Game of life

After an hour or so of riding, I stop at the highest point of the parkway. I pull in at the lookout and take the mandatory picture next to the sign.

There's not a soul around. Not a sound, other than the soothing, whispering wind and rustling leaves.

Munch, drink, take-in, reflect.

As I stand at the highest point of the BRP and look out over the valley, I'm again reminded that the greatest experiences in life require us to physically move ourselves to where the experience lives. For example, my being on the BRP this morning.

So far, everything we experience results from direct physical experience. We need to displace atoms ie move our bodies from one location to another. Our senses first experience and then translate this to information. At this point, we experience.

However, if you go to Yellowstone National Park in mid July, you will be among many thousands of people. The park will be clogged with traffic, hot dog vendors, blaring music, etc. It then becomes a different beast altogether. You will no longer be able to enjoy the solitude and serenity of Yellowstone.

I wonder if one day we will be able to move information instead of atoms. The corollary here is taking out a library book. To gain access to the information in the book (to experience it), a person must physically go to the library and access it or take it out. Once a person takes out that book it is not available for anyone else. This is an atom-based system. The law of scarcity.

With the digital age, a person can download the book, transferring bits of information instead of moving atoms. This is an information-based system or digital-based system. Countless people can download the same book. The law of abundance. Hmm. . .

Further along this thought, I sometimes wonder if one day technology will enable us to experience events at an other-than- physical level. The movie Total Recall was interesting in its presentation of that concept. You pay for a virtual adventure, load the appropriate software, and go off on and enjoy.

With sufficiently advanced technology, you could dream your adventure in another time dimension. You could, for example, live out a five year adventure and come back to discover that you've only been gone 5 minutes. The movie What Dreams May Come (Robbin Williams) also touched upon this. And, of course, The Matrix was another movie that challenged our concepts of possible virtual realities.

In this case, you could visit Yellowstone in mid-July in total isolation and tranquility, if this were your choice.

So what if we were to invent a game the object of which was to experience fully -- to re-connect us with more intense experience.

You could choose any adventure you wanted, any lifestyle. Live it fully and with full realism (indistinguishable from reality), in your mind, and then come back to discover that you've only been gone several minutes. And of course, it would be free. What kind of adventures would you choose?

In an eight hour day, you could live twenty lifetimes and be back in time for supper. Imagine what you could experience during a two week vacation!

I'm sure some would initially choose easy, posh lives, living on the French Riviera, enjoying debonair lifestyles of the rich and famous. But after two-three hundred lifetimes of this, it might get boring. Some would no doubt progressively choose more demanding adventures where challenges, hardships, and adversity might be part of the game. Remember, the object is to experience more intensely.

For full realism and effect, there would be no way to tell that this was a simulation once you were in it. But no matter how much adversity you chose, you would come back post-adventure to see that all was well. You would realize, "hey that was cool". "I want to try more!"

My hunch is that in order to experience ever more intensely, some would eventually dial in the adversity in its many forms.

If this were possible, what types of adventures would we indulge in?

Of course, everyone would know that the character/identity we chose for the adventure would not be our real selves. There would be no status involved, no ego. It would be just like a suit of clothes that we put on to play a role. All roles would be equally good. We would always return to our real identities after the adventure.

Given this, no one would feel threatened in trying out roles that might be more marginal. Hence, some might actually be curious to know what it would be like to live in underdeveloped countries and try that once or twice. Or experience what it would be like to live as a gangster in the underworld.

Eventually, some memory leakage might occur. Someone having played this game several hundred times might retain some sensitivity or insight during the game. Hence, this more experienced or wiser player would tend to perceive everything in the game with a certain detachment.

Knowing that all was in fact well, this player would feel less compelled to judge or to defend points of view. Little would profoundly disturb him/her. Of course, in this setting, the danger would be to become overly pre-occupied with understanding the meaning of the game while in it. The point being to experience the game, not understand it. Hmmm. . .

Some might eventually be intrigued to experience what it would be like to be a lion on the Savannah. They would deal with the constant struggle of living day to day, of needing to hunt for subsistence (lions cannot store food in freezers, hence daily hunts). This introduces the element of uncertainty.

Initially, many would choose the powerful predators. That's ok. Nothing wrong with that. But after countless iterations as lions or tigers, some might possibly be curious as to what it might be like to live as prey: An impala, a zebra, or a gazelle.

Curious to play out the drama of life in all its splendor, the intensity of being on constant alert, of actually running for your life and experiencing that charge of adrenaline. That must be quite a high!

Later still, some might become curious of experiencing what the insect world might be like. A whole universe to discover. Keep in mind this is all virtual reality. Not for real. Not your real identity. The role you would choose would not be the real you. Just a role.

Of course this game would have levels (don't all video games?). It would also be multi-threaded and multi-sharing. We could participate in adventures with fellow friends or other groups, as long as we chose adventures that were compatible with the general theme being played out.

The ultimate level would involve beginning an adventure at its inception ie the birth of a world. The object would be to participate, along with others, in the development of the life forms in this virtual world. Successive iterations would span thousands of years in the game but only days or weeks in real life.

To ensure that participants committed fully to the adventure, each would be given (as part of the software) a strong instinct of survival or attachment to his/her chosen role. So that once in the game, no participant would want to just leave.

As the game evolved, we could add certain features. For example, if we wanted to learn or master certain experiences, the software could be programmed to keep presenting us with these experiences (or lessons) until we mastered them.

In normal video games when you fail at a test or challenge along a progression, you start over from the beginning. Here, the lesson to be mastered would just keep popping up in your adventure until you mastered it. And of course, in each iteration we would have selected adventure parameters beforehand. (The movie Groundhog Day is a gem in this regard).

So then, what would we tell someone who in our adventure tried to change us, to get us back on what they considered the better track? Or who tried to change the outcome of certain events (not their own)?

Why. . .not to meddle, of course!

And just what would we call such game?

Why. . .The game of life, of course!

Bruno
Montreal, Canada