Hamlet really fascinates and triggers him...the article appears to be nothing but projection and overcompensation of the author's own impotence and waning relevance.
The image is actually “The Hireling Shepherd” (1851-52) by William Holman Hunt (rather than Boucher’s “Are they thinking of the sheep?”). It’s in Manchester Art Gallery.
At first, viewers considered it depicted idleness and immorality with overtones of drunkenness. Certainly Hunt’s letters showed he wanted to use and subvert the pastoral tradition.
Of central importance, however, is that Hunt intended the picture to be a rebuke to the contemporary Anglican Church (he was a devout Anglican). The hireling shepherd is neglecting the sheep; in the 1850s hireling pastors were not serving their church flocks; they were disregarding social problems and instead concentrating on sectarian divisions in the church - which left their parishioners in moral & spiritual peril.
See Judith Bronkhurst: William Holman Hunt, a catalogue raisonné.
One aspect of the play you ignore is Ophelia's relationship with her father. The play functions not only as a look at Hamlet's character but also an attempt by the author to show how the interior dramas of multiple characters combine with circumstance to create new circumstances in a seamless way. I would argue that Shakespeare is really going for realism in other words
I asked Chatgpt the following prompt: Analyze Hamlet within the context of Timeless Decision Theory if possible. It responded with the analysis below:
"Timeless Decision Theory (TDT), proposed by Eliezer Yudkowsky, suggests that an agent should act as if it is determining the output of a logical function that is implemented across multiple instances, including past and future versions of itself, as well as other decision-making agents running similar computations. This means making choices based on the assumption that one's decision influences all correlated instances of that decision, rather than treating past decisions or external forces as fixed constraints.
"### Applying TDT to *Hamlet*:
Hamlet’s existential crisis and his struggles with decision-making can be reinterpreted through the lens of TDT as a problem of self-modeling within a deterministic (yet uncertain) universe.
"1. **Hamlet’s Delay and Self-Referential Decision-Making:**
Hamlet's hesitation in avenging his father’s murder can be seen as a failure to adopt a TDT-like perspective. Rather than making a decision based on a timeless perspective that accounts for all possible iterations of himself, Hamlet seems trapped in a more causally linear mindset—paralyzed by the uncertainty of what the consequences will be in a singular timeline. If he viewed his choice as part of a broader decision function (where all Hamlet-like agents across possible worlds would act in the same way), he might recognize that avenging his father is not just about a single act of revenge but about setting a universal precedent for justice.
"2. **The Ghost as an Information Problem:**
The appearance of King Hamlet’s ghost introduces a decision-theoretic problem: should Hamlet trust the ghost's words and act accordingly? From a TDT perspective, Hamlet should evaluate not just whether the ghost is truthful in a single causal timeline but whether trusting the ghost is the kind of decision a rational agent like him should make in all similar situations. His hesitation might stem from a conflict between his empirical uncertainty (whether the ghost is a true oracle or a misleading demon) and his deep uncertainty about whether vengeance is the right category of decision at all.
"3. **The Mousetrap as a Simulation Hypothesis:**
Hamlet’s decision to stage *The Mousetrap* can be seen as an attempt to gather evidence before making a commitment, a process akin to running a predictive simulation. However, under TDT, an agent should act based on the logical correlation of decisions rather than depending on additional causal verification. Hamlet seems to hesitate because he still believes that gathering new information will change the decision function, whereas a fully TDT-consistent agent would act based on the structure of the decision problem itself.
"4. **Hamlet and Free Will vs. Determinism:**
One of Hamlet’s core dilemmas—whether to take action or succumb to inaction—parallels the tension between free will and determinism in decision theory. A TDT perspective suggests that Hamlet should see his decision as part of a timeless algorithm that extends beyond himself. His famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy can be reframed as the contemplation of whether agents like him, across all decision instances, should collectively choose existence (engagement, action) or nonexistence (resignation, inaction). If he were thinking in TDT terms, he might recognize that by choosing to act, he would be setting a precedent for all Hamlet-like agents facing similar dilemmas.
"5. **Ophelia and the Failure of Counterfactual Cooperation:**
In his interactions with Ophelia, Hamlet behaves erratically, possibly as part of his feigned madness but also due to his internal crisis. TDT emphasizes that agents should consider how their decisions affect other agents who are running similar computations. Hamlet fails to recognize that by treating Ophelia cruelly, he influences not just this instance of their interaction but all potential versions of himself in similar relationships. If he had thought in a TDT-like manner, he might have reasoned that cooperation and honesty with Ophelia would yield better overall results across multiple instantiations of their interaction.
"6. **The Duel and Hamlet’s Ultimate Decision:**
In the final act, Hamlet seems to resign himself to fate: “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow… the readiness is all.” This moment might be interpreted as Hamlet finally stepping into a TDT perspective, recognizing that his death is not just an isolated event but part of a broader logical structure. Rather than struggling with uncertainty, he embraces the idea that his decision-making process is already embedded in a larger framework of inevitability. In a sense, he accepts that all Hamlet-like agents in his position would reach a similar fate.
"### Conclusion:
From a TDT perspective, Hamlet’s indecision arises because he fails to recognize that his choices should be made as though they determine the actions of all equivalent agents in all similar situations. Instead, he gets caught in causal, stepwise reasoning, which leads to paralysis and tragedy. If Hamlet had fully internalized a timeless decision-theoretic approach, he might have acted more decisively, either in embracing revenge or rejecting it outright, rather than oscillating between competing narratives of duty, doubt, and despair."
To my untutored mind, in matters ostensibly Bayesian, the response rings hollow, if perhaps only because of epistemological omission, as if one or more steps in this theory of reasoning are assumed to have been understood a priori by the questioner by the Chatgpt oracle. Nevertheless this seconds' worth of experimentation or psychologically ouija-boarding with this particular AI roulette wheel might perhaps genuinely prove of interest to some here. All the same, I was left wondering, again perhaps quite naively, what if a highly injured protagonist, a la Hamlet, in real life experiences in the midst of the offense, such as a particularly psychologically and emotionally blinding romantic betrayal, a sort of Augustinian eternal vision of the right, the meta-ethical, the timelessly moral, and adheres to it as much as he can intellectually and consciously bring himself or herself to do so considering the abyssal stresses under which he or she feels suddenly entombed and indeed ensorcelled by, so that it seems that such a state was the collision of both an a priori and a posteriori determined fate. What becomes of the subconscious/unconscious will acutely, not to mention potentially chronically, even when a legalistically scrupulous course of ethical reasoning is taken, assuming that the "true" will is, to paraphrase, a "hauntological" force with a sort of will of its own unbeknownst to the sleeper, who is precisely all the more psychologically unconscious because of the traumatic force of the impact which seemed to have impacted doubly, in the manner of two trains colliding, by way of the past and the future, the former stealthily, the latter maddeningly? So that determinism, the acute pressure of it, by dexter and by sinister, by light and by darkness, by past and by future produces a will, perhaps the closest thing to such a state within the necessarily provincial canvas of human phenomenology and ontology, that enters into an acute dialectic with the wider deterministic framework that enfolds it?
Not everything fits into a box of Smarties, however hard you might want it to.
Article starts well but it is too long, verbose, finicking, and in the end kills the subject with the dead hand of over-intellectualisation.
Hamlet really fascinates and triggers him...the article appears to be nothing but projection and overcompensation of the author's own impotence and waning relevance.
The image is actually “The Hireling Shepherd” (1851-52) by William Holman Hunt (rather than Boucher’s “Are they thinking of the sheep?”). It’s in Manchester Art Gallery.
At first, viewers considered it depicted idleness and immorality with overtones of drunkenness. Certainly Hunt’s letters showed he wanted to use and subvert the pastoral tradition.
Of central importance, however, is that Hunt intended the picture to be a rebuke to the contemporary Anglican Church (he was a devout Anglican). The hireling shepherd is neglecting the sheep; in the 1850s hireling pastors were not serving their church flocks; they were disregarding social problems and instead concentrating on sectarian divisions in the church - which left their parishioners in moral & spiritual peril.
See Judith Bronkhurst: William Holman Hunt, a catalogue raisonné.
Ophelia is not only the bearer of all sins, she's the bearer of all this theorising
It would also be worthwhile to explore why was Hamlet for Ophelia a phallus given that he absolutely destroyed her life.
https://open.substack.com/pub/clementpaulus/p/the-recursive-self?r=5c1ys6&utm_medium=ios
One aspect of the play you ignore is Ophelia's relationship with her father. The play functions not only as a look at Hamlet's character but also an attempt by the author to show how the interior dramas of multiple characters combine with circumstance to create new circumstances in a seamless way. I would argue that Shakespeare is really going for realism in other words
https://youtu.be/KxlE8SWY_VI?si=2OM4-nxf_chrfB1i
I asked Chatgpt the following prompt: Analyze Hamlet within the context of Timeless Decision Theory if possible. It responded with the analysis below:
"Timeless Decision Theory (TDT), proposed by Eliezer Yudkowsky, suggests that an agent should act as if it is determining the output of a logical function that is implemented across multiple instances, including past and future versions of itself, as well as other decision-making agents running similar computations. This means making choices based on the assumption that one's decision influences all correlated instances of that decision, rather than treating past decisions or external forces as fixed constraints.
"### Applying TDT to *Hamlet*:
Hamlet’s existential crisis and his struggles with decision-making can be reinterpreted through the lens of TDT as a problem of self-modeling within a deterministic (yet uncertain) universe.
"1. **Hamlet’s Delay and Self-Referential Decision-Making:**
Hamlet's hesitation in avenging his father’s murder can be seen as a failure to adopt a TDT-like perspective. Rather than making a decision based on a timeless perspective that accounts for all possible iterations of himself, Hamlet seems trapped in a more causally linear mindset—paralyzed by the uncertainty of what the consequences will be in a singular timeline. If he viewed his choice as part of a broader decision function (where all Hamlet-like agents across possible worlds would act in the same way), he might recognize that avenging his father is not just about a single act of revenge but about setting a universal precedent for justice.
"2. **The Ghost as an Information Problem:**
The appearance of King Hamlet’s ghost introduces a decision-theoretic problem: should Hamlet trust the ghost's words and act accordingly? From a TDT perspective, Hamlet should evaluate not just whether the ghost is truthful in a single causal timeline but whether trusting the ghost is the kind of decision a rational agent like him should make in all similar situations. His hesitation might stem from a conflict between his empirical uncertainty (whether the ghost is a true oracle or a misleading demon) and his deep uncertainty about whether vengeance is the right category of decision at all.
"3. **The Mousetrap as a Simulation Hypothesis:**
Hamlet’s decision to stage *The Mousetrap* can be seen as an attempt to gather evidence before making a commitment, a process akin to running a predictive simulation. However, under TDT, an agent should act based on the logical correlation of decisions rather than depending on additional causal verification. Hamlet seems to hesitate because he still believes that gathering new information will change the decision function, whereas a fully TDT-consistent agent would act based on the structure of the decision problem itself.
"4. **Hamlet and Free Will vs. Determinism:**
One of Hamlet’s core dilemmas—whether to take action or succumb to inaction—parallels the tension between free will and determinism in decision theory. A TDT perspective suggests that Hamlet should see his decision as part of a timeless algorithm that extends beyond himself. His famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy can be reframed as the contemplation of whether agents like him, across all decision instances, should collectively choose existence (engagement, action) or nonexistence (resignation, inaction). If he were thinking in TDT terms, he might recognize that by choosing to act, he would be setting a precedent for all Hamlet-like agents facing similar dilemmas.
"5. **Ophelia and the Failure of Counterfactual Cooperation:**
In his interactions with Ophelia, Hamlet behaves erratically, possibly as part of his feigned madness but also due to his internal crisis. TDT emphasizes that agents should consider how their decisions affect other agents who are running similar computations. Hamlet fails to recognize that by treating Ophelia cruelly, he influences not just this instance of their interaction but all potential versions of himself in similar relationships. If he had thought in a TDT-like manner, he might have reasoned that cooperation and honesty with Ophelia would yield better overall results across multiple instantiations of their interaction.
"6. **The Duel and Hamlet’s Ultimate Decision:**
In the final act, Hamlet seems to resign himself to fate: “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow… the readiness is all.” This moment might be interpreted as Hamlet finally stepping into a TDT perspective, recognizing that his death is not just an isolated event but part of a broader logical structure. Rather than struggling with uncertainty, he embraces the idea that his decision-making process is already embedded in a larger framework of inevitability. In a sense, he accepts that all Hamlet-like agents in his position would reach a similar fate.
"### Conclusion:
From a TDT perspective, Hamlet’s indecision arises because he fails to recognize that his choices should be made as though they determine the actions of all equivalent agents in all similar situations. Instead, he gets caught in causal, stepwise reasoning, which leads to paralysis and tragedy. If Hamlet had fully internalized a timeless decision-theoretic approach, he might have acted more decisively, either in embracing revenge or rejecting it outright, rather than oscillating between competing narratives of duty, doubt, and despair."
To my untutored mind, in matters ostensibly Bayesian, the response rings hollow, if perhaps only because of epistemological omission, as if one or more steps in this theory of reasoning are assumed to have been understood a priori by the questioner by the Chatgpt oracle. Nevertheless this seconds' worth of experimentation or psychologically ouija-boarding with this particular AI roulette wheel might perhaps genuinely prove of interest to some here. All the same, I was left wondering, again perhaps quite naively, what if a highly injured protagonist, a la Hamlet, in real life experiences in the midst of the offense, such as a particularly psychologically and emotionally blinding romantic betrayal, a sort of Augustinian eternal vision of the right, the meta-ethical, the timelessly moral, and adheres to it as much as he can intellectually and consciously bring himself or herself to do so considering the abyssal stresses under which he or she feels suddenly entombed and indeed ensorcelled by, so that it seems that such a state was the collision of both an a priori and a posteriori determined fate. What becomes of the subconscious/unconscious will acutely, not to mention potentially chronically, even when a legalistically scrupulous course of ethical reasoning is taken, assuming that the "true" will is, to paraphrase, a "hauntological" force with a sort of will of its own unbeknownst to the sleeper, who is precisely all the more psychologically unconscious because of the traumatic force of the impact which seemed to have impacted doubly, in the manner of two trains colliding, by way of the past and the future, the former stealthily, the latter maddeningly? So that determinism, the acute pressure of it, by dexter and by sinister, by light and by darkness, by past and by future produces a will, perhaps the closest thing to such a state within the necessarily provincial canvas of human phenomenology and ontology, that enters into an acute dialectic with the wider deterministic framework that enfolds it?
Zbytečný tlachání.