Subtitles
it's very funny to come to California 00:00:00
it's very funny to come to California you know when you've lived elsewhere and 00:00:01
it's been an ideal and suddenly you wake 00:00:08
up and you realize you're you're there 00:00:11
no you're on vacation you've got there 00:00:14
and everybody else ends with you and so 00:00:20
we have to learn how to be there or 00:00:23
rather to be here of course it is always 00:00:27
possible to construe the thing in 00:00:29
another way and to say yes it may be a 00:00:31
game but it's a ghastly game it's a grim 00:00:34
game it's like a child who's caught a 00:00:37
fly alive and is picking the wings off 00:00:40
it the universe is that sort of scheme 00:00:43
it's a trap it's the thing that gives 00:00:46
you hope is always dangling 00:00:49
possibilities in front of you to keep 00:00:51
you going but then it grinds you up and 00:00:54
then it revived you a little like a 00:00:56
master torturer keeping a person alive 00:00:59
in order to experience pain there is a 00:01:01
kind of inverted mystical experience 00:01:03
that people occasionally have where they 00:01:05
see the whole universe as this sort of 00:01:08
trap and everything looks crumbing now 00:01:12
people look as if they're made of 00:01:13
plastic and aren't really people but 00:01:16
only make-believe people there are there 00:01:18
mechanisms which are going yackety-yak 00:01:20
and pretending that they are really 00:01:21
they're alive and everything looks as if 00:01:25
it were made of patent leather or 00:01:27
enameled tin and just nasty dead seam 00:01:34
that's the inverted mystical experience 00:01:37
and one might ask well you could take 00:01:40
that view too and here you come to what 00:01:44
our becam you said the fundamentally 00:01:47
important philosophical question is 00:01:49
whether or not commit suicide now this 00:01:53
is the this is the real question 00:01:55
is the game worth the candle if you 00:01:59
think No then you better commit suicide 00:02:02
that's the logical thing to do if on the 00:02:07
other hand you're not sure 00:02:07
then you better better better make up your mind because if you're going to go 00:02:14
on with the game of life and not be sure 00:02:19
as to whether it's really worth going on 00:02:22
you'll make a mess of it 00:02:24
that's quite certain it's like doing 00:02:27
something evil they're like telling a 00:02:29
lie if you're going to tell a lie at all 00:02:31
you have to make it stick and so make it 00:02:35
good 00:02:37
don't rubble when you lie because 00:02:41
someone will find you out 00:02:42
and it'll all fall apart and it will be 00:02:44
worse than if you never did it so to 00:02:48
make up your mind that you're going to 00:02:49
do something evil you have to have like 00:02:51
a golf swing and follow-through and so 00:02:54
in the same way with going on living at 00:02:55
all if you're going to gamble gamble and 00:03:01
so either suicide or gamble seemed to me 00:03:06
to be the great alternatives of this 00:03:08
life and what will the gone will be the 00:03:15
gamble or the gaming has to rest on the 00:03:18
assumption that this game is superb 00:03:34
no other assumption will work if I may 00:03:37
put it in another way 00:03:38
the game is to be trusted the universe 00:03:41
you yourself it is fundamentally to be 00:03:45
trusted and this is the act of faith 00:03:48
which underlies all gambling because if 00:03:53
you don't make that assumption as 00:03:54
absolutely basic the game will not work 00:03:54
now this is where one was considered game theory in relation to ethics what 00:04:05
are the characteristics of a workable 00:04:14
game a viable game as biologists would 00:04:17
call it a game that is worth the candle 00:04:17
first of all the game must involve an optimal combination of skill and chance 00:04:31
or we might say order and randomness 00:04:37
where a game is pure chance it loses interest let's just think of tossing 00:04:49
coins the chances are 50/50 always that 00:04:54
it will be either heads or tails and 00:04:56
this becomes very boring one wants to 00:05:00
treat a little to liven it up and so 00:05:02
introduced a bit of skill but where a 00:05:07
game depends on pure skill and 00:05:09
especially a very complex kind of skill 00:05:13
it becomes too tiresome so you could put 00:05:18
at opposite ends of a spectrum of games 00:05:21
say tossing coins or tic-tac-toe or 00:05:24
something very simple which is mostly 00:05:26
chance because tic-tac-toe when you know 00:05:29
how to play it reduces itself to that 00:05:32
you either win or draw to get the first 00:05:34
move at the other end of the scale a 00:05:38
highly complex game like well I've 00:05:41
suggested three-dimensional chess but 00:05:43
just imagine three-dimensional go 00:05:43
where you would play on eight broads to give yourself a cube to play in or 00:05:50
whatever a number of Lords go would be 00:05:54
more than that wouldn't it but you would 00:05:58
be in such a complex thing that you just 00:06:00
lose track of it eventually the game 00:06:05
would just become totally confused for 00:06:09
most people so we get optimal games in 00:06:12
the middle like bridge or poker or 00:06:15
checkers or chess where there is this 00:06:22
interplay of skill and chance so we look 00:06:25
for this optimal point well there is a 00:06:29
risk there must be a risk there must be 00:06:32
chance it mustn't all be predetermined 00:06:34
because any game where the result is 00:06:37
known is not worth playing that's to say 00:06:42
when in chess the players suddenly 00:06:45
realize that white is going to mate in 00:06:47
five moves they abandon the game and say 00:06:50
let's begin again and so in life that's 00:06:54
why a lot of people don't like going to 00:06:55
fortune tellers they don't want to know 00:06:57
the future if I know exactly what's 00:07:00
going to happen to me in a very real 00:07:02
sense I've had it so let's finish it up 00:07:06
and begin again turn in the check you 00:07:10
see the whole fun of the situation of a 00:07:12
game is that you don't know the outcome 00:07:14
and that's why it's worth play this is 00:07:18
one characteristic of a viable game a 00:07:20
certain combination of skill and chance 00:07:24
now there's another which is of a much 00:07:28
more ethical type and that is I will 00:07:33
call it trusting the game because if you 00:07:38
don't do this in other words if you 00:07:40
won't gamble you won't play and here is 00:07:46
the point of the necessity of the gamble 00:07:48
that corresponds a little bit to the 00:07:52
necessity of having chance as well as 00:07:55
skill in any game that really works 00:08:00
the necessity of gambling is very much 00:08:06
overlooked I think in content our 00:08:08
contemporary culture because this is a 00:08:11
culture where we are trying as much as 00:08:14
possible 00:08:15
to take the risk out of things and when 00:08:21
the risk is taken out of human 00:08:23
relationships they become impossible we 00:08:29
have I think in the United States a very 00:08:31
naive faith in law and in law 00:08:35
enforcement we're always saying there 00:08:38
ought to be a law against it as if law 00:08:41
could solve things and we don't realize 00:08:44
the extent to which law makes life 00:08:47
increasingly more difficult because law 00:08:53
is simply a process of trying to define 00:08:57
what may be done and what may not be 00:08:59
done but the moment you start talking 00:09:02
the definitions become increasingly 00:09:05
complicated and lawyers love this they 00:09:09
live on it so it's always an 00:09:13
interminable discussion of what did they 00:09:16
mean when they said that what was the 00:09:20
intent of this law and as laws multiply 00:09:25
will be about object of protecting us 00:09:27
from each other they do not so much 00:09:32
succeed in protecting us as they do in 00:09:35
making it impossible for us to act and 00:09:40
so the ultimate police state is the 00:09:44
course the safe state the security state 00:09:48
where everybody is checked and you see 00:09:52
what this is mechanically speaking it's 00:09:55
the system of very elaborate 00:09:57
self-consciousness see when you get 00:10:01
self-conscious and you watch everything 00:10:02
you do because you are anxious about 00:10:05
making a mistake you will find in that 00:10:08
you're all tied up and you can't act 00:10:08
so in exactly the same way a community of people which is always watching 00:10:16
itself through its agents so that you 00:10:22
know in a Nazi state they're not only 00:10:24
the ordinary policeman on the beat but 00:10:25
it is a block captain for every area and 00:10:28
there's a some kind of a sneak or a 00:10:31
traitor who's going to inform the 00:10:34
authorities everywhere he hidden so this 00:10:38
community is watching itself all the 00:10:40
time because it's a community that 00:10:42
doesn't trust itself and a community 00:10:46
which constantly watches itself is like 00:10:48
a person who's always watching himself 00:10:50
and holding a table over his head to go 00:10:54
clunk the minute he might be in danger 00:10:57
of doing something wrong and so this 00:11:01
person is like this if I say now my 00:11:06
right hand is my main active hand and 00:11:09
aah but I don't know that I can trust it 00:11:12
I don't know what it's going to do so 00:11:15
I've got to keep control on it with my 00:11:17
left hand see so always the left hand is 00:11:22
controlling the right hand whatever if I 00:11:24
want to pick something up the left hand 00:11:26
would have to push the right hand down 00:11:27
and squeeze the fingers together and 00:11:29
then lift it up set it will come up see 00:11:32
I've lost a hand by doing that and so in 00:11:36
exactly the same way when any community 00:11:38
of people is founded on mutual mistrust 00:11:41
it sort of loses half of itself it 00:11:46
becomes trapped up it becomes paralyzed 00:11:49
and unable to move so the basis of any 00:11:55
community and thus the basis of any game 00:11:59
is the act of faith that I will gamble 00:12:06
I will bet my life on this scene 00:12:06
and you see that also is fundamentally not only the attitude of face but if the 00:12:14
attitude of love love is self giving 00:12:22
when you love someone say you fall in 00:12:25
love with a member of your opposite sex 00:12:27
or whatever and you got mixed up with 00:12:29
someone now you've really committed 00:12:32
yourself to heaven only knows what 00:12:35
because love is a letting go of direct 00:12:41
control and you might say going back 00:12:50
again to the Christian images of God 00:12:52
that God creates the world by constantly 00:12:56
disappearing giving himself away this 00:12:59
the Hindu would agree with this too that 00:13:01
insofar as everyone here is God in 00:13:04
disguise but doesn't know it this is 00:13:09
because you as God are constantly giving 00:13:12
yourself away to you and feeling lost 00:13:16
you know how did I get mixed up in this 00:13:18
world well unbeknownst to myself I made 00:13:22
a gamble on being this person and so 00:13:28
this giving of oneself away is what's 00:13:30
called the Divine Love so then in 00:13:35
playing the game if you don't make the 00:13:39
assumption that I can let go of myself 00:13:42
in the act of faith and in the act of 00:13:45
love you may just as well commit suicide 00:13:47
right now because you can't play it on 00:13:51
any other basis than that any attempt to 00:13:55
do so will merely make the whole thing 00:13:56
touch up and become insupportable and 00:13:59
will in any case be suicide see when we 00:14:04
get the ultimate weapon with which we 00:14:08
know we can be safe because nobody else 00:14:10
hasn't just because we wanted to get 00:14:13
that ultimate safety and get that 00:14:15
ultimate weapon to defeat our enemies it 00:14:19
will be suicide 00:14:20
because life really is not the avoidance 00:14:25
of death that it death is the avoidance 00:14:28
of death the constant terror of death 00:14:31
the constant putting it up 00:14:32
constant vigilance that one will not die 00:14:36
that is death what we call life is 00:14:36
fundamentally willingness to die 00:14:42
constant jumping of being into not being so long as you do that it goes on so so 00:14:51
long as you shake the dice and you don't 00:14:57
know how they're going to come out and 00:14:58
flip if the game goes on you see so long 00:15:02
as you take a chance 00:15:02
you 00:15:11