“…we say an organism sees and feels objects, hears sounds, tastes substances, smells odors and likes or dislikes them; it wants, seeks, and finds; it has a purpose, tries and succeeds or fails; it learns and remembers or forgets; is frightened, angry, happy, depressed, asleep or awake, and so on.” —Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis by B.F. Skinner (yes I actually read the book, 8/10) (It was either this or sharing a certain genocidal gameboy’s inalfay ormfay, and I already have a few targets on my back :D) So I got bored again (quite cliché if you ask me) and was scrolling through some interesting projects, this one in particular (https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1175294577/) What really got me was not the content, but the title: “The King of All Phantoms”. And it got me thinking. A lot. As in a concerning amount of thought and effort was put into understanding those five words. Here’s what I got: First things first, the fact that a phantom can actually exist (one per parallel universe) has some really interesting implications, for example, neurophilosophy (consciousness is completely seperate from the brain, disproving materialism, functionalism, epiphenomenalism, and really just any theory denying the existence of non-material forces), and psychophysics (how do you eat pizza, dude?) and so on :) Second thing, notice the word “king” there. Now, to be a king, you have to be king of something, more obviously, other phantoms (the way was phrased implied there was a civilization’s worth, tell me I’m wrong). Considering with a potential population is it not plausible that (per se), some “regulations” are needed? Point is, I’m trying to say he has executive forces backing him up. Professional ones, too (probably called something awesome, like “order of the phantoms” :/) Next thing, technically he hasn’t said anything about a monarchy (I checked, they could be aristocrats for all I know), but based on other clues, it’s most likely some form of sovereign ruler by one or maybe more people, probably high-upper class elites or family members or something. By the way, the word “phantom” itself implies not only that they’re dead, but they once were alive, it’s very suspicious if you think about it, like how did they get unalived in the first place…and who did this to them? (I looked into this and it got dark real quick…) But hey, that’s just a theory, a Scratch Theory! If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask me :)
