, sad not to see the new Prey on here.
Except Prey doesn’t have a SHODAN.
I love Prey but it’s not quite comparable to SS2. It has some issues with maintaining a sense of a real internally consistent situation that doesn’t feel like a entertainment product (relatively speaking of course, Prey is still miles better at this than most games). That tangled mess between Xerxes, Shodan and The Many in SS2 just feels so all encompassing and authentic, even today. And I say this as someone who first played SS2 a few years ago.
Interestingly what I love most about Prey is what it did on it’s own, not what it took from SS2. I particularly love the sense of space you get by how everything loops in on itself through the spacewalking and the maintenance shaft. The level design is truly spectacular. The glue gun is great fun as well.
I second that. Bioshock had better graphics, sure, but overall seemed to be a shallow but pretty copy of System Shock 1/2.
System Shock 1 made me fail an university exam. And it has elevator muzak. System Shock 2 didn’t and hasn’t. So the first one is my personal best game ever.
Elevator Muzak! That feeling of “I made it to the elevator, I am saved!”. The peace of the elevator and the relaxing music are marvelous. A few moments of calm before the storm and then the doors open and you tighten the grip on your gun and creep out into the next level of the station.
Or that shocking moment when you reach Science deck and are swarmed by the zombies the moment the elevator doors open.
Apart from Stick Shift of course.
I’ve never seen RPS produce a list where so many of the games considered worthy of being ‘best’ a couple of years ago have been eased out of the rankings to be replaced by things I’ve never considered playing. I guess it must be a sign of changing times and advancing age on my part. Not all bad changes, of course. Some have clearly been ousted by superior games. It’s impossible to argue that venerable titles like Baldur’s Gate have a right to be in the list in perpetuity when modern masterpieces like Witcher 3 and D:OS2 now exist.
Nevertheless, the list seems to be a way of stirring debate. I’ve put some hours into NMS and enjoyed it for what it was, no question, but I wouldn’t call it best in show for anything. Dune 2 gives me warm nostalgic feelings but i wouldn’t call it the top RTS. Revolutionary, of course, but surpassed by later offerings.
If we’re inserting titles that should have featured for nebulous reasons but didn’t, I’ll plump for Life is Strange. It allowed me to enjoy a form of gaming I never had before, having always regarded the ‘interactive story’ genre as a bit crap and not really gaming up to that point.
The list was compiled without the notion of stirring debate being considered (beyond the knowledge that no matter what is picked, there always is some). We picked our favourite games.
I reaaaally wish there were comments under each game, I come here for the articles, but stay for the comments.
Very happy to see Sid Meier’s Gettysburg on the list. It had such an impact on me in it’s day that I am always slightly surprised/disappointed that “best of” lists never include it. Also surprised that it doesn’t appear to be available anywhere online…at least not the places I peruse to make my game purchases. I suspect it would probably stand up well today if I ever have the chance to play it again.
First MP game I played. Single player was good, but nothing like coming up against an equally matched opponent. Or playing with a friend against a couple of other people in an larger engagement. So many tense moments.
So glad it was included, finally!
Also, just “finished” Oxenfree last night. Played it in a single sitting, so it was a late night, but I don’t regret it. Awesome game. I usually don’t like to replay games like this, but Oxenfree begs for it, and, if I’m reading things right, is incomplete without at least a second playthrough.
I loved Sid Meier’s Gettysburg also but I’m always dismayed when Alpha Centauri gets no love in these best of articles. It was the best of all the Sid Meier’s strategy games and a sure top 20 as best game ever for any platform.
I’m with you there. I still install SMAC(X) on every computer I own, because it’s amazing and wonderful. The graphic style isn’t like some older games that I remember enjoying, but have trouble getting into now., The character of the game itself was just so amazing that all it takes is the start of any of the VA pieces and I can finish the quote, even after all this time. Sure, it’s got flaws, but I would take it over Civ IV any day of the week.
The list is bugged on mobile devices. Every 2nd page it jumps two numbers ahead.
The whole site is lackluster on mobile, though.
Also your list is wrong because you didn’t include.
That’s not happening on my phone. Maybe it’s a browser thing (I’m on Chrome, for comparison)? Or laggy loading causing you to hit the button twice?
Conversely, in my experience this is one of the better sites for mobile I visit, in that the borders are never stretched by ads or unscaled images, things actually load within a second or two of clicking them, I’m not constantly accident-clicking ads shoved under my cursor by rascally delayed image loading, and it doesnt give me some stupid popup every time asking me to sign up for the newsletter.
This also happens for me, on the desktop. Using Safari on macOS.
For me it was failing to increment the number every other game (Android, Chrome as browser). This was the cause of it then jumping by 2 for the next game.
Final Fantasy 7 may be a great game (although there are plenty who would argue it’s not even the best FF game) for the platform it was designed for, but it doesn’t belong on a “best PC Game” Lista. The PC port of this game is one of the most wretched playing experiences I’ve ever had with a game on the PC platform.
If this was a “best video games” list, then sure–but then the list would look a whole lot different.
HD mods really tidy the game up, making it in my opinion superior to the blocky (yet still charming) characters of the ps1 version.
I’m glad the Blackwell series is on here – I don’t think I’ve ever cared about another game’s protagonists as much as I did with Rosa and Joey.
Star Wars: Tie Fighter. (My favourite game.)
I played this with my best friend for months, taking turns. Starting from the muck-with-config. sys-and-autoexec. bat ‘game’ to even get it to launch, then getting music working, and then general sound effects, and then, when we finally got it all running, what awaited was glorious.
There’s bound to some measure of nostalgia involved when looking 23 years back at the experience, but I still play this, occasionally. It’s got some of the best music of any game I’ve played, and it blew me away at the time – a fantastic score, that changes dynamically according to the action on screen. The ever present possibility of getting one-shotted in a T/F makes especially the first couple of battles very tense. The control scheme and UI is a marvel, with some small, but utterly critical improvements over X-wing, such as a 3D model of your current target in the ‘display’ shown relative to your orientation, rather than X-wing’s blue print. (And so on.)
Those escort mission, though. You make it through all the laser fire from the rebel scum and protect all the bloody shuttles just to have the critical one blow up seconds before it enters hyperspace.
What made TIE Fighter so special was its superior mission design.
No braindead tasks (bringeth me five shrubbery!), no series of repetetive filler between cutscenes, actual, complex and varied, multi-stage military missions that did fit into a greater picture seamlessly and created a narrative this way.
To this day it has no equal in this regard.
While we’re pouring one out for the space-fighter, how about FreeSpace 2?
I didn’t play it until over a decade after its release, but it didn’t feel remotely dated. It felt bold, exciting, like travelling down a path that the industry could have, but didn’t take.
Definitely one of my all-time favourite games.
Easily my favourite space sim of all time. I remember ranting to my friends about how great it was and what it meant for future games in the genre and series…
Yep I adored this, played so much and was very disappointed when i lost the manual and couldn’t play because of the entry code thing. First game i hacked…
Fired up a hex editor and changing values in the exe until i found one that let me in no matter what i entered. Lets face it, the Empire’s security was always lacking.
Dune 2 with HD support and modern UI you say. Then try Dune 2000 Gruntmods edition I say! For freeeeeeee as well!
I think the standard categories might be a tad obsolete. How do you classify Arkham Knight or Mirror’s Edge Catalyst? “Open world action game” is probably the best that can be done there.
And I’d say the adventure game list is rather obsolete as well. KRZ and To the Moon probably don’t even belong in that category, so, with the exception of Blackwell, everything else is “classics”, very unrepresentative of the modern state of the genre. While there are quite a few adventure games that really move the genre forward and are better than 95% of the “classics”.
All we care about are which games we love.
Justo. But isn’t the appropriate title of this article then “Our Favorite PC games of All Time”, rather then “Best PC Games of all Time?” I really enjoy David Lynch’s Dune and would watch it over Citizen Kane any day, but I’m not putting it on any “Greatest Films Ever Made” Lista.
List contains No Man’s Sky as one of the 75 “Best PC Games of All Time”. I feel like if I had noticed that in the tags, I could have saved myself a lot of clicking for a list with a deliberately misleading title.
Every “best” list is actually just a “favourite” list, because there is no objective ranking for measuring the quality of games. Some other sites might ask a larger pool of writers, or have votes and then average out scores to pick a final selection, or might exclude their own picks for what they guess ‘the public’ like at large, but those lists are still subjective (and are also often quite boring).
Nonsense. Every list is indeed subjective, but that doesn’t mean they have the same goals. It is entirely possible to enjoy something for any number of reasons without thinking it a better example of the craft than something else.
By your own admission, you are deliberately disregarding craft and the relative historical impact of the games in favor of simply naming games you enjoy–which is fine. But favorite =/= best. Some of the individual entries so much as admit to personal nostalgia, rather than critical analysis, as the reason for its inclusion.
It is possible to enjoy martial arts movies and favor them over other movies as a personal preference, without thinking them to be particularly well made movies by the criteria which we normally judge films as “good”–acting, direction, writing, historical influence, etc. It is possible to favor comfort foods over a finely prepared meal, while still acknowledging the latter as a better example of craft.
“Favorite” should not be conflated with “best”, if the goal of the article is critique and analysis, rather than nostalgia and anecdote. If the goal is otherwise, the title should reflect that.
Thing is, we’re not disregarding craft at all, as many of the write-ups make clear. We /are/ disregarding historical importance entirely or almost entirely, as many ‘best of’ lists do, because otherwise every one of them would end up with roughly the same set of games.
Even if you’re judging based on craft however, that’s subjective. To use your film example: how much you value writing over cinematography is on some level subjective.
In any case, this list isn’t “what we love, even if what we love is just comforting and a bit shit in terms of craft.” It’s, “here are the best games, with an emphasis on what we love over and above historical importance.”
A bunch of just really like No Man’s Sky, and would argue that it is in many ways finely crafted.
It’s odd that you say that, given the only reason you seem to have Sims 2 over Sims 3 is “historical importance”. It’s very hard to believe anyone who actually played both significantly would prefer Sims 2.
Even if you’re judging based on craft however, that’s subjective.
We keep coming back here. I get the feeling you think I’m denying the subjectivity inherent in all artistic analysis. De modo nenhum. But “Greatest” lists, and “Favorite” lists generally have different levels of ambition. “Best” lists are generally trying to make a critical case for why something is better than something else, whereas the only criteria for “Favorites” list is whether you personally enjoy something for any reason whatsoever–it might be because it reminds of the time you got your first cat.
I know you want to argue this, but if I were to make a serious, non-winking case for a Cheech and Chong movie movie being a “better” movie than “Goodfellas”, you would have a certain opinion of my critical abilities. If I said a Cheech and Chong movie was one of my favorite movies because it reminds me of watching movies on late night television in the 80s, you wouldn’t think much of it.
Clearly there is a distinction in those terms, and in the goals of comparison. They are not interchangeable.
Calling judgements subjective is a cop out. Yes, it’s true you can’t eliminate subjectivity, but it’s the striving for and attempt at objectivity that separates critical judgements from ranting and raving.
In your “best” list you include a game that even its advocate says isn’t worth playing. Calling this the best list seems to have gone from a parody to a joke to being wilfully contrarian and now just openly trolling.
Re: Cheech and Chong vs. Goodfellas… tit for tat, one is more ambitious than the other, so one “wins” by default, right? But in a list of “best of,” best comedies would be part of that, as in, best of type. Obviously, Cheech and Chong does not aspire to serious drama, so Goodfellas has it beat there. But it gets more laughs than Goodfellas does – only a sociopath would consider Goodfellas the funnier movie. Those differing goals are a huge part of this subjectivity they, and now I, are talking about.
I’ll admit, I’ve never seen more than a few minutes of any Cheech and Chong movie other than a scene where Cheech makes a joke out of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. That was pretty much enough for me.
I was just reaching off the top of my head for an example of a movie that no sensible person would try to make an argument for being superior to “Goodfellas”. Foiled again by the internet.
It’s really not nonsense, and in fact it was pretty well explained. Insisting upon a concrete difference between “favorite” and “best” is a foregone pedantic paddle battle, because “best” is relative to its subject. The “best day ever” is obviously subjective. The “best American made car” may sound more like something derived from objective standards, but ultimately it comes down to what attributes you happen to find most important in a car – your own personal rubric. And that’s just focusing on craftsmanship and performance, not even getting into questions of aesthetics or style.
Within a certain rubric, things can be objectively best and worst and otherwise ordered. But when the only rubric is “how much fun you have,” trying to be objective is just going to become a game of finding the average of many subjective opinions.
Basically, I’d love to see someone’s actual idea of an objective “best games” list – and then I’d love to see if the comments that follow are nothing but a chorus of rapturous consensus and enthusiastic agreement because the list is objectively correct and everyone agrees and it can’t be argued with… ou não.
I mean, I know this quibble is going to happen every time someone on the internet makes another “best of” list, but it’s interesting the way some people will insist, every single time, that whatever given list is *subjective* while an *objective* list is nonetheless possible. This whole idea that an objectivity exists out there for everything – I dont know why that is so *necessary* to people, or how it gets to be so common.
The general mentality reminds me of this lady in my town. She was complaining about the deer crossing signs posted along various woodsy backroads – “Why do they put the damn deer crossings in the way of the road?? Why dont they just put em somewhere out of the way instead??” It took me a minute to realize her thought process there – she just sort of thought that “they,” the state, the government, whomever, were choosing where to post these signs in order to *instruct* deer where to go. I tried to explain that the deer are the ones who “make” the deer crossings, and people just put up signs where they observe deer cross often. She was angrier for being embarrassed, so her retort was, “Well then they should *fix* that!”
The best games/books/movies are the ones people enjoy the most. There is no objective rubric or formula for quantifying entertainment-had, there are no fixed units of fun. What gets me about this inevitable quibble, though, is that it never seems to have anything to do with the selections in particular – rather, it always seems like the folks carrying that torch are irritated by the pervasive sense of *subjectivity itself.* I think that’s a personal/personality-type thing which goes beyond just feelings about videogames.
I reiterate: it would make an interesting challenge to try and design a truly *objective* “best of” Lista. Though, again, the reason it would be so interesting is because an objective list of the best videogames is an oxymoron, so far as I can see.
The best games/books/movies are the ones people enjoy the most.
You might as well say that things that are more “popular” are therefore artistically superior to things that aren’t. I trust you realize the folly of that argument.
No one is saying that artistic critique isn’t subjective, and ultimately pointless. We engage in it for the sake of the discussion and appreciation of the subject matter.
But as I’ve demonstrated above, the concepts of personal enjoyment and serious critique are separate concepts, even if they do frequently overlap. If you want credibility in circles that take a medium seriously, you don’t conflate the two. A strip of beef jerky might be a personal favorite for any number of reasons, but you’ll sound like an idiot comparing it favorably to a well prepared steak by anyone who is really serious about food.
My only objection was that the second paragraph in the article describes *exactly* a list of someone’s personal “favorite” games, and rejects a lot of the traditional criteria one might apply to a “greatest ever” Lista. I have no trouble accepting the article as a list of “stuff RPS likes”. But as a “Best of all Time” list, a lot of it is highly dubious and ill-supported. Why admit that you’ve just posted a list of personal favorites, but lead with a click-baity title, unless you’re deliberately provoking controversy?
What I’m saying is not controversial. Read any serious critic of any medium, and they will reject the notion of “favorite=best”. “Favorite” is one thing, “good” is another, and they sometimes overlap. To deny this is to say that one cannot like something despite knowing it is bad, but still take a guilty pleasure in it. This is viewpoint of a child who thinks that canned pasta is the best, because they don’t like adult dishes yet. As they learn more about the subject and gain a capacity for nuance, their viewpoints will change, even though they might always have a fondness for canned pasta shaped like animals.
Actually no, I don’t see the folly of that argument – that is still imposing an objective standard on a subjective experience. Art critics, movie critics, book critics are all different people with different opinions. Pauline Kael wrote criticism for the New Yorker since the 70s in a way which attempted to be rigorous beyond personal standards, and it results in her absolutely trashing some films which have become beloved or which are considered exemplary forms of the craft by the majority of critics elsewhere. Critique is not an objective science, and while the most “popular” things are not always the most complex or sophisticated media you could consume, to say that stuff has objectively less merit is deliberately missing the point that some pieces of media cater to different goals. The next Marvel movie is not shooting for Gone With The Wind, and we all know that when we begin to formulate our opinions. But saying the next Marvel movie is objectively better is not, actually, some laughable folly of critique – it would be entirely a function of the critic. I do see your point, but as far as choosing “classics of cinema,” great dramas stand right alongside great blockbusters. You criticize work on its own merits, just as you say – but again, that doesn’t mean there is some objective standard. Some things are accepted as classics, but there is no objective rubric for that. Gone With The Wind would never have become a classic if nobody enjoyed seeing it. And, at bottom, all critics do not agree.
Believe me, I understand your position, I just don’t buy it. This is not a list of purely their favorite games, but it’s one informed by the knowledge that a truly objective list is actually impossible, and so they’d rather embrace subjectivity in order to produce a list that isn’t just the same tour through the history of game development that this list is when almost any other website does it. And to say that has no place is, again, supposing there’s some genuinely objective standard to be had, when there isn’t. The classics *are* popularly determined – the classics are what’s popular with the art crowd who are bored by summer blockblusters. And again, nobody reviews the next Marvel movie in the same mentality as they write about Taxi Driver, because one is aware of the different goals of each. That subjectivity is innate, and I think that striving to excise it to the point where personal favorites mean nothing is very literally an exercise in futility. This imposition of an objective standard on the quality of art or craft is incredibly common – and it is inevitably exploded at every next innovation. Pulp Fiction angered some people, I don’t know if you remember, but some folks were absolutely incensed that this crass, violent shlock was being talked about as if it were art. Popular =/= better, no, but the two are closely related. There are no “classics” of any medium that nobody enjoys or likes. I daresay even that popularity is where being a classic starts, and only once a thing is sufficiently popular are its merits celebrated so broadly as to seem as if they’re objective.
Criticism of art and media does not measure by anything objective. The standards of quality are subjective to critics, and while some things will be obviously held in common, that will always be because those critics *like* those things, not because they consider those elements objectively good in spite of themselves.
Basically, if you didn’t *know* if Half Life was a classic or not, would it still be fun? Well, yeah, that’s how it got to be a classic. If you’d never heard of Star Wars or The Godfather, how would you know they’re classics? Well, you wouldn’t know what anyone else thought in that scenario, but if you like a good story told well you’ll probably like both of those. What makes a story “good,” what makes it “told well?” The primary criteria are holding our interest and engagement. That’s *as far as it narrows down.* The quintessential mark of quality, by which we attempt to define and identify quality, is subjective enjoyment. What you’re talking about isn’t objectivity, it’s just being an art snob. Hardcore Henry is my favorite “action” movie since Pulp Fiction, and I think that because it is my favorite “action” movie since Pulp Fiction, and for all the same reasons: its kinetic energy, its brisk pace, and its novel format. It also succeeds at a number of things I was told in film school to never do because they were obvious folly and couldn’t be done in the language of film. But what works is what works, and all critique comes after that in an attempt to deconstruct and understand the subjective experience of being wowed.
Again, I do understand your point, I just don’t buy it, and I think the difference between people who do and who don’t is, as I say, a difference in types of people, beyond just what you consider quality in a videogame. It’s a left brain/right brain difference. I understand your insistence on an objective standard separating low art from high art, but I’ve put some thought into this notion before and I’m convinced that does not exist. Great art *is* what’s “popular.” There is no great art which nobody enjoys.
Btw, I do hope the irony of arguing that “nobody will take you seriously” in critical circles if your opinions are subjective, against the opinions of the critics who wrote this piece and the one who was actively responding to this thread, isn’t lost on you. Being so beholden to some abstract idea of “what will be taken seriously” is really just being beholden to popular opinion of the serious type, you realize that, right? That’s that same abstract phantom of objectivity I was talking about being so baffled by before.
Actually no, I don’t see the folly of that argument – […] Great art *is* what’s “popular.”
So you’re comfortable then saying that Michael Bay’s Transformer movies are great movies simply because they are popular? Or more on topic, that the Call of Duty game X is a better game than another, simply because more people like it (as evidenced by relative sales figures?
The entire conceit of lists like this, and this site in general, is that art can be analyzed and critiqued, the relative merits stacked up against one another. If everything is as unknowable as you suggest, then why the list title at all. Why not “Here’s 75 games for no particular reason”. Personally, I accept the premise of the article, which is why I object to its methodology and conclusions.
To a large extent, we cannot control the things we like. Those tastes are formed early in our life, and inform us for the rest of our lives. That is why “loving” something is not a reliable metric for quality, as we are also capable of loving terrible things, and rejecting quality things because they’re outside of our comfort zone. I guarantee you that Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is not a “worse” album than “Journey’s Greatest Hits”, simply because the latter ends up in my rotation more when nobody else is listening, and I happened to be exposed to classic rock more when I was a kid than jazz.
We can, however, control what we apply our critical thinking abilities to, and take into account historical context and component analysis when trying assess when one thing is better than another. Unless, of course, your thought process is so lazy that you think things are good just because they are popular . Good things might *also* be popular, but they frequently aren’t. Popularity is one axis, quality is another, just as personal preference and quality are separate things that sometimes overlap.
I cannot think of a more tedious exercise than a list of films/games/whatever that includes entries one thinks are “better” by some elusive high-minded standard instead of ones one enjoys/appreciates/is moved by most.
“Here’s a list of films you won’t like as much as other films, but will have to acknowledge are made to a very high standard.” No thanks!
The fact that one might enjoy reading Harry Potter because it’s reasonably entertaining and only requires heating up about 3 brain cells to process really shouldn’t be a barrier to acknowledging Dickens as far greater, and more important literature.
I can’t imagine how exhausting it must be to have to rationalize why so much ambitious, challenging, and important art is actually somehow inferior to some of the dumb stuff that one might like, rather than simply acknowledge that one’s personal tastes are not a reliable metric for quality, and sometimes you prefer comfort over ambition.
Personally, I have no problem keeping two lists of movies–one list of my personal favorites, and one list of movies I think are the greatest ever made. Some movies appear on both lists. But I no longer believe that “Diehard” is superior to “Lawrence of Arabia”, simply because I watch it more often. Also, I’m no longer 15 years old, which I find helps me to apply greater nuance to my artistic appreciation.
Yes, I already understood your thesis. Repeating it again in response to my pointing out how gruesomely tedious and useless the results of it always are didn’t advance the discussion.
If your intent is to bully and insult me until I get angry enough to cross some line in which you’ll look better banning me and deleting my comments for disagreeing with you, you should know that won’t happen. Just do us both a favor and get it over with.
He didn’t bully or insult you, he just said that repeating yourself is tedious.
Vega, I sympathize with Cyber Ferret here. John likes to lower the level of discourse on the RPS comments and increase the amount of emotion and anger.
I feel like anything I would say now can just be substituted by quoting myself earlier: what you’re talking about is being an art snob, not objectivity.
Nobody denies that Goodfellas is a more ambitious and sophisticated movie than Cheech and Chong. But “best” includes “best of type” or “best of genre,” because genres and their goals vary so widely that film in general cannot all be held to the same rubric. However, that is also why you see stuff like Blazing Saddles or Some Like It Hot in AFI best films lists or the like.
Again, I repeat: I’d like to see someone genuinely produce an *objective* “best of” list, one which absolutely nobody argues with because it’s plainly objective and everyone agrees with both its reasoning and its results.
Also, it’s not mine, but Die Hard is a lot of peoples’ favorite movie. That’s a bad example to have picked, because it’s actually a dumb schlocky action movie which is widely recognized as being one of the best of its type. In any list of the “best action movies” it would likely appear, and that makes it similarly likely to appear in a “best of” list overall. Just like Blazing Saddles might for comedy or Doctor Zhivago might for drama. Again, you’re not talking about objectivity, you’re just talking about being an art snob. We all know the difference between Goodfellas and Cheech and Chong, we all agree that one is more serious than the other, we just disagree that one is objectively “better” than the other, because “better” or “best” is a completely relative term. There are, of course, certain conventions to critique, but they change according to the genre, and the aims of the project. That’s a lot of what it means to judge a work on its own merits – as opposed to rating a space opera above a western because you find sci-fi highbrow and westerns lowbrow.
And again, the whole irony of arguing with critics about what critics will take seriously… just saying.
Woah there, Die Hard is not dumb and schlocky. It’s got a tight script full of set-up and pay-off, great characterisation and dialogue. Gorgeous cinematography and special effects/stunt work, a witty score that mixes in Christmas jingle and Beethoven, great performances across the board, and ground-breaking editing (people fought against McTiernan, telling him the way he wanted to edit between moving shots could not be done).
I’m pretty much firmly on your side of the debate here, but there seems to be an assumption on all sides that people’s favourite/comfort-viewing films are bound to be trash. This is just not true, at least in my case. My favourite films all have technical and creative merit, from Back To The Future and Die Hard right down to A Goofy Movie and Freddy Vs Jason, otherwise I couldn’t watch them over and over. The Harry Potter books have a lot going for them and require more than three brain cells to be used if you’re going to catch all the hints to the mysteries and the connective tissue of the world-building. If someone says “it’s a great movie, you just have to turn off your brain,” that’s a big red flag for me; if you have to *turn your brain off* for a movie, it’s not good enough to be on any best or favourite lists.
Die Hard is indeed an outstanding film by any metric. I’ve seen very few films that were anywhere near as finely crafted or as entertaining or bold or intelligent, let alone all of the above. Just because it has explosions and shouting and creative swearing that became a meme, doesn’t mean it’s somehow less artistically valid (indeed, it uses some of its most blockbuster-y elements to subvert expectations and make scathing cultural and political commentary. While also being exciting and shooty and cool as hell). Being popular with people who have little avowed interest in “the arts” or detailed analysis of cinema etc, or who even have pretty low standards doesn’t mean it’s not also brilliant. A better example would be The Boondock Saints, which is bizarrely popular with some young American men, but is fucking terrible.
In his day, and for several centuries afterwards, Shakespeare’s work was considered cheap peasant rubbish about cock jokes.
The notion of “the classics” being somehow innately superior is largely a function of time.
Haha to clarify, dumb and schlocky are meant as neutral descriptors, not denigrations, and the phrasing was somewhat catered towards CyberFerret. But I agree with everything you say, which is why I tried to defend it. It isn’t popular because it has the biggest explosions, it’s popular and lasting because it’s a smart, tightly-constructed movie on all levels.
And again, there is no “great art” which everyone hates. This talk of acceding to standards of critique, in spite of one’s own enjoyment, is really just copping to what others think.
Ultimately, though, I feel like I failed to address the most fundamental thing: “best” is entirely relative. It’s relative to the stated goals of a thing and how much it succeeds at them. I agree, comfort media does seem like it’s getting trashed on, though it’s my intention to defend it as equally valid. Comic books have only recently been elevated to high drama in film, but now they are.
Sin’s comment about established classics being a function of time is really the simplest, most eloquent way to put it, I think.
Hi RPS love your work. Cyber Ferret, I want to believe that some art works are objectively better than others but I have tried and failed to convince myself of this. We would need to come up with measurable(?) criteria with which to judge. A few I can think of off the top of my head are.
time/effort spent making the art/’conceiving of’ the art before making it.
& # 8211; Ai Weiwei’s sunflower seeds.
mastery of a skill required to create the art.
complexity/depth of the work.
& # 8211; I dunno maybe Schoenberg’s pierrot lunaire? (He was obsessed with details and Numerology)
If you can explain why Lawrence of Arabia is objectively ‘higher’ art than Diehard using measurable, objective criteria then I dunno how I could disagree. (You would also have to explain why those criteria are objectively good maybe? Like mastery is good because technology and human flourishing or something)
Also as others have mentioned, you can’t escape the context in which you are perceiving the art which is problematic.
Anyway my point is I have long tried to say that Bach is objectively better than Bieber but maybe they just serve a different purpose in a different time. Please convince me otherwise if possible.
Let me add my two cents to this. And I apologise if my line of thought described below has been proposed before.
The difference between my ideas/opinion of which game should be included in a “best PC games list ever”, any other readers’ ideas, the authors’ ideas and their editor’s ideas is: professionalism.
My ideas don’t matter. Any other readers’ ideas don’t matter. Only the authors’ and ultimately their editor’s ideas do. They can add which ever games they want in the list. It’s their article. It’s their publication.
HOWEVER, where it matters to us readers is the content – specifically: accuracy of content.
If a list is published with the title, “best PC games list ever”, its content has to be or has a semblance to be (in accordance to an acceptable general and public review standard) the best PC games list ever. To be specific, the content of the list need be justified with more than a normal measure.
I understand that “best”, “better”, “favourite”, “liked”, “good”, etc. are subjective. And that different critics will describe one subject “the best” while another will describe the same as only “so-so”. However, those discrepancies only happen in individual single review articles. When the subject is tested against others for inclusion in a “best of …” list, the size of the discrepancy will decrease to a generally acceptable margin because of professionalism. I can’t think of a respectable critic who will rank “The Room” over “Goodfellas” in a “best of films list” only because “we had so much fun laughing at Tommy W and Tommy DeV is too scary.” Would you think a list with “The Room” ranked as a better film than “Goodfellas” credible? What would you think of the critic with that list?
Ditto with video game articles, critics, lists, reviews, commentaries, opinions, etc.
Ultimately, the list should be considered with the given disclaimer (it’s the “PC games we most enjoyed list ever”) rather than the title. And the only defense I can think of for the use of the title is that “It’s a business.”
But really, RPS, why not title it “Best PC games list of all time (ranked by the several hours we enjoyed playing it divided by the entire PC games industry lifetime)”? : P.
To be fair, they did link to the absolutely hilarious youtube video under No Man’s Sky that totally shows the marketing and hype did not stand up to reality, which was a buggy overpriced POS. Even with the improvements, the game $$$ean Murray was hyping really isn’t what the finished project is (and i don’t care if one of them worked on it, that doesn’t anger me, I believe they can have subjective opinions on RPS and as they say, Alec didn’t nominate/comment)
It’s really baffling how many people can’t see the difference between “my favorite” and “the best in my opinion”, yeah.
Hi RPS, you must be my age, at least on average. A lot of the games give me warm feelings of nostalgia and/or would have made it on my own personal list (XCOM, STALKER, Thief, Dark Souls, Portal (I prefer 1, but only because that is where I first met GLaDOS and because of the song)).
But I would like to thank you for choosing Morrowind. It’s so strange and beautiful and the freedom was/is astonishing. Levitating over half the map for a while and then later using fortify acrobatics for the insane km-wide jumps. Really great. Oblivion and Skyrim always felt like a copy to me. And level-scaling killed any semblance of immersion in the later games. Fighting mechanics were atrocious in Morrowind, though.
Interesting list and quite personal of course. My list would be quite different, here are some games I would add:
& # 8211; Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
& # 8211; Starcraft / Warcraft 3.
& # 8211; Team Fortress 2.
& # 8211; Europa Universalis 4 / Crusader Kings 2.
& # 8211; Age of Empires 2.
& # 8211; Life is Strange.
& # 8211; Monkey Island 2.
No Myst, no Best Of.
Awaiting angry counter arguments, but my point still stands: Myst is bae (as the younglings say I head).
Concordo. Myst goes mostly underappreciated these days but the design of that thing is brilliant. It’s so simple and elegant in its execution.
Through if I had to pick one it had to be Riven. It’s a completely different experience to Myst (to the point where you can hardly call it a puzzle game, the puzzles are few and it plays closer to an archeology simulator anyway), but that’s also it’s greatest strength. Nowhere else have I seen a game merge gameplay, lore and environment so effortlessly and so profoundly.
The absence of Star Control 2 from your lists is getting embarrassing.
If you’d just sit down and play the bloody thing, you’d discover the mistake you’re making.
Sim & # 8211; a glaring omission. Top 10 material, let alone top whatever this list is.
I always enjoy these lists but I’d enjoy them a lot more if they were formatted as 5 or 10 to a page instead of making you click for each one. Sure you can use the arrow keys but that breaks the flow of normal browsing. At the very least could we get the links to the next page above the picture instead of below it so I don’t have to hunt for it when the image size changes?
Those clicks aren’t going to farm themselves. You sound as if you’re under the impression that the primary purpose of this site is to deliver quality content in the most accessible fashion possible to consumers.
Perhaps save everyone a lot of needless encountering of you by not clicking on our site any more?
I really like the arrow-keys based list changing, I find it far easier for browsing then arbitrary pagination.
Yeah, there are a bunch of problems with this functionally – sorry about that. We hope to have something better soon, without the tiny wandering arrows and with better mobile functionality.
In concept, some people seem to like this kind of layout, others don’t. I think there are advantages and disadvantages. But we’re aiming to fix the execution, at least.
As for CyberFerret: I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the 30,000 word article you got for free.
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the 30,000 word article you got for free.,
Well, you get what you pay for. Don’t take it personally. I don’t hold you guys responsible for the commercial realities of the cesspool that is online traffic driven content. Thankfully, in the next year or so after Net Neutrality is killed, we can all watch the internet burn together, and no longer have to feel guilty about running ad and script blockers just to make content a little less abrasive and intrusive.
Hey, you think print media will make a comeback? I’d buy an RPS magazine.
“You get what you pay for”
You make that up yourself?
Do RPS supporters get an option to read it in a format designed for the benefit of readers rather than advertisers?
Graham literally just told you that’s not the reason. It’s not the reason.
It’s the best layout we’ve got right now, until we get a lot of the crappy behind the scenes stuff fixed.
It’s astoundingly rude to assume Graham was lying.
My only issue with it is that the arrows move on the page depending on how tall the image is, meaning you have to move the mouse after each click which is a pain in the ass when trying to scroll through several pages.
Using the keyboard solves it, but that’s a pretty ugly workaround for site usability.
We completely agree, and we’re working hard to fix it.
Good to hear and nice to see folks actually pay attention to comments instead of letting them fall into the void (insert net neutrality political statement here).
You know, that’s a damned good list. I haven’t played them all, but the ones I have played are all good.
The only quibbles I’d have is that Quake seems to show its age more than pure Doom, or Doom with the Brutal Doom engine does. Half Life (which I still haven’t finished) has so far aged amazingly well, though.
Não me leve a mal & # 8211; at the time Quake was amazing, and is why I bought a Voodoo2, but I never replayed it and used mods in the way I did for Doom, or loved it as much as Jedi Knight, which I still play at times. Engines and mods to prove I’ve been missing out are welcome..
Also, DOTT is good but personally I’d place Fate of Atlantis above it.
Thank you for including Blackwell in there, it’s clunky at first, but a truly outstanding set of adventure games. Epiphany made me cry, and still makes me well up. Definitely in the top 5 ever for atmosphere and writing (Planescape is up there too), and I do read quite a few books..
Replaying Quake these days is actually pretty great. It’s fast, grim and brutal. It takes a monstrous amount of precision and I don’t understand how I ever played it without mouselook back in the day.
Is Pip freelancing for you guys now?
Sadly not! Articles this large take a long time to produce and Pip’s entries were written while she was still on staff.
We’ll update list early next year with entries from Matt and Katharine.
So, you were going to put System Shock and Ultima Underworld on the list but just forgot about it, right?
Surely, given some of the mediocre stuff on there.
Sims 2 and not Sims 3 is utterly senseless. It’s directly analogous to having Witcher 2 instead of Witcher 3.
Literally the only reason it’s there is that the people making the list clearly hadn’t played Sims 3 much. Sims 3 is a superior and more important game in all regards.
Heh. Just to drive home a point from elsewhere in the thread, I actually enjoyed the Witcher 2 more than TW3, even though I recognize that on balance, TW3 is a better game in most respects. Aspects of TW2 appealed to my personal sensibilities a bit more, and I had become a bit fatigued with the setting and character by the time TW3 rolled around. It led me to really stumble on some of the third game’s pacing issues (seriously, are we still looking for Dandelion? –I’m pretty sure I’m beginning to hate Dandelion, and at this point would be happy to kill him myself in order to advance the story)
I am capable, however, of separating my personal tastes from my critical appraisal, and recognize the leaps in sophistication of writing, mechanical polish, and visual spectacle the third game has over the second. I just can’t make myself love it. It doesn’t stop me from recognizing it as one of the best CRPGs ever made, whereas TW2 is a game I really enjoyed at the time I played it.
I enjoyed The Witcher much more than The Witcher 2, which stems from expectations, wanting more of what I liked in The Witcher: combat, music, enemy/environment variety. The Witcher 2 also felt mostly dark all the time, while The Witcher had more variety in moods.
The only real complaint I have, besides them not including VtM: Bloodlines, is seeing Dragon Age Origins there, which is clearly inferior to Knights of the Old Republic. I played DA:O wanting more of what I liked in KotOR and it gave me that, except when it came to combat and music. The grindy combat made me hate it and the lack of atmospheric music couldn’t lessen that emotion. I did very much enjoy the huge amount of voice acting and dialogue choices, though.
My time with DA:O is a bit like The Witcher 1/2 experience above, except that The Witcher 2 is much better than most other games, especially DA:O, despite being a few steps below The Witcher.
Again, important to point out that I think TW3 is clearly a better game.
The original Witcher is not, though. I took several attempts to make it through that slog and bounced off every time. I appreciated the ambitious text trees and interesting character concept, but it was mired in gameplay I found off-putting, and interminable stretches of tedium. In fairness this was probably due to technical constraints of the engine they used and lack of budget, but a barrier all the same.
While I don’t agree with your reasoning, I absolutely agree with your conclusion. Sims 3 > Sims 2 in every way I can think of.
Ultima 6, for basically the same exact reasons Adam picked Ultima 7. Probably as well simulated world as could be built at the time. With an open world before we called them such.
Using the Orb of the Moons to travel to the Gargoyles home early in the game only to fund out they weren’t the monsters you were led to believe really affected my perception of things going forward. I just wish the game was able to allow you to change how you interacted with them instead of the rigid enemy/not enemy types they had.
I find it endlessly disappointing that 27 years later developers still fail to do things Origin did in 1990-92 with Ultima 6 & 7
This is either my own personal best of list, or else it’s games I havent played – those are the only two categories.
The fact that this list includes New Vegas, but not FO3 or FO4, and Morrowind, but not Oblivion or Skyrim, just serves to remind me why I read RPS: I tend to trust their judgment cus I have that same judgment largely in common. As critics and a buyers’ guide, this place is basically bespoke to my needs.
Don’t have many squabbles with the list. Good list. I am somewhat puzzled by the adoration that Edith Finch gets, but such is life.
No Command & Conquer ?
Shall we make this the RTS sub-list? My favourite is Company of Heroes.
The RTS vs RTT debate will rumble on, but either way Relic contributed so many mechanics that pushed the genre to new heights: directional damage, the covering fire/suppression system, infantry squads, and a huge list of units which weren’t just rock-paper-scissors counters but often had interesting ways to interact with the battlefield for strategic benefit: building emplacements, bringing down buildings, even creating improvised cover by tearing shell-holes out of the Earth.
It has visuals and sound design that still impress a decade later, and some of the very best voice-over work in all of gaming.
Personally, I could spend some time in the RTS sub-list, but your remembering Company of Heroes makes my Empire Earth submission feel weak as hell in comparison.
I find it hilarious that Fallout: New Vegas ends up on a number of these “Best Ever” lists while RPS’ review of it was so controversially negative. Of course there’s the benefit of hindsight, and different people have different tastes, but it’s still a funny contrast.
New Vegas was way closer to the original games in scope and structure than 3 or 4. I didn’t think much of 3 or 4, but loved New Vegas.
Quinns is an amazing writer and video producer but he doesn’t half have some odd opinions from time to time.
If you think that’s hilarious, what about the fact that common RPS hive-thought has always been that the sequels to KOTOR and Bioshock were superior games than the originals, but that doesn’t seem to qualify them for entry on this list in lieu of the originals. Or that on their “Best RPG” list there are fully 10 games ranked higher than Dragon Age:Origins, yet somehow being a “worse” RPG than those other games still makes it an all time better game…?
It’s almost as if these lists are just nonsense they’re pulling out of their ass as they go, hoping to farm clicks and get chumps like you and me to argue about them.
Well no more for me, thank you. I’m not failling for that…except maybe to say…DRAGON AGE : ORIGINS. SERIOUSLY? No Baldurs Gate 2, but Dragon Age: Origins? I will burn this place to the ground!
I feel better now.
“It’s almost as if these lists are just nonsense they’re pulling out of their ass as they go, hoping to farm clicks and get chumps like you and me to argue about them.”
Please stop saying this. There is no intent to create controversy or anger people. We asked our writers what they thought the best games were, they wrote down their answers.
Different lists have different authors, thus explaining the difference in opinion. Isso é tudo.
As we say in the article, our hope is that people will skip tedious arguments in the comments in favour of sharing something *they* think is the best.
Yknow, I’ve been tempted to never let RPS live that one down, but ultimately I figure, yknow, like you say, hindsight. The game doesn’t yield up as quickly or easily as many other games do, so you can maybe see why someone reviewing an open world game (the scale of which they have no idea beforehand, and which is huge and dense in variables anyway) on a schedule would skim over a lot of the depth. I’ll give em that one. I mean, it didn’t take me long to decide that was the shit that was gonna get me back into gaming after a decade-plus-long hiatus, but YMMV.
But yeah, I do remember that from time to time as a black mark in RPS history. I hate to say it, because I hardly mean to cast aspersion on the author in particular, but I mean… Krishna on the cross, man, what were you thinking??
Say what you want about Quinns diverging from popular opinion on that one, but the site would still be better is Quinns was still writing for it. I miss both he and Kieron deeply. They were both a big part of what drew me to RPS in the first place, back when it really was producing the.
I couldn’t find any place else.
Eh, that’s why the reviews are called “Wot I Think” and not “Wot RPS Thinks” (those are called Verdicts)
‘Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday’ should be in the top 3 RPGs. Top 10 minimum. Disgraceful.
Really enjoyed the list. Made me a little sad that Mass Effect didn’t make the list.
It was my Ultima VII.
Some unusual choices! No freespace 2 though, which makes me sad – or outcast the 57th best game ever.
Pleased to see The Last Express there. Wasn’t expecting it, but damn, what a good game.
The link to the Diablo II mod discussion in the RPG discussion isn’t enabled – no URL.
Still, you have quite a treasure there in that Horadric selection.
no SOF, Operation falshpoint or joint ops unbelievable Jeff.
Dungeon Master is better than Grimrock, and can be played for free: dmweb. free. fr.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Grimrock and its sequel for what they are, and more importantly, for reminding the gaming world at large that the formula Dungeon Master pioneered is still relevant today.
Dungeon Master’s RPG levelling system was better, and I would argue is one of the best computer RPG systems ever made. It was one of the best “level by doing” systems, and isn’t as hilariously imbalanced as the Elder Scrolls ones, which are the closest modern games get to Dungeon Master’s.
Let alone which, unlike Grimrock, Dungeon Master allowed for effective multi-classing.
Dungeon Master’s magic system makes the one in Grimrock look anaemic by comparison. Hell, it makes any magic system in any RPG that isn’t Dungeon Master look anaemic by comparison.
Although I am quite fond of the one in Arx Fatalis, which seems like an attempt at an evolution of Dungeon Master’s.
But even that doesn’t allow for the level of nuance that Dungeon Master’s did.
Look, this is obviously an objective, indisputable fact : Dungeon Master has the best magic system in any RPG ever, and that’s that. I’ll fight anyone wot says any different.
In all seriousness though, Dungeon Master is now thirty years old, is still playable on modern hardware without any faffing about, still looks pretty damn good, and most incredibly, has a mouse-driven user interface that is clean and well enough thought out that it is still intuitive today. That is positively remarkable.
AND GRIMROCK DOESN’T LET YOU KILL MONSTERS BY SLAMMING A PORTCULLIS ON THEIR HEADS LIKE WOT THAT THERE DUNGEON MASTER DOES!
You might have just sold me with the portcullis thing.
Thanks for that, I’ll be checking it out.
Dungeon Master was one of the games I bought along with my Amiga 500. Will never forget how fun that game was. Truly ground breaking.
i think i don’t care to discuss something that’s important “to me”, that’s personal. If i discuss it’s to try and convince people that what i say is undeniably true :)
Reading further and further into this list, trying to grasp the irritating itch in my mind about what seemed off about the decision process, I finally hit on what it was; This is a collection of games that doesn’t have any examples outside of main stream successful genres that are still extant today.
RPGs, FPS, Flight Sims, Quirky Indies all there yes… but no one at RPS seems to like genres that aren’t well known today. Think of all the missing genres that still are around, but don’t get much attention; SHMUPS, either vertical or horizontal. Side On Adventure games. Thinking about it, there were no sporting games except E-Sports like MOBAs either; So despite there now being Sociable Soccer for PC, there’s nothing like Sensible Soccer on the list…
Was that ever on the PC? Is this because I’m just getting old, and the whipper snappers don’t remember an age when gaming was pre-PC and these genres were huge? But original Doom is there on the list, so we’re talking 486 years … And Dune 2 is too, which was better on the Amiga.
Is this just a case where RPS matches what came to dominate on PC, because they love the same sort of things? But then, No Man’s Sky is on the list, so it can’t be mainstream conformity, yuk yuk. One of them did work on NMS though.
But then I tried to ask myself what the last, non-emulated classic of any of the missing genres I played was… and you know, I can’t think of one either.
So maybe the niggle is that this article made me realise just how powerful taste-shaping is in the industry. There’s no reason I couldn’t check out more modern SHUMPs … but I never do. Most of us don’t seem too?
Or maybe I am just feeling really old. “But… but … R-Type? No one mentions R-Type any more.” Sniff etc.
I love Sensible Soccer and SWOS, and some FIFA games, and Football Manager. Some iteration of all of them would likely be in my top twenty and of the 8 or so PC Gamer Top 100s I did, I think I got SWOS and Champ Manager into all or almost all of them. But my tastes have changed and some of those old loves have faded away, replaced with new things that excite me more.
There are certainly blind spots on the team when it comes to certain genres, though. At least in terms of preferences.
Quite strange that there is no sign of ‘Diablo-like’ ARPGs anywhere in this list. No Diablo, PoE, TitanQuest, nada.
Otherwise, I found myself nodding in approval on a lot of these picks.
I am surprised at how many games on this list are from the last few years – I would have expected a “best of all time” to include far more nostalgia.
That said, I am also grumpy because I no longer have the time to play games as I once did, so have missed out on pretty much all of the more recent titles.
But at least you covered all my bases – Doom, Half-Life, Portal, EVE. Even if I’ve played more XCOM than I ever did X-Com, you’ve still accounted for thousands of game hours from my lifetime.
Thumper. The way the game assaults your senses is both exhausting and immensely satisfying. I had to develop a Zen-like calm to be able to do the S-ranks. I love the musical flow and polish of its levels.
I’m a huge Ultima fan, but do agree with not including Underworld in the list. It’s still a decent game, but the viewport is small, and the interface is incredibly painful by modern standards. Ultima 7 by comparison just has annoying inventory management (especially keys if you’re not using Exult)
Grimrock I enjoyed but am finding difficult – killed quickly by the knights. Any advice on this is welcome, I wish it was more turn based.
Some good games on this list, especially the RPGs. I would have picked some additional ones:
System Shock 2 and Prey for immersive sims;
Shadow Tactics and Mark of the Ninja for stealth;
Homeworld, Starcraft, and Dawn of War 2 for RTS;
plus Medieval 2 Total War and Sins of a Solar Empire when you factor in mods;
Europa Universalis 4 for grand strategy;
Distant Worlds for sandbox strategy;
Hollow Knight for metroidvania;
Beyond Good and Evil for adventure;
XCom2 for turn-based tactics (although other platforms/emulation do better here)
So delighted to see Proteus on here! It’s a truly beautiful experience.
I’m just gonna list off a bunch of my favourites that aren’t on this list:
LISA the Painful.
Was reading this and having a blast until I saw No Man’s Sky.
Não. I’ve played the updates…it’s still a pretty garbage game. There are literally thousands better than it. “Best of the games one of us worked on so we have to promote it.”
I was going to delete this, because it’s just so fucking rude, but I think I want to leave it to hang instead.
What an outstandingly rude and unpleasant remark. Guess what – when we asked our writers to write a list of their favourite games, in private, some picked NMS. Obviously Alec didn’t vote for it, and those who did couldn’t care less whether he was involved. They picked it because they loved it. And that you did not has not a pubic hair of relevance to our including it.
I completely agree that NMS should be on this list, and I certainly do not think it was included as promotion because Alec worked on it. I do find it quite tiring when dumb allegations are made that RPS is being paid for reviews, etc.
That being said, I believe most if not all of your previous articles on NMS have included the usual disclosure that Alec worked on the game. Is there a reason this disclosure is not included with the NMS entry on the list?
“Best of the games one of us worked on so we have to promote it.”
Everything John said above, but also: if those were the criteria, the sensible thing would have been to pick Sir You Are Being Hunted instead, as it was far more closely tied to one of the RPS founders, and vastly less controversial than the free-swarms-of-screeching-g4m3rzz-with-every-mention No Man’s Sky.
So, y’know. Maybe dial back your froth and remind yourself that conclusions are supposed to be where you end up, not where you set out from.
I’m not saying it’s on there because RPS was involved with it, but I do agree that NMS was not the best of anything. I mean if we’re doing a “best of all time”, I would absolutely rank Spore above NMS in every single category that NMS even vaguely stands out as, except walking simulator and even then a little bit. I think this article is in reality more of a “Favorite Games In Recent Memory of Some Of Our Writers of All Time”
I love seeing hardcore indies like Bernband and Strangethink make the list, and also great to see an indie like Oxenfree that RPS came late to the party on end up in the Best Ever company.
Things I expected to see that didn’t make the cut:
TIE Fighter, any Dark Forces/Jedi Knight, Privateer, Ultima Underworld, Ultima Online, Gone Home, Firewatch, Dear Esther, System Shock 1/2, any Far Cry, any Monkey Island, Psychonauts, any Mass Effect, Mountain, Wolfenstein TNO, Undertale, Frog Fractions, Her Story, Tex Murphy, Shadow Tactics, Overwatch, Torchlight, Walking Dead 1 and probably countless others.
I also wish any of the Sherlock Holmes and/or Telltale Sam and Max games made the list just to read John’s dissent. Instead I’ll settle for his responses to some of the worst comments.
Of your list, I was *so* close to putting a Far Cry game on mine. But then I couldn’t decide between 2, 3 and 4, and I dislike parts of all of them so much, that I decided against it in the end.
I literally just signed up (Hi RPS LOOOONG time reader) to second (loudly) subdog’s nomination for inclusion of Wing Commander Privateer, at least I guess that’s the game you mean since I cant think of any others called Privateer! (plus your list of games missing from the RPS list matches mine quite closely). Goes back to nostalgia, I guess, considering how many hours I spent on it as a kid on my grandpa’s PC. It took me to a massive universe full of potential in a way no other game had. I still play it to this day, and think the (for its time) groundbreaking graphics and sense of being a small cog in a larger universe stands up to modern versions of the same thing such as Elite Dangerous (and yes, controversially, I would consider Privateer to be a better game than the original Elite). Also, discovering the most profitable drug smuggling route was immensely satisfying, especially when you realise that fully upgraded engines mean you can just afterburn away from any Confed patrols you can’t handle. I love me some smuggling (I’ll smuggle the hardest, most dangerous and most profitable drugs, but for some reason people smuggling and slave trading was a step too far and I never did it on principle. Go figure). There’s also an 8 system run through Kilrathi space that is hard as nails but fun to try.
*disclaimer* I am a total mark for Chris Roberts games lol.
As for the main list itself, considering it’s so subjective I found myself totally agreeing with about 90% of it (which is no mean feat) and really enjoyed the read, was gratifying to see my favourite recent games like Edith Finch in there with classics like Half-Life 1 etc. Edith Finch is a game that will stay with me in so many ways.
Also, I now want to go and replay about 20 games again, so thanks RPS for clogging my diminishing spare time with old games when I have so many great new ones to play!!
Right on, man. I even use the Privateer protagonist as my GOG avatar.
Can we agree that Privateer 2 was a massive disappointment?
Been said, but gonna add to that, a list full of games I didn’t play, but I’d love to once. And from those I did, Witcher 3 is the only one, which would make it to the TOP only, if that TOP would be dedicated strictly to landscape visuals. And man, 3th Witcher’s landscapes, and monster designs are pure pleasure.
But in this lists company, it’s just the game that made me fell into sleep while playing. Way the story and characters were executed is a huge step back from books, and predecessor games as well. Lines in their mouths are peoples lines, that’s great, but their motivations, “war context” and plot was just terribly underplayed. I did like stuff I thought of as “could be” instead of what I was actually playing. Who was not crippled, was actually Geralt and some of my sympathy went toward cynical Avalach. Ciri was the other pole, the dumbest incarnation of this character, which I wouldn’t even say is possible to create based on her roots in literature history. Yet it happened. It made me game sick for quite a while as a result ))
If Witcher, then 1st, or 2nd one. 1st for the decent story, 2nd for doing pretty much everything else better.
I like the list, certainly thought-provoking.
I regret that there are no more puzzle games though. Sure, Hexcells (and Portal 2). For all the appreciation I have for John’s opinions, I often regret that his love of puzzle games seems quite focused on very specific types of puzzles. So many others have left a deep and long-lasting impression on me: Braid, The Witness, The DROD series, Steven’s sausage roll, Tetrobot, and let’s include the Talos principle for good measure.
Each individual one of these titles has opened an entirely new world to me, in which narratives, thoughts about the world, and mind twists are communicated through puzzles more efficiently than through words. Each of these games have guided me through a path of self-discovery, brought me memorable moments, and left me in awe for the designer’s craftsmanship and creativity.
I would happily trade a good chunk of that list for more Looking Glass, Black Isle, and Obsidian games and *anything* from Arkane.
If nothing else, this list is an exemplification of how wildly different each gamer’s experience can be. I’ve never even heard of about 1/5 of the titles on this list… and it’s difficult to think of bests/favorites without forgetting that many of my personal favorites would be considered “console exclusives” (Horizon Zero Dawn, Final Fantasy Tactics, Halo: Reach).
That said, I feel obligated to shout out to:
Starcraft 1 & 2 campaigns.
Heroes of Might & Magic 2, 3.
The Marathon Trilogy (over any doom game, any day, ever)
Civilization V (c’mon, it’s better than IV)
Search for clues.
News and things.
4 years later, platformer roguelike Vagante launches.
A whole new world of spikes to fall on.
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 scurries into closed beta.
Never play against Ratmen. They'll always cheese you.