Well, spawned by an MPSIMS thread wherein I bared my views which were of a religious nature, some posters suggested I bring it here. While I am unaware of their motivation for that suggestion, it is one I had been considering for some time anyway. Actually, I had considered posting it in MPSIMS itself, but since it likely is a religious view or could be considered as one I suppose I’ll bow to inevitability and let it ride.
So here we go. I will forego telling it as it came to me which may distract from the idea itself.
There have been some possibly timeless questions in life, but even those all have a common source: the idea of “Why?” Why do people kill each other? Why is the night sky dark? Why are there wars? Why do we have to kill to live?
And as we travel along our world lines, quite a few people have stepped up with an answer, or at least a good way to avoid asking. We;ve had religions, scientists, philosophers-- all talking about what it means to be human; and, beign human, what that implies to humans.
In the end, however, we fail to even be able to meaningfully define something “obvious” like consciousness, life, or God. Or philosophers ond philosophic theists have failed many of us. Our scientists continue to plod along in explaining the universe by answering these simple questions with more complicated ones. Current theories tell us everything in essentially unpredictable and may or may not exist in more dimensions that we can isually imagine.
I think that avoids the issue. I think both William and his dutiful followers have misapplied the principle (need a shave, anyone?). Explanations themselves are superfluous. It is quite possible we will never know everything. It is very likely no individual can ever know I even if we as a civilization collectively can.
But I’m going to go farther than that. We cannot ever know everything. Because that is not The Point.
So when I was thinking about what the whole point of video games-- and all games in general were-- after some time it began to dawn on me. Our entire life has been a series of different games.
We spend our spare time (time not absolutely spent on survival) with games of some sort: politics, careers, further education, personal relationships. We form teams and compete for resources.
We spend what we would consider our spare time on gaming: philosophy, logic, mathematics, debate, cards, chess, more politics, more personal relationships…
The more I thought about it, the less I could explain without involving likening it to a game of some sort. As of the time of this writing I have yet to notice something that can’t be explained in terms of gaming mechanics, either in team form or a one-on-one (or one-on-many) form.
And I think I have a reason for this. Admittedly, it is one of those reasons which are “conveniently” untestable, so I expect to hear as much from the board. That’s fine. I think we as a race have accepted a ton of metaphysical baggage which cannot be tested; while I think many feel they don’t have faith (and I have agreed as much in the threads we’ve seen about it) I can say that not a single person can prove everything they believe. I don’t expect them to.
The reason we are a gaming group, the reason competition is a part of life, the reason why everything cannot be explained is this: we are in a game.
Not a typical game. Not a video game, not in some futuristic virtual reality diversion. A game through and through, however.
And what cinched it for me was a pretty simple postulate with no qualifiers and a distinct lack of completeness (heh): consciousness exists. No, it doesn’t exist in anything. No, I will not define what I actually mean by consciousness. I think that if you can post to this message board your conception of consciousness is sufficient for understanding what that means, when one combines it with a little imagination.
If you are only comfortable with thinking of consciousness existing as something you are already making the biggest mistake a game player can make: applying the rules of one game to another.
See, when you play chess, you don’t expect he other player to hold on 16 because “holding on 16” is meaningless in the context of chess. We similarly don’t expect shooting soldiers to debate on the subject of racial inequality. That;s not what one does in war.
Each context holds its own rules. I am saying that the biggest context is consciousness. For our concerns, it is a single consciousness. Why do I say that?
If you’ve gotten this far and have some understanding of pure consciousness, you may have had a hard time not picturing it being in something (maybe you haven’t, I don’t know). But we’e talking about a consciousness that is totally in nothing. And…it…is…bored.
So, like all good consciousnesses, it starts thinking. And thinking. And thinking. Can you see where I’m going with this? It’s probably pretty obvious by now…
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I would have posted that but for the fact that there isn’t much to talk about when you bring up Eris-- just toss out the second law of thermodynamics and the uncertainty principle and have them wrestle with that for a time while you calmly but passionately disbelieve the local paper and munch on a hot dog (complete with bun).