Episode 107

Game

Kitten game, tree game, human game. Season Three, Summer Vacation, is whatever I feel like talking about that’s not the movie we’re making. I’m discovering who I am by what I want to talk about. Solipsistic in the sense that I can only guess at why you’re here, listening or watching, but I might be able to ferret out my own motivations for making this podcast, especially while we’re on break from Daughter of God centricity.

What I can know about you is that you ARE out there. If I am the preacher, you’re more like the choir than the congregation; you’re already resonating. Some of these episodes feel like sermons. Preaching to the choir implies superfluous speech, evangelizing to the already saved. Not quite like reminding folks about what they already know, because maybe they forgot. The choir hasn’t forgotten. You’re going just as deep as me.

Back in 2009 and 2010, I sailed a Hobie Cat around Lake Michigan searching for artifacts of emerging sustainable civilizations. I fully expect this humans-on-Earth game to get more amazing; I can feel us rewilding, gradually. I went looking for hints of that and found a few. Check out www.desire.movie for documentation.

We can find whatever we’re looking for. That’s the power of imagination. Artifacts instantiated because I went looking for them. They might not have been there before I started sailing; that’s the subtle point I’m making here. My desire might have brought them into being. Likely did.

External objects, other people, recorded history… are we responsible for all that? If there is no sentient life in the universe other than on the planet Earth, but we write novels about vast galactic civilizations anyway, make movies involving visitors from other planets, and generally get excited about aliens among us, will they eventually show up?

The idea that we are living in a software simulation, a game, has been proposed by fancy thinkers. I think the prevailing theory is that we people are all also simulations, an entire planet of nonplayer characters (NPCs), in game design parlance. Maybe a zillion eons ago, there was an actual Earth with trees and animals running around composed of actual atoms, but nowadays, Earth is merely an app. Because apps are cheaper than atoms. There’s evidence for this, they say.

What’s the difference between an atom-based reality and a simulated reality? Couldn’t a super-advanced civilization whip up an atom-based universe? Maybe cost is a primitive 21st century concept, or maybe atoms are the cheapest medium for simulation.

What if the game designers wanted to play the game too? What if they designed a game for themselves? For ourselves? What if we’re all playing a game so immersive we forgot we were playing? The ultimate MMO. That’s where we’re taking games, where I would want my games to go, if I should ever get back into designing games. The human game supposedly lasts 100 years, give or take. Followed by snacks and showers in heaven. Then respawn. Because we love to play!

A key element of such a game would be the concept of waiting. Because action is more intense when contrasted with nonaction. Or at least, the idea of nonaction, of having to wait.

Waiting — when the moment we’re living is about (focused on) what almost is. Being in the Metro station between trains. The transition between one scenario and another.

I just got back from the East Coast, 15 hours one way by car. For me, driving on highways isn’t very different from being driven. There’s certainly attention required, but not as much as making pancakes (see Episode 103).

Is driving is so effortless? Was I really just waiting for the trip to be done? Did I fill the hours up with podcasts, audiobooks, and music to help pass the time? That’s what I would have done if I were waiting. Distracting myself