The Conatus Game
A small Spinoza stands in the field of the mind while the affects of the Ethics fall around him, every plaque naming what is coming so nothing has to be guessed. The conatus is his striving to persevere, and the game is yours to keep it: catch what increases the power of acting, let the rest pass, and hold Reason when the yoke grows heavy. The Ascent crosses the five Parts of the Ethics, each with its own trial, and ends in blessedness or, when power falls to zero, in bondage.
Score0
Best0
PartI · Of God
Multiplier×1
Power100
KnowledgeI · Opinion and imagination
Understanding
Arrow keys or A and D walk Spinoza left and right along the ground. Drag across the board on a touch screen. Space reasons, P pauses.
Drag left or right to walk Spinoza, or use the pad below. Hold Reason to dissolve passions. Pause holds the field.
How the game works
Spinoza holds that a thing strives to persevere in its own being, and that its power of acting rises when it understands and falls when it is acted upon. The board is that field. Adequate ideas, common notions, knowledge of the third kind and joy raise the score, and joy restores power. The passive affects fall from above and cost power and lodge for a time, each with its own temper. Power at zero ends the run in bondage.
Adequate ideas are worth ten points. A common notion raises the multiplier and adds to the score. Knowledge of the third kind is worth a hundred and restores one understanding. Hold Space or Reason to dissolve lodged passions and convert strikes into actions. Time on the field also scores, at twice the Part each second.
The Ascent crosses five Parts, each lasting 26 seconds before its trial: final causes, the order of ideas, the storm of the passions, bondage, and the intellectual love of God. Pass each trial to continue. Clearing Part V ends in blessedness. Eight adequate ideas or two common notions reveal arrival targets; twenty or five reveal values, tempers and the next volley.
E5p3 gives reason its liberating work; E4p59 turns passive encounters into actions. E5p42 names blessedness, while E4p67 turns the free mind towards life.
Where the affects come from
Every name on the field is taken from the Ethics. Fear and hope are the inconstant affects of a doubtful thing, defined in the third part of the Definitions of the Emotions. Envy, hatred, pride and despair are defined beside them. An inadequate idea is described in Part II, Proposition 35, where falsity is the privation of knowledge. Common notions and the third kind of knowledge follow from Part II, Proposition 40 and its notes. Superstition, which grows from the prejudice of final causes, is described in the appendix to the first part of the Ethics.
What falls on the field
An inadequate idea, fear, hope, envy, hatred, pride, superstition and despair, in different company in each Part. Each is written out on the field, not marked by a letter. It is worth catching an adequate idea, a common notion, knowledge of the third kind, and joy. The legend under the board names each figure with its colour and the sentence it is drawn from.
Spinoza walks the ground and cannot leave it. Controls: the left and right arrow keys or A and D, the pad under the board, or a drag across the board itself. Space reasons. P pauses. The game records your best score in this browser only, your best Part and your blessed runs.
Prefer to be examined instead? Sit the Spinoza examination, ten questions on the same philosophy. New to the system? Begin with Spinoza 101.