Video games and the Law of One

[Ali Quadir]

Welcome to the forum Sylverone.

>by Al Quadir
>I do not consider artificial computer agents conscious.

I think they might be. The artificial agents are us. I've been thinking about this for a while: when we play a video game or use our computer, are we not incarnating into that reality? Therefore, the mouse pointer on the computer, or the game character on a console has as much consciousness as we channel through it; just like we have the consciousness that our soul channels into/through us.

Well, they're not. I've built a few of them. Artificial intelligence is one of my joys in life. And they're scripts that respond to variables. Not souls experiencing a body. You're no script file I ever wrote..

Some materialists hold the view that the human consciousness is nothing more than a script with variables. These people usually don't even understand that the hard problem of consciousness is a real problem.

Perhaps I take the analogy too far, but would this mean that our lives here are only as real to the next level up as the video game characters' are to us? We play many games, in which these characters may die again and again, so that we may learn, just as we may have many incarnations here, so that our soul may learn. I'm not sure, but it's very interesting to think about. A video game is just another illusion within our illusion, which we may enter as freely as we entered this one.

The similarities between life and video games are due to the fact that video games are modeled after life. A painting I make of you is modeled after you. Yet I doubt you would consider it to have any other kinship to you. Why would you consider video game entities to be different from figures in a painting?

You should entertain these analogies. They sharpen the mind and the imagination. But I doubt you should take this particular train of thought very seriously.

>Al Quadir
>There are no negative consequences from losing a game. But there are
>positive consequences.

This is your perception, but I don't think it is shared by all. I've seen people go into rages because they lost a game, or were having difficulties with one. We determine the nature of our own consequences, I think. The choice of how to perceive things is always there. It's just another learning experience in the long run; I just want to provide an alternate perspective.

I appreciate the effort. However it seems to me that those people who fly into fits of rage upon losing a game. Really... REALLY need the practice at losing games preferably behind some inanimate object that doesn't feel the negative consequences of their wrath. And instead follows the rules of it's logic to their inevitable conclusions.

If you lose a video game that is winnable and not purely random at it. Then there is no one to blame but you. It is your actions that cause winning or losing. Anger isn't going to make a difference. Perseverance and insight is.

The world isn't without the ability to lose. What if we lose? Are we going to fly of the handle and act like a moron because we never even had the experience of losing something as trivial as a game? Let me remind you that real world losses are immeasurably more painful than having your nightelf die on you.