Bring the Grind to Meatspace

by Carsten Buus Nørgaard

Thoughts on realizing long-term goals, by comparison with “The Elder Scrolls: Online”

A graphic showing different people dressed in a combination of work attire and fantasy game attire.
What can MMORPGs teach us about getting things done? (Emojis: OpenMoji © CC BY-⁠SA 4.0.)

Introduction

Last year, I started playing Zenimax’s “The Elder Scrolls: Online” (ESO), ending a 13-⁠year-long hiatus from gaming initiated by an obsessive experience with Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft” following its release in the EU in 2005.

I had been a fan of the “Elder Scrolls” franchise since Bethesda’s “Morrowind”, released in 2002. Ending my  hiatus began with “Skyrim”, a game I had also missed.

“Skyrim” was a nostalgic and exciting return to Tamriel — ⁠the principal continent in this fictional game universe. But it felt like something was missing: an even bigger world to develop my character in.

I found that ‘something’ in ESO, which currently provides the most substantial “Elder Scrolls” experience to date — ⁠fully voiced and texted in the procedural languages of the European Union, which I experimented with for learning French and German.

This enormous massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) offers very much for players to achieve. After spending 2,400 hours on the game, I have still only achieved 38 percent of what it has to offer.

During that playtime, my focus has gradually expanded beyond entertainment into everyday philosophy and ideas drawn from this virtual world. In this text, I will cover just one of several themes.

Table of contents

  1. Grinding
  2. Types of outcomes
  3. Heuristics
  4. Differences in task availability and access
    1. Patterns of availability
    2. Types of access
  5. Levels of social reliance
    1. Group content and identity
    2. Collectives
      1. Networking
      2. Education and socialization
        1. Education
        2. Socialization
  6. Meatspace
    1. The presented heuristics and meatspace
    2. Conclusions
  7. Bibliography

Grinding

In MMORPGs, “grinding” refers to the repeated completion of in-⁠game tasks. This goal-oriented phenomenon is a core aspect of the genre. It’s how players achieve the most difficult things and obtain the most sought-⁠after rewards.

People often associate grinding with the “endgame” — ⁠the stage at which a player’s character has achieved a high level and number of skills. Here, there’s an increased reliance on completing difficult content together with other players for further development.

In truth, ‘grinding’ starts at the beginning of the game. New players typically grind for experience points as those quickly enable them to play in a more diversified way and use better equipment.

Types of outcomes

The various stages in an in-⁠game character’s ‘life cycle’ exemplify different outcomes of grinding. I have arrived at the following analytical categories:

During the initial states of playing, grinding often has a cumulative outcome. The endgame, on the other hand, features an increasing amount of probabilistic and mixed outcomes.

Heuristics

You might object to the definition of each of the above categories and the lack of clear boundaries between them.

Moreover, having certain knowledge of the success rate of a probabilistic outcome would permit you to treat the task in question as a cumulative outcome. There’s a perceptual issue with the categories that lets us criticize them by pointing out that it all depends on perspective.

Nevertheless, these categories do make up a pragmatic toolset for understanding how to strive for something and managing expectations while doing so. They make up a heuristic created by way of synthesis from a virtual, in-⁠game universe.

“A heuristic is a strategy that ignores part of the information, with the goal of making decisions more quickly, frugally, or accurately than more complex methods.” (Gigerenzer and Gassmaier, cited in Hertwig, Hoffrage, and ABC Research Group 2011, 5; emphasis added.)

This approach differs from formal scientific theories as those would have to take all the available information into account.

A theory should also meet stricter requirements of adherence to some standard of truth, such as correspondence-based theories, coherence-based ones, or pragmatic ones. (See, e.g., Marian 2020, Young 2018, and Capps 2019.)

Abbott (2004, 81) describes heuristics as “the study of how to find things out” and “the science of finding new ways to solve problems”.

He also notes that the term shares the same Ancient Greek origin as the interjection ‘eureka’, traceable to the verb εὑρίσκω, meaning “I find” and “I find out, discover”.

You typically form a heuristic as a set of basic assumptions, rules of thumb, or models that you then use for decision-⁠making.

The categories presented in this text are based on assumptions that you can use for planning and optimizing your grind.

Differences in task availability and access

Because grinding is the repeated completion of tasks, the most efficient grinds are based on tasks that can be completed anytime. But this is often not the case.

I have arrived at two sets of analytical categories: one based on different patterns of task availability, and one based on different prerequires to accessing a task.

These are two sides of the same coin, dealing with external and internal factors relating to the potential efficiency of your grind.

Patterns of availability

The first set considers “availability” on the task’s own premises. The principal question is: “When does the task exist in the world for someone to complete it?” — ⁠i.e., whether it’s available in general.

This determines how fast you could theoretically move to the next repetition in your grind. (Other factors, such as being tired, hungry, or occupied elsewhere, also have an impact but are not accounted for here.)

Types of access

The second set considers “access” to the task on the part of the player. The principal question is: “When do I meet the requirements to access a given task?” — ⁠that is, whether the task is available to you, specifically.

If you cannot access the task then you cannot grind it, regardless of its pattern of availability.

Levels of social reliance

Some grindable tasks either require a group or become easier to complete faster, more comfortably, and/⁠or in greater volumes by relying on other people who organize for the purpose of completing them. As mentioned, this is particularly true in the endgame.

I have arrived at these analytical categories based on frequent language used by many players in ESO:

In addition to heuristics, there are significant perspectives to consider when other players participate in your grind.

Being aware of them can help players make wiser decisions for articipation in group content and collectives, which provides an indirect net benefit for each related grind.

I will account for these in the remainder of this chapter ahead of drawing parallels to “Meatspace” and concluding.

Group content and identity

The levels of social reliance can be important to your ability to conduct a grind. Indeed, (non-⁠groupable) solo content and (non-⁠soloable) group content are examples of qualified access. At other times, however, social involvement is optional.

The player must choose between the advantages and disadvantages of going solo or joining a group. There’s also an element of personal preference.

The levels of social reliance are interesting from an identity perspective. They tie into the tension between the Self and the Other.

For solo content, any configuration of the Self — ⁠attribute, skill, and champion points; armor, jewelry, and weapon(s); choice of active and passive skills, etc. — ⁠is acceptable if the player can complete the grind.

The player can find their own balance between rational efficiency and affective preferences.

This balance changes for group content as the task’s level of difficulty increases, demanding greater and more precise organization. The Self must increasingly compromise with the Other, i.e., the other members of the group.

It’s possible to talk about an identity here because creating a complete setup (known as a “build”) for group content takes time. Although there’s continuing work to improve it, the build is typically maintained long-⁠term and isn’t something you redo from scratch between each task repetition.

The player takes on a more specialized role for group content, increasingly prioritizing functional efficiency over affective preferences.

(There’s also in-⁠group coordination. This demands communication, social, and problem-solving skills. )

Participating in group content therefore calls for assuming an instrumental social identity specifically configured for working as a group.

In his textbook on psychological and cultural views of identity, Jørgensen (2008, 38–⁠40) writes:

“Whereas personal identity and especially self-⁠identity are more ‘private’, one could consider social identity to be the public side of identity. Social identity is not primarily something you ‘have’ but something you ‘are’ and ‘do’, and it is embedded in social relations.” (My translation)

Although much of social identity relates to the perception of belonging to a community with shared qualitative attributes, Jørgensen also mentions “a skillful and engaged primary school teacher” as an example of such “roles you take on in social contexts” (Table 2.2. in the citation above).

This example is more functionally oriented and is easier to relate to the primary roles in groups in ESO — ⁠the tank, the healer, and the damage dealer — ⁠whereas aspects of belonging are particularly important in collectives.

Some people might dislike the thought of relying on others for completing certain content in a game they’ve paid for. They might not enjoy having to adapt their character. Some could object to the productivism implied above.

Others acknowledge that group content enables new experiences and rewards that would otherwise not be possible, and the chance of making new friends. Because of this, they accept compromise in how their characters are configured although they prefer a more hybrid and idiosyncratic setup.

Some might acknowledge that no two groups are alike, and that many of these differences trace back to how group members communicate with and behave toward one another. Having a specialized build doesn’t have to be a barrier to expressing personal identity in group contexts.

In other words, people respond differently to perceived opportunities and threats found in the identity perspectives associated with group content. They experience the tension between the Self and the Other differently.

To ‘bridge the gap’, those who are more critical towards having to adapt to group content could proceed with a small circle of trusted friends with whom it’s possible to have steady rules of engagement — ⁠avoiding so-⁠called ‘pickup groups’ (PUGs).

Anyone who needs to incorporate group content in their grind can optimize their efforts through planning and preparation. This includes learning how to design a character for a desired role in groups and reflecting on how to strike a fitting balance between personal and social identity.

Collectives

In discussing collectives, I’ll limit the scope to what ESO calls ‘guilds’ — ⁠a term used across the MMORPG genre.

Guilds in ESO are collectives in a loose sense: they’re optional, you can be a member of up to five at the same time, and they’re primarily (but not exclusively) designed for players to network with one another.

They have anywhere between 10 and 500 members and vary in their classifications, of which ESO provides many. Guilds also have their own flair resulting from community culture.

As there are many distinct types, some enforce greater requirements for aspiring and current members than others do.

For example, trading guilds often require a certain amount of business activity while competitive player-⁠versus-environment (PvE) or player-⁠versus-player (PvP) guilds often demand regular in-⁠game activity and participation on out-⁠of-⁠game online platforms such as Discord.

With increased requirements come an increased tension between the Self and the Other, just as it was described for group content above. The difference is that group content and group roles are inherent to the game. Guild requirements, though often inspired by the game’s way of functioning, are not.

(Using the dungeon finder requires someone to take the role as a tank or healer, but nowhere in ESO is guild members using Discord an official feature of the game.)

The uses of guild collectives for your grind can be expressed through the concepts of networking, education, and socialization.

Networking

O’Sullivan and O’Sullivan (2022, 8) define networking as:

“The purposeful building and managing of relationships [1] to grow or improve business or services; [2] to spread and promote ideas and ideals; or [3] to support personal and career development.” (Numbers in brackets added by me.)

As the three elements in that definition are quite distinct, this is really a triple definition.

Networking doesn’t always apply in guild contexts. The authors exclude “activity which mainly exists for a social or leisure reason” and restrict the concept to “a conscious act with an intended end” (mentioned on the same page as the citation above).

This distinction excludes guilds that only exist to make friends, but with some adaptation ‘networking’ still applies to most guilds in ESO.

For element 1 in the above definition, “business or services” would refer to in-⁠game wealth acquisition, including trading and grinding for rare items. For element 3, “career development” means character design, qualified access, and accustomization to the game.

The concept of networking is particularly relevant to those with specific grinds in mind, and players with an overall competitive approach to the game. For those, guilds can be excellent tools for elements 1 and 3 in the above definition — ⁠especially for ‘ad hoc’ benefits.

Education and socialization

Education and socialization are closely related in that they (mostly, but not exclusively) rely on guidance from other people.

Education

If learning is the general process of acquiring knowledge and skills, education is a special form involving people and, quite often, institutions where the learning process can be organized and guided by teachers.

In ESO, education is usually informal and highly occasional. Whether the players involved are strangers in a ‘pickup group’ or guildmates, in-⁠game education typically happens in response to a current issue or question.

A player who knows the answer to a question or can demonstrate how to complete challenging aspects of it can help other players improve.

Provided the person helping is well-⁠informed and capable of communicating in a pedagogically and even didactically beneficial way, the teaching given by them can be one of the fastest and most effective ways of understanding how various aspects of the game function.

This can have an advantage over finding answers in fan-⁠based, third-⁠party resources. Such written content puts the onus of sorting between important and unimportant information on the learner. Advice from an experienced player could be (but is not automatically) a more direct path to knowledge.

All the above falls within the educational aspects of ESO that deal with learning about the game itself. The educational processes that take place in social contexts in the game can speed up your preparation for participating in group content and conducting grinds based on qualified access.

Socialization

Concerning socialization, here is a basic and broad definition to begin with:

“In the broadest terms, socialization refers to the way in which individuals are assisted in becoming members of one or more social groups. The word ‘assist’ is important because it implies that socialization is not a one-⁠way street but that newer members of the social group are active in the socialization process and selective in what they accept from older members of the social group. In addition, newer members may attempt to socialize older members.” (Grusec and Hastings 2015, xi; emphasis in the original.)

Another related definition allows us to think of socialization as a special form of education:

Grusec describes socialization as how “individuals are assisted in the acquisition of skills necessary to function as members of their social group” (cited in Arnett 2015, 86).

In ESO (and most MMORPGs), groups are organized around functional roles such as the tank, the healer, and the damage dealer. Guilds are typically organized around specific interests which emphasize various aspects and features of the game.

Therefore, and to a significant extent, such “skills necessary to function as members of [the] social group” include relevant knowledge and accustomization to the aspects and features focused on by a given guild.

In this context, ‘knowledge’ takes on a social dimension that makes up part of the guild’s culture and identity while improving the individual player’s ability to secure a social identity within the group.

Not all that knowledge is about how the game itself functions, but also, e.g., how the community communicates (including special vocabulary, fixed formulae such as "LFM 2T 2H 7DD vHRC”, and topics to avoid), what the current ‘meta’ discussions are about, and what supplementary resources (such as addons) are in vogue.

Awareness of this can be useful for planning your grind and knowing who to involve and how to involve them in it. Developing a ‘favored’ social identity potentially gives players opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Knowing who the collective’s “elders” are and being familiar with their style of assisting the community in processes of education and socialization can be crucial. Newcomers getting to know other newcomers and being aware of each other’s respective journeys within the social space can also be important.

Note that I’m not referring to the kind of socialization practiced by parents when raising a child or by teachers in formal education. The nature of socialization changes at separate phases of a person’s life.

Αrnett (2015) generally describes socialization in emerging adulthood as the twilight between such direct, hands-⁠on forms of socialization on the one hand and a situation of greater independence and increasing self-⁠socialization on the other.

Although not a direct equivalent, this is the form of socialization I find best matches what takes place in ESO.

Regardless of what form is most accurate, socialization clearly takes place in a game with thousands of players who participating at the same time and who can organize themselves into temporary and more permanent groups.

Meatspace

Much more could be written on this topic — ⁠e.g., teambuilding, motivation, and accustomization. My purpose here is to synthesize some of the elements from ESO that are relevant to how grinding works and consider their uses outside the game.

To summarize, those elements were divided into heuristic assumptions about the nature of the grind itself: grind outcomes, task availability and access, and levels of social reliance.

Furthermore, the grind becomes more complex when it relies on other people. This was exemplified by drawing on identity theory, business networking, and socialization.

In this section, I consider what I’ve discussed above in relation to ‘Meatspace’.

Meatspace is a slang term for the ‘real’ world outside the internet or cyberspace has made it into the Cambridge Advanced English Learner’s Dictionary (link to entry) and the Collins English Dictionary (link to entry).

(A “Words We’re Watching” article by Merriam-Webster (2016) traces the word back to the early 90’s and documents occurrences in North American publications in 1995 and 2016. Six years after the article’s publication, however, the dictionary still not added ‘Meatspace’ as an entry.)

Well, what does realizing long-term goals in ‘Meatspace’ have to do with grinding in a game?

First, I’ll give some examples of where we find the heuristics presented above. There will then be a discussion of how any of this is useful for realizing long-⁠term goals.

The presented heuristics and meatspace

Cumulative outcomes are found in ‘meatspace’ activities such as construction work, manufacturing, painting, sculpting, practicing a piano performance to perfection, programming, cardiovascular exercise, strength training, and many more.

Probabilistic outcomes are found in business negotiations, investing on the stock market, gambling, parliamentary politics, the process of discovering suitable plots for mining, evaluations at school and university exams, etc.

Two examples of negative probabilistic outcomes are certain acute medical interventions and war efforts (in which the work relies on avoiding a significant risk of injury and death).

We also find the principles of task availability and access in ‘Meatspace’, though it’s typically necessary to account for both factors simultaneously to get a clear picture for grinding purposes.

Streaming services and university libraries exemplify this. Watching episodes and reading journal articles are, in principle, activities with an unlimited availability. You can watch, rewatch, read, and reread them as much as you want, whenever you want.

Even so, these activities are limited to qualified access. You typically pay for streaming services, and most university libraries only grant access to their journal subscriptions to current students and employees. There’s unlimited availability if you qualify for access.

Employment differs from these scenarios in terms of task availability. Where some positions do feature unlimited availability, others feature interspersed or even one-⁠off availability.

(Here, I should remind the reader that I don’t account for human needs that limit grinding, such as fatigue. These also have an impact on how organizations separate work into workdays.)

A task can be unlimited in principle even if an organization limits employee activity to 8-⁠hour days. Consider, e.g., shift work at factories or warehouses where the factory or warehouse itself operates 24 hours a day though it’s operated in shifts by different teams of workers.)

To exemplify positions with interspersed task availability, cleaning assistants often perform a daily routine for different customers that don’t require more cleaning until the next day.

As for one-⁠off availability, examples include construction work and demolition. You neither construct the same building from the ground up, nor do you demolish it twice.

People conducting work with interspersed or one-⁠off task availability live ‘from task to task’ in ways those working on tasks with unlimited availability don’t. There could be an increased need of promotion efforts (which may include business networking as discussed above) to secure the future of the grind.

As for the distinct levels of social reliance, it’s evident that, like in ESO, ‘meatspace’ tasks range from ones that can only be done by one person (solo content) to ones that must be done as a group (‘group content’).

While drafting this text, I’ve have struggled to identify activities that are purely solo content. In neither ESO nor ‘Meatspace’ do these make up most tasks.

Depending on how you frame the situation, most ‘meatspace’ tasks are hypothetically ‘groupable’, though some, such as specific sports, are designed to be done all alone.

When a solo task is groupable, the choice of involving someone else is a matter of preference. There’s no strict sense of ‘reliance’, but the option is there. ‘Grouping up’ could be more efficient or motivational but could also yield a different result (as one would expect in, e.g., collaborative painting).

When a group task is soloable, the choice of completing it alone is also a matter of preference. The option to say no to ‘reliance’ is there.

Completing such tasks alone is more challenging than doing it as a group. This could also result in bigger gains for the person completing it, but it could come with an increased risk of failing. Consider, e.g., a single, skilled football player facing a team.

Group content is found in many situations, such as grouped tasks in a class, a group of employees working on a project, teamwork in sports, etc. It’s the standard example of the foundation of organization theory: people working together on a common goal through coordination.

(In this text, I’ve used the concept to refer to situations where group coordination and separation into specialized roles is mandatory, referring to other situations as ‘groupable solo content’.)

One major difference between ESO and ‘Meatspace’ is collectives. In ESO, collectives in the form of guilds are always optional. ‘Meatspace’, however, features multiple collectives that are mandatory to varying degrees.

With mandatory education comes mandatory participation in several classes, each new context bringing networking, education, and socialization into play.

Modern economies typically uphold the labor market as a central institution, making it mostly obligatory to be part of a  ‘guild’ organized around specific types of profit-⁠making grinds.

The employee must overcome the tension between the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ and find a way to participate in this kind of functional organization, where having a social identity that can solve a given type of problem is important.

(Business owners also rely on such collectives, but on somewhat different premises.)

These examples and the fact that many more could be given lend strength to the conclusion that the concepts of grind outcomes, task availability, access to task, and levels of social reliance (as presented in the form of heuristic, analytical categories in this text) have some degree of validity in ‘Meatspace’.

Conclusions

Exploring the “Elder Scrolls” universe in an MMORPG format has been an entertaining learning experience.

I recently saw a meme joking about how people get tired and demotivated after half an hour of being at their job but are somehow able to spend an unlimited number of hours becoming a “level 50 wizard”.

That may be how some people experience things, but grinding is built into the MMORPG genre, and it also emulates aspects of the human social experience by providing an open-⁠world framework featuring cities, a virtual economy, virtual characters to interact with, human peers in the form of other players, etc.

In such cases of ‘art imitating life’, of which ESO is but one example, it’s interesting that the nature of what you must do in the game resembles aspects of repetitive work on long-⁠term goals, including organizational and social aspects.

Becoming conscious of this could enable players to have their lives in Meatspace imitate this art ‘back’ in beneficial ways.

The heuristics presented here could be used in planning and managing grinds, which are present in very many aspects of life, at the surface level.

The categories don’t indicate what to grind, but you can use them for considering the characteristics of potential grinds, determining whetherthey’re feasible in your situation, and deciding on an appropriate overall approach.

I also acknowledge that, in both ESO and Meatspace, some aspects of grinding rely on other people and the way you interact with them through organizational constructs.

The reflections on social aspects presented here only scratch at the surface of concepts such as identity, networking, education, and socialization.

Even so, the text contributes with an awareness of such dynamics, and I would encourage thevreader, no matter how ‘(a)social’ they feel, to learn a bit of basic theory within related concepts. That’s an empowering thing that helps you manage get things done in situations where you can’t do everything alone.

This has also been a demonstration of how an analytical-philosophical synthesis of principles from a virtual game universe could be used for heuristic and pedagogical purposes outside the game.

It’s obvious that this exploration of grinding is only a starting point for ‘bringing the grind to Meatspace’, but it seems feasible tovdo so, transcending the stereotype that games are ‘just games’ with no connection to other aspects of life. ■

Published 14 June 2022.
Last updated 12 June 2023.

Bibliography

  1. Abbott, Andrew. 2004.
    “Methods of Discovery: Heuristics for the Social Sciences.” New York: W.W. Norton.
    https://wwnorton.⁠com/books/9780393978148
  2. Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. 2015.
    “Socialization in Emerging Adulthood: From the Family to the Wider World, from Socialization to Self-⁠Socialization.” In Handbook of Socialization: Theory and Research, Second Edition. Edited by Joan E. Grusec and Paul D. Hastings. New York: The Guilford Press, 85-⁠104.
    https://guilford.⁠com/books/Handbook-of-⁠Socialization/Grusec-⁠Hastings/9781462525829
  3. Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and Thesaurus.
    “Meatspace.” Cambridge University Press. Accessed on 13 June 2022.
    https://dictionary.cambridge.⁠org/dictionary/english/meatspace
  4. Capps, John. 2019.
    “The Pragmatic Theory of Truth.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2019 Edition. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Accessed on 13 June 2022.
    https://plato.stanford.⁠edu/archives/sum2019/entries/truth-⁠pragmatic
  5. Collins English Dictionary.
    “Meatspace.” HarperCollins Publishers. Accessed on 13 June 2022.
    https://collinsdictionary.⁠com/dictionary/english/meatspace
  6. Grusec, Joan E., and Paul D. Hastings. 2015.
    “Preface.” In Handbook of Socialization: Theory and Research, Second Edition. Edited by Joan E. Grusec and Paul D. Hastings. New York: The Guilford Press, xi–⁠xiii.
    https://guilford.⁠com/books/Handbook-of-⁠Socialization/Grusec-⁠Hastings/9781462525829
  7. Hertwig, Ralph, Ulrich Hoffrage, and ABC Research Group (eds.). 2012.
    “Simple Heuristics in a Social World.” Oxford University Press.
    https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388435.001.0001
  8. Jørgensen, Carsten René. 2008.
    “Identitet – ⁠psykologiske og kultur­analytiske perspektiver.” Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
    https://hansreitzel.dk/products/identitet-bog-18901-9788741253732
  9. Marian, David. 2020.
    “The Correspondence Theory of Truth.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2020 Edition. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Accessed on 13 June 2022.
    https://plato.stanford.⁠edu/archives/win2020/entries/truth⁠-correspondence
  10. Merriam-⁠Webster. 2016.
    “What Is Meatspace?” Words We’re Watching. Accessed on 13 June 2022.
    https://merriam-⁠webster.⁠com/words-⁠at-⁠play/what-⁠is-⁠meatspace
  11. O’Sullivan, Catherine, and Terry O’Sullivan. 2022.
    “Networking: innovation and ideas.” In Business Networking: Innovation and Ideas in Theory and Practice, pages 1-⁠6. London and New York: Routledge.
    https://routledge.⁠com/Business-Networking-Innovation-and-⁠Ideas-⁠in-⁠Theory-⁠and-⁠Practice/OSullivan-⁠OSullivan/p/⁠book/9780367460280
  12. Young, James O.  2018.
    “The Coherence Theory of Truth.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2018 Edition. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Accessed on 13 June 2022.
    https://plato.stanford.⁠edu/archives/fall2018/entries/truth-⁠coherence