"Advanced" use of virtual worlds? (Re: [MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs)

[Matt Mihaly]

On Sat, 16 Feb 2002, Travis Casey wrote:
> On Wednesday 13 February 2002 3:57, Matt Mihaly wrote:
 
>> Nod, I mis-spoke really. It is, actually though, impossible for
>> someone to play your -specific- character. That would require
>> that everyone have exactly the same idea of what the character
>> is, which fundamentally is impossible. From an essay on Ideas by
>> Dr. Harold Brown, "Ideas are subjective in that individuals can
>> be aware only of their own ideas. If two individuals are
>> imagining Pegasus or thinking about the Pythagorean theorem, each
>> is directly aware of a distinct idea, although these ideas may
>> share many features. This is analogous to the sense in which two
>> reproductions of the Mona Lisa are distinct objects even though
>> most of their properties are identical, but it is impossible for
>> one individual to inspect another's ideas."
 
>> The salient point in my argument is that anything -you- do as a
>> roleplayer comes from you. A character cannot have any ideas (an
>> idea requires a mind) or thoughts. You can form the idea of a
>> character having an idea, but it is you having the idea and
>> pretending it was the character.

> Of course, we can go to this level with any ideas.  Do horses
> exist?  I have a specific idea in mind when I talk about a
> "horse", which is not exactly the same as your idea of a "horse".
> We can argue, then, that there is no such thing as a horses.

Well, no. You're mushing together particulars and universals, which
are not treated the same way. I don't think enough people on the
list have enough of a background in philosophy to make it worth
having a discussion on it here, but briefly, consider a few
questions you might ask yourself about universals (keeping in mind
that 'horse' is a universal whereas Bob the Horse is a particular):

  Ontological:

    What is it in "reality" that conforms to universal concepts?  Do
    universals even exist? (For instance, Plato felt that his Ideas,
    which are essentially universals, had a separate existence.)

  Psychological:

    How are these universals formed inside a mind?

  Epistemelogical:

    Is it possible to actually "know" anything at all about reality?

And then consider that there are a number of different schools of
thought. For instance:

  Conceptualism
  -------------

    a. Universals exist as long as there are minds to perceive them.

    b. A thing is called A simply because it is thought to be A.

    c. You have to ask whether universals can exist in nonverbal or
    nonlinguistic thought.

  Nominalism
  ----------

    a. Universals can exist only as long as there are words.

    b. Without language, even with mind, there wouldn't be any
    universals.

    c. A thing is A because it is called A.

  Realism
  -------

    a. Universals are independent of mind.
    b. Things are called A because they are A. 

Anyway, it's a complicated area, and if I went on, I'd start
babbling about things like the objections based on apodictic
transformation schemata, and so on.

I'm actually going to bow out of this real vs. virtual discussion
now, mainly because (and I mean no offence to anyone) there doesn't
appear to be enough people with sufficient
ontological/epistemelogical backgrounds on the list to make it a
discussion as opposed to a lecture. Sorry if that seems like a
cop-out, but I feel (again, NO offence meant) like JC trying to
discuss coding with, say, me. I don't have the background knowledge
to contribute usefully to a productive discussion on coding.

--matt

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