I want to start a youtube serial soap opera, as a vast allegory for the great debates in philosophy. Each character would represent some fundamental philo-religo-cultural perspective on life, and (in TNG style) each episode could be interpreted as a dialogue across history about some big question, although that isn’t what it would look like on the surface.

Each scene in a good soap operas represents less a segment of a story than a twist. Dewey is furious at Eve for cheating on him, but in their fight learns that Paul, an old friend, is about to die. A few scenes later, Eve is talking to Diane about how to save her marriage, only for Diane to accidentally reveal that she had an affair with Dewey. Paul talks to Dewey in his hospital bed, but in place of the carefree guy Dewey knew, Paul has become bitter and mis-remembers his past with Dewey.

Now think of the unexpected twists of philosophical learning– take the question of the soul. Dewey presumes a duality between the body and the soul, but Eve shows him that if so the mind is a part of the body. Eve believes that that people are only particles, but Diane raises the question of free will. Free will requires an agent, but Paul throws that into confusion with a vision of a multi-part soul.

Over the course of the series, Dewey dualism will reach feverish heights, in part to placate Eve’s empiricism, until Eve has a baby (science). Paul might represent monotheism, and vacillate between conservative and socialist ideals. Diane would be the naturalist, believing in equal parts freedom and protection, and transition from believe in many gods to one all-present goddess.