[MUD-Dev] You, the game of philosophy.

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Derrick Jones <gunther at online1.magnus1.com> wrote:
Ola wrote:
>> Correction, the characters YOU play are puppets. Or at least you
>> believe so.  How can you be so certain that my puppet isn't me?

>Pretty much so.  You'll still wake up tomorrow if my game-world proves too
>dangerous a place for your puppet to survive.

Oh, but the puppet is still me.  You've just killed a part of me. Like
cutting off a limb, maybe a part of my brain.  Very nasty, indeed!

>>Are you that obsessed with my exterior?
>I think I missed this one.  I'm going out on a limb to guess that you mean
>that the character appears differently from the player.  Well, yeah.  The
>character is a series of 1's and 0's stored magnetically on disk, while
>you are real.

Are you sure that I cannot be encoded with 1's and 0's ?  In fact a
large part of me is encoded in strings of 4 symbols, almost everything
of my physical body is.  What is the essential difference?

>>  Another thing to think about, I have total control over a real puppet.
>Put a sock puppet on your hand.  Now make it fly.  You don't have complete
>control over the puppet.  The puppet is constrained by the (real world's)
>laws of physics.  Now tell your puppet to compute the last digit of pi.

Sure, it can do all of this.

Ola: Fly puppet, fly!!
(makes a move with the hand)
Ola: Wooooooooow, you ARE good at flying!
Ola: Now, compute the last digit of pi.
Puppet: Ok.... hmmm....
(5 seconds pause, Puppet computes the last digit of pi)
Puppet: Done!
Ola: Now, what was it?
Puppet: What?
Ola: The last digit of pi?
Puppet: I've already done that one!! Now, give me something challenging!
(etc)

That's the wonder of real Puppets, they can even do what we might
otherwise think to be intractable.  It is a matter of artistic
freedom.

>> What you suggest is that I control the puppet intelectually with a
>> proper mental distance, but I find myself emotionally involved.
>> That's where the fun is.  That distance you value would block my fun.
>
>I 'suggest' that you realize that it is only a game.  That you keep enough
>emotional and intellectual distance to realize that the mud-world isn't
>real.  I'd also 'suggest' seeking help if the distinction is blurred in
>your mind.

I suggest you think about the fact that you cannot assume what other
users SHOULD think, do, feel or believe.  You can only try to observe
these things and feed that information back into your design.

(and I suggest you look up some books of philosophy and psychology,
where I believe you would find support for this idea.)

>Yes, it could be argued that what we refer to as 'the real world' is
>merely an illusion, and we are merely computer simulations playing what
>the designers argue to be a non-realistic game.  But I prefer to approach
>life thru the assumption that I do exist, as does my environment.

"as does my environment", but a virtual world is "my environment" !!
The information in a virtual world is just as "real" as the
information contained in the physical world. If I build a castle of
bricks and somebody pulls it down to annoy me, I will get terribly
upset. I will get equally upset if this happens in a computer world.

>However, there is seemingly inconvrovertable evidence that the world
>simulated in the code I wrote is not real (I'd be real impressed if I
>managed to create a real universe).

It is real, if the user deals with it that way.  Maybe not PHYSCIAL,
but just as real.  What is "a real universe"?  Something equal to what
you belive you KNOW about the physical universe you live in?

Assume you did create a real universe, totally compatible with the
ideas you have about te physical universe which you belive you live
in. And then later had a giant paradigmshift in science telling you
that your physical universe is totally different from what you
previously assumed.  Would the fact that your created universe now is
believed to be fundamentally different from the physical universe,
make it less real?

>People realize that under normal circumstances a lottery ticket is a poor
>investment, but the 'thrill' of gambling is worth the price of a ticket.
>If there is a decent jackpot, buying a ticket may initiate hours of
>pleasant daydreaming with those closest to you.  How much is that
>experience worth?  If you play the lottery and _expect_ to win, then your
>perception of reality is a bit distorted, as it is distorted if you
>believe it is not you shelling out the money for tickets, win or lose.

Ah, but where is the "thrill" coming from?  Not from a realistic
(probability based) judgement.

>> "you" ? Is that a mental or physical entity?  Does it exists?  Is it
>> one thing or many things?  Is it a separate entity?  Can you prove to
>> me that you exists outside this game world called mud-dev?  You forget
>I don't exist.  I'm only a character on AddictionMUD.  If you believe
>that, you need help.

No, I don't think I need help, because I don't believe in anything you
write.  However, I find it practical to assume that you somehow are
involved in building muds.  I wouldn't be terribly upset if that is
not the case.

>> that one part of your brain might accept that this is "only a game"
>> while another part of your brain ignore that "fact".  Which part of
>> your brain is more "you" than the other?  Which part is dominating
>> during gameplay?
>definitions:
>	player--the human being sitting at the computer.
>	character--a virtual being existing only within the confines of

Where is this simpleminded "atomic" classification scheme coming from?
Where is the human mind? Are you suggesting that my character does not
exist in my head?  If that is the case, why bother to play at all??
:^)

>the game, controlled by the player.
>Still confused which is 'you'?  (here's a test to find out if you guessed
>right: pinch yourself...did you type 'pinch me'? or did you reach down
>and grab your buttocks?  Which one causes 'you' pain?)

Neither, I thought about the concept "pinch".  If my puppet isn't me,
then my body isn't either.  Most of my body can be replaced anyway,
eventually, maybe all of it (on a microlevel it is, every 7 years, I
guess).

Ola.

(Of course, your position is understandable, but I don't think it is
valid in general. It is very pragmatic and very biased by typical
oversimplified human classification.  Same thing that leads to totally
illogical conclusions of the type "looks similar => is equal".)