Evolution, Science & Religion (Evolution)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, June 17, 2012, 02:08 (4331 days ago) @ David Turell

Romansh: My western world view (as do all of ours) have eastern influences. Take one of Christ's most monistic statements I and my father are one. Yet our dualistic interpretation of Christianity sets us apart from god. 
> > My western world view (as do all of ours) have eastern influences. Take one of Christ's most monistic statements I and my father are one. Yet our dualistic interpretation of Christianity sets us apart from god.
> 
> David: And that is where my ideas fit in. Our intelligence is simply a part of the universal intelligence even though we feel we are independent-That is exactly the point. The designer in me understands the concept of separate but unified. They are not mutually exclusive. From the Cristian perspective, the son and the father were united in purpose, though they each had a unique persona. Just like in a well designed game, all of the hardware, software, and agents within the game create a unified whole. -The interesting parallel with this analogy is how the player, or humans, fit in to the picture. In both cases it is exactly the same, surprisingly enough. Humans represent not only the disorder that is needed to make the system come alive, but also the order that the system needs to achieve its fullest potential. A game with no players isn't any fun. A game without a player does not create any meaningful experience. -The other interesting thing, which also parallels, is what happens when the player works in unity with the game. They enter a state that we call flow. Eastern religions might call it Zen, or some transcendental experience. It is the experience of living in exactly one moment. Not the past, not the not the future. We become part of the chaos and the order and the system all at the same time. We do not lose who we are, but who we are takes a back seat to our purpose within the system. That is why games are so addictive. Our brains actually offer up huge rewards for entering that state. We perform better. We make better decisions. We stop worrying. We feel no fear. We ENJOY it. We have fun. -It is only when players are jolted out of that zone that the game loses its appeal. They try to KNOW the game instead of living in the moment of it. They analyze the statistics, the paths, the conversation, the design. They start to question everything. Then they start to moan and complain because they think that they are underpowered or overpowered, or because the game isn't the way that THEY wanted it. They worry about things like player ranking or whether their achievements are being recognized and rewarded appropriately. Their ego takes over, their knowing brain. -Game Design history offers us a third interesting parallel, this time to the course of human history, in time lapse. In the last 40 years of actual video game design, through roughly three generations of gamers, the games have gone from challenging, groundbreaking, creative works that pushed the boundaries and inspired growth to easy, from content driven to rewards driven. Now it must be shiny and new and appealing. It must have what other games don't and no one is allowed to fail. Meaningless rewards and superficial platitudes are handed out to everyone for the most pedestrian of accomplishments in order to appease their ego and make them feel special. (Sounds a lot like the evolution of humanity to me.)

--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.