Making Life More Like Games
"We can take what we?ve learned by making games and apply it to reality, to make real life work more like a game ? not make our games more realistic and lifelike, but make our real life more game like ? so that when people all over the world wake up every morning, they wake up with a mission, with allies, with a sense of being a part of a bigger story, part of a system that wants them to be happy." Making Life More Like Games World Without OilMore Stuff The Lost Ring
So anyone else have any interesting thoughts they want to just throw out here? Though by interesting thoughts I mean thoughts of you own and things that make you think. I think I had one more thing to add but I cannot recall what it is now.
__________________________
Eagles get sucked into jet engines and weasels are oft maligned, but beavers just make nice hats. WCG|FA@H
From: The Happy Hunting Grounds... Insane since: Mar 2001
posted 06-12-2008 11:15
Well, if we make life more like games, will that mean that games will then be made like...ermm...work?
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "get to work!"
On the serious side, I think that things will start to get more like the Holodeck of the Enterprise from StarTrek (in fact, the first beta version has been developed that allows one to use their bare hands to manipulate 3d objects in a hologram environment).
That will probably be how the future workplace looks - one will not need to leave home at all. One merely steps into the "Holo room" and calls up the Work Program and is there.
WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles
I've been thinking about multiple dimensions lately. Not necessarily multiple dimensions, but adding more dimensions to existing problems.
For example, 3d rotation has it's problems. But when you add another dimension, you suddenly have quaternions and the problems are fixed. Take something 3d, make it 4d, and tada.
Can you add another dimension or two to fix other problems?
What about adding another problem by adding another dimension? For example, quats again. With quats, it is possible to get more than one solution and suddenly your 3d rotations are 180 degrees.
And then there is the problem of extrapolating data. Sometimes it's redundant and not really another dimension. For example, K in CMYK.
As the saying goes, you can't recover data that isn't there.
So lets say that you want to add another dimension. What exactly do you fill it with? Can you fill it meaningfully, or will it just be a rehash of already existing data?
I suppose you could try node-based AI.
Let's say that you have a photograph that is in greyscale and you want to colourize it. You want to take K and make it RGB with as little human intervention as possible.
Start with X, Y, and K. Use some node-based AI to extrapolate another dimension or data set. Run it through some more AI or whatever, and see what pretty things pop out at the RGB end.
Meaningful chaos, as I like to call it. I've seen some pretty bizarre artsy-fartsy things come of this.
Can a similiar plan of attack be used to do other things? Can this be applied to colour balance? Smarter sharpening? How much human intervention will be needed?
Those are the kinds of thoughts that I play with on occassion.
I got tons of them funny little thoughts and ideas. Some are a little more abstract than others.
One fun idea to play with is that Lab is 3d. Doing gamma in 3d Lab from (128,0,0) is kind of neat. Doing gravity simulations can yield some interesting effects (nothing like shooting Lab values through the center and out the other side because you didn't bother putting in collision detection). Energy fields with tension and things like that. All of those formulas you learned in physics and math et al are certaintly applicable. Even simple vectors tricks can be uber.
"The goverment that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
I've usualy heard this in reference to why rich people should not have to pay for public services they do not use themselves, therefore taxes and public services should be cut. And in that regard I think it is wrong. I've always happly paid my taxes and will continue to do so. Infact I think Canada should temperaly up its taxes to cover some of the monetary short falls for infrastructure that we currently have.
But now look at Zimbabwee. Mugabi has taken land from white farmers and given it to people that support him. Those supports have been interviewed saying, why not vote for Mugabe; he gave us our land. That is where that saying can be applied.
The full line of reasons for why he is getting away with this is a disscussion all its own but he does have the support of "Paul". This is a problem as he is taking the land under the guise of land reform that is needed in Zimbawbwee (In part to solve some of the peoplems that Mugabi has caused by pretending to do so) and giving it to people in order to get their votes. This article is realted.
My last complaint with that saying is that you can replace the word goverment with anyone.
Perhaps more accuralty:
"People tend not to look too closly at the source of their prosperity and will often blindly support the process that provides it."
__________________________
Eagles get sucked into jet engines and weasels are oft maligned, but beavers just make nice hats. WCG|FA@H
So anyone else have any interesting thoughts they want to just throw out here? Though by interesting thoughts I mean thoughts of you own and things that make you think.
For some time now I have been formulating a theory on life, the universe and everything. It is still in its formative stages but since I have read this thread I have been tempted to twiddle around with it again. I made a little note of it in my cell so I'll add it here as well.
Consider this, just for the purpose of explaining my thoughts, let us say that the "standard" model of explanation of the universe as proposed by "The Big Bang" is true or actual. Everything starts from a singularity, a quantum cascade occurs and time and space are created.
As it stands at the moment we humans can only discern a small percentage of the matter we believe to exist in the universe. We also believe that the general term "Dark Matter" may well make up some or most of the matter we can not yet measure.
One strand of the Big Bang theory states that if there is enough matter eventually the universe will stop expanding and start the process of collapsing in on itself. After aeons of time there will occur what is called the "Big Crunch" when matter collapses in on itself so much that the super density will become so compressed that all matter will form a black hole or singularity again.
If that is so, and for the sake of this theory I am postulating it is. Then all space and all of time will be held in that one singularity.
In that one "moment" we will all exist for eternity. Not only that but we will all also be one.
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together"
In Taoist thought, the Tao is the mother of all things, like the proposed singularity from which the universe exploded. The Yin Yang symbol is a representation of this first state of being, and from this first state all other things arose.
I'm a lazy theorist, perhaps with your help we could test the truth of this through argument and discussion. Perhaps we could formulate a theory of everything, a complete unified theory, a way of life? I bagsy choosing the official robes should a sect form.
Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
I have this terrible habit of getting distracted before I hit the submit button. Anyways, what I meant to post yesterday was I am intersted in working with your idea Tao and it should probaly get its own thread.
And bagsy on getting a cool hat.
__________________________
Eagles get sucked into jet engines and weasels are oft maligned, but beavers just make nice hats. WCG|FA@H
I think we should have hats for novices and hoods for adepts for all the obvious reasons
I'm rather busy atm fighting one of Salamandras monsters in The Witcher. For now I'll leave a link or two to Fritjof Capra. I found the book The Tao of Physics very interesting as indeed I also found The Tao of Pooh en-lightening too, nearly as much as all A.A. Milne books on Pooh. I've tried to get a good link to some Pooh sites but they all seem to be infected with Disney crap, so I'll just C&P a randon verse from this geocities site.
quote:
Where am I going? I don't quite know.
Down to the stream where the king-cups grow-
Up on the hill where the pine-trees blow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.
Where am I going? The clouds sail by,
Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.
Where am I going? The shadows pass,
Little ones, baby ones, over the grass.
If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You'd sail on water as blue as air,
And you'd see me here in the fields and say:
"Doesn't the sky look green today?"
Where am I going? The high rooks call:
"It's awful fun to be born at all."
Where am I going? The ring-doves coo:
"We do have beautiful things to do."
If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go today!"
Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.
In a world of uncertainty...
I found myself seeking some solid foundation upon which to build my life. I left the monastery of the Brothers of Charity when I was thirteen, after a year or so of studying and prayer. I then turned to Secondary modern school, taught by rote the basics of education, science, languages. Teenage enquiring minds took too much time from beleaguered underpaid teachers and their educational schedule.
Thinks I, start with basic principles, what is matter? What is the world made of? I did not realise I was standing next to the abyss, and as I gazed into it for clues, my world changed, evaporated before my unblinking eyes. What is the world made of?
Atoms?, well no, because atoms are made of other things. Fundamental particles? There again we find that even these particles, protons and neutrons, are composed of even smaller particles called quarks. As far as we know, quarks are like points in geometry. They're not made up of anything else.
So, as far as I can manage to comprehend, the world, universe, everything is made of nothing!
The Abyss does not only engulf from outside, it consumes from within.
Science, telling me that all is nothing?
quote:Tao Te Ching by LAO TSU Translation by Gia Fu Feng
and Jane English
Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room; It is the holes that make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.
SO what is our universe, our world?
quote:All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
This post is long enough I feel, so I'd like to "round off" with some more quotations which I feel are very pertinent to our journey of discovery. Please stick with it if you can for I'm sure they will help.
quote:Shakespeare - The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148?158
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
quote:Shakespeare - (from Hamlet 3/1)
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
That does seem interesting....
...and as usual, I chime in with something completely irrelevant, but I must, out of sheer compulsion, correct just one word in that Shakespeare quote. Having once been able to quote from memory the complete Hamlet's soliloquy in both English and (phonetic) russian as part of some silly project at school, I cannot but point out that the line is "the pangs of disprized love..."
You're completely correct of course White Hawk, I should have caught that one myself. I think I was distracted by the fardels and bodkin.
My focus on Shakespeare here is generally around the allusions to life being like a dream. Dreams being insubstantial things as indeed the explanations and theories of physics are beginning to be.
I realise that Shakespeare can be a little difficult to get into at first, indeed I did not really appreciate any of it till I made myself study some of the sonnets. From there I read some of the plays again with renewed understanding.
Row that boat boy, row
Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
I've talked to my brother who studies quantum mechanics and such about the electrons and other elementary particles being points. Part of what that means is they have yet to find the center by throwing things at them as fast as they can, so it is point like.
It is a strange idea to think of something as just being what it is. Electrons just have a magnetic field. They cannot be spinning like most things do to create a magnetic field because the size of an electron would mean it is spinning faster then the speed of light to create the size of charge that it does and that cannot happen.
From my understanding of elementary particles they are not nothing because at the least they are a source of magnetic fields, charges, and other measurable effects. Or is that still getting something from nothing? A particular point of nothing that affects what is around it? No, I don't think so; we are just getting down to the point where things may just be what they are even if that is just a point source of a something like gravity.
Part of it came down to the current theories needing a lot of work.
Tao, could you expand on what you mean by physics theories being dream like? I would like to know more of what you mean with that.
That is a start. I'll have to do more reading and thinking on how this fits into the big bang + Taoism.
I'm typing this as I think tj333 so incongruence will abound.
There is knowledge and there is understanding, the two do not always go together. We can study a subject, gain knowledge but have little or no understanding of it. We can understand something yet have little grasp of the fundamental forces involved.
I understand what it is to feel love. Yet I do not know from whence it comes or why.
I know in my mind I am conscious, yet I do not understand it or what constitutes mind.
Theories in physics reside conceptually in the mind. Our dream state resides in that same mind, and in that "baseless fabric" that no thing we chart the course of our lives.
I believe that in our rush, our obsession for empirical "truth" we as a race have lost a great deal of our primaeval intuition, our connection with nature. I will even go so far as to say that if we do not restore that connection if we do not maintain, we will be lost.
What would you say if I said that I sincerely believe that most of the civilised world does not know how to breathe properly? That most fundamental aspect of living has been forgotten. Perhaps this is just as bad in the undeveloped world too I'm not sure about that.
Examine your breathing, do you breathe through your nose or your mouth. Do you breath from your solar plexus or more from your chest and upper body?
Has Tao flipped again
Generally, one should breathe in slowly through the nose, first filling the lower part of your lungs. Place your hand just below your sternum, as you breathe in, that should be the first part of your lungs that fill with air. Then, still breathing in slowly, you begin to fill the mid then the upper section of your lungs so that as you reach full capacity, and only then, your shoulders may rise. Hold that for a moment then slowly exhale by compressing your solar plexus pushing out the air from the bottom of your lungs, then the mid, then the upper sections.
This should be practised until it becomes second nature. Don't over do it and hyperventilate, slowly slowly the lesson's learned true.
I realise this may sound a bit over the top but it is extremely important to understand, it is the breath of life. Those studying martial arts will know the importance of correct breathing. Indeed a strike to the solar plexus can be fatal.
Why do I mention all this breathing malarkey? Well my intention is to illustrate how we as individuals and as a race can "forget" something as fundamental as breathing correctly, then we are just as likely to forget our place in nature. Then we may be more open to the suggestion that we have also lost some other fundamental aspects of our lives too. We need to tune in to nature.
I'd better go now before I meander myself off a cliff.
Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
Bloody well done. A few moments ago I had an epiphany. Two things that I have been running through my head collided. Very simple little thing and I'm kind of surprised that it didn't occur to me before.
----
A long time ago, this guy wrote an awesome tutorial called Raytracing in Photoshop. If you took some very specific 3d renders into Photoshop, more fun was to be had. That really set me down the path.
With most high-end 3d packages, you can bake things to texture. With some material/shader savvy, you might even be able to bake some special renders for more post fun in Photoshop.
There have been two basic baked renders that I have been playing with in Photoshop.
The first is a space render. The XYZ positions are translated directly to RGB. Once you get these into Photoshop, you can do volume selects as if it you were still in the 3d program. The ChOps can get heady, but get tons easier if you are a code monkey. Want to volume select the just the head and fade over the neck and shoulders? Not a problem with a sphere or oval. It tickles me pink being able to do such 3d work in a 2d program.
The other is a normal render. The direction that the geometry is facing is encoded into RGB. For example, the up vector might be RGB=(128,128,255). Any geometry that is facing up will have those values. Facing to the left might be RGB=(255,128,128). And so on. With normal renders, you can toss in an arbitrary vector, get theta from the encoded normals, and do faux lighting tricks.
When you combine those two, you can do some really cool selection/mask tricks. Let's say that you use the normal render to select areas that face up. This would include the top of the head and the top of the feet. Then you use the space render for just the head and ChOps it against the up normals. What do you end up with? A faux light that shines down on the head, but excludes the read of the body (like the tops of the feet).
Not without it's problems, but still uber cool. Nothing like 3d ChOps in a 2d program.
One thing that get rather intensive is tweaking lighting in a 3d program. But if you can move things to a program like Photoshop with Layers and Blending Modes and things, the tweaks should come quick and easy without have to constantly re-render. OMG Uber!
----
I've been looking to expand on those tricks with a little extra sumpin sumpin. What if you wanted to use those tricks, but toss in a bump map that you painted? How do you use a bump map to modify a normal render and a space render? How would you put that together?
So I have been running around learning about rotating vectors, playing with Pythagoras, Sobel, and a few other things.
Then what I said earlier in this thread occurred to me. Instead of adding a bump to modify existing channels, or add the bump map as a channel itself, add it as a dimension. Let it interact with existing channels in full 4d glory instead of 3+1 dimensions.
The past hour or so I have been doing some preliminary messing around and I am very happy so far. That extra bump dimension is the extra artsy-fartsy 'slope' parameter that I have been looking for.
I can't even begin to imagine some of the things that can be done.
OMG I just got another idea. I gotta go play some more.
And I think that I finally have gone off the deep end. I've thought this before in the past, but this time I really mean it.
I've been looking into the 3D parameters that PS can export from say, vanishing point, through the export file format of DXF or 3DS. What flavour of Photoshop are you using for this WarJ? I'm on PSCS3 extended nowadays. I plunged so completely into its arms that I can't remember what functions any other version had or had not.
As for a 3D programme I'm very tempted to get ZBrush as I should be able to get it cheaply and I like the ZBrush utilizes a rendering technique called "pixols". A pixol is like a pixel in a 2d paint program except the pixol contains extended information such as depth, orientation (surface normal) and material which allows for the additional 3d effects.
I also have Blender but I have to admit I've not really spent enough time using it.
Those who look for monsters should look to it that
they do not become monsters. For when you gaze
long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
Using CS2 and I'll be using it for a long time. Using Filter Meister to do my code monkey thing. FM is the single greatest plug-in that I've ever invested in.
Blender is powerful, but can be hard to come to grips with. I have yet to meet anybody that 'got it' right away. Pretty much everybody agrees that it has a steep learning curve. But it can do a crap ton of stuff if you take the time to really dig into it. I played with it once for maybe an hour and trashed it.
ZBrush is fun. I have a real hard time with the interface, though, but some folks take to the interface like it's natural or something. I also have my problems with how ZBrush handles certain things, but nothing some changes in habits can't fix. The truly amazing thing about ZBrush is that it can handle millions of polygons with no signs of slowing down. But I've only played with the demos as they've come out. That is, I've never really given more than 2 weeks on my one machine.
So a little while ago I was playing with 3DS Max and mapping channels.
A mapping channel is basically UV coords, which is how a given texture is applied to a mesh. You can have a whole bunch of these. Let's say that you unwrap a model and you are happy. But then you hit a snag with how you laid out the seams. Not a problem with mapping channels. Just create another one and re-map the parts that are giving you problems.
An excellant example of this is a mesh of a head. Do one mapping channel as the master channel. Something like spherical mapping with some relaxing and tweaks and such. Do another mapping channel that is a front shot, and yet another that is a side shot. Doing something like this is sometimes much easier than trying to mix and blend in Photoshop.
One cool trick with mapping channels in 3DS Max is that you can actually bake to different channels. You can take the side shot and bake it to the front if you really want. Mix all that together and then do a final bake to the master channel.
Now, baking to different channels kind of got me thinking. All you are really doing is taking a triangle and moving to another spot. Something like P1(x1,y1,z1) --> P2(x2,y2,z2). Translate your rastor bits and tada. That struck me kind of hard. Sounds very much like Displace, doesn't it?
So I fired it up and hacked it out. Using some specific things, I can actually chuck out D-Maps from 3DS Max and using then as pseudo mapping channels in Photoshop. Once you have various do-hickey renders, move all of it to Photoshop.
That idea absolutely tickles me pink.
But there is a problem with Displace. It's one of resolution or accuracy or whatever you want to call it. It's only pixel perfect out to 256 pixels (-128 to 127). When the HV percentages get muchly above 100%, bad things start to happen. It's really not much room to move when dealing with bigger textures for 3d work.
A D-Map has 3 channels, but only 2 are used. Is it possible to hack the 3rd channel? It sure is.
Let's consider RX for a moment. Normally the range is (0 to 255). But what if you threw in a kind of a switch in the B channel?
if b=0 then RX = (0 to 255)
if b=1 then RX = (256 to 511)
That is the basic idea.
Then it's just a matter of segmenting B for RX and GY at the same time.
The first hack I did used the B series:
0 16 32 48
64 80 96 112
128 144 160 176
192 208 224 240
Can you see the pattern for RX and GY?
I was muchly happy. I suddenly had a Displace hack that was pixel perfect accurate out to 1024 ( +/- 512 or so).
So I took the B series down another step with multiplies of 4.
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28
32 36 40 ...
64 ...
... and so on.
My own displace hack out to 2048 pixels.
But I've only tested out to 1024. It was mostly good. There is a bit of a problem with noise where the B series numbers border. But that's really not that big of deal. A few artifacts here and there really are nothing to deal with considering what I'm getting.
And it's kind of nice being able to keep things in Photoshop instead of having to constantly switch back and forth, rearrange materials, and keeping track of the render dumps. Once the MC-Maps are rendered out and prepared, it's all about Photosop.
Ultimately, this is a clever yet misleading defense of substance dualism. I happen to be a substance dualist myself (as a vast majority of Christians and other religious individuals are), but the argument presented in this video is deceptive. Despite the disclaimer in the beginning that it is not philosophy and is "fact proven by science," it is ultimately philosophy. Yes, there are scientific facts discussed, but the video tries to make a seamless leap between scientific fact and philosophy (and, in my opinion, fails).
If you watch and listen closely, you'll catch the problem, but boiled down it is this: yes, it is true that we cannot be certain that a physical world exists outside of the perceiving consciousness--but that does not necessarily mean that the physical world does not exist. The video makes this point on a few occasions and then blithely ignores it, confusing the fact that what we perceive may not physically exist (e.g., dreams) with the certainty that it doesn't exist.
It bugged me to no end as I watched this video how the narrator kept saying things like, "The bird does not exist except in our brains." No! That's not the way it works? The perception of the bird exists in our brains, but the physical bird exists out there in the world. Yes, this is an assumption--but given our collective human experience I believe it is less of a logical leap than to assume that there is no physical world.
At the end of the second half of the video, the narrator concludes that, because everything that we consider physical (material) is just perception, then the "perceiver" must be the immaterial soul. And if the perceiver is the immaterial soul, then someone must be "broadcasting" the "reality" that we "see" and "feel" (I believe I've just used up my year's quota of scare quotes there). That someone, of course, is God, although the narrator doesn't say this explicitly. Yet the same problem plagues us here--why does the fact that we can't know for certain whether the world exists outside us have to translate into the certainty that it doesn't exist?
Honestly, this is a pretty lame attempt at proving the existence of God that falls prey to the simple logical flaw I discussed above. And even if everything the narrator said in the video were true (most of it is, actually, except for the leap of logic to go from possibility to certainty), why does this broadcasting being necessarily have to be God? We could all just as easily be plugged into the Matrix for all we know.
For the record, I am a theist, but I think this is a rather pitiful attempt to prove God exists by confusing science and philosophy.
Gah. I don't even know why I bothered writing this comment.
(In retrospect, the video is not really espousing substance dualism--it is claiming that there is no matter at all, which is something different. But some of the arguments are similar, and I'm too lazy at this point to go back and rewrite the beginning of this post.)
Edit: Suho posted while I was witting and did a good job of it.
It looks like a modern update to René Descartes and mind body dualism. Also similar is George_Berkeley who I think wrote that things only exists while they are perceived so we need to have God looking at everything all the time. An interesting thing to see this video after reading about this in class.
From my point of view there is no reason to assume that nothing exists or that a god is needed somewhere just because the senses are fallible. I prefer the representative realism that says you perceive things inaccurately but the object actually exist despite how you view it or not.
Going to the instance of feeding information to the brain Matrix style doesn't really changes things either. Just because your cannot tell the difference from seeing form your eyes and seeing from a device that is sending signals to your brain does not really make a difference in the nature of reality, it just points out that you could be tricked.
I feel my response is very negative here so to make up for it I'm going to write up an other interesting thought sometime this weekend.
__________________________
Eagles get sucked into jet engines and weasels are oft maligned, but beavers just make nice hats. WCG|FA@H
Suho... thanks..yes i had seen the second part.....
my 2 cents...
The video is extremely well done...also the fact that it ticks u of Suho...does mean something. You mention that its a pitfull attempt to prove God exist ( i notice that u also typed him with a capital G...) and that we may be plugged into the matrix....isnt this then the same thing....that in this case the matrix is God ...I think what ticks pple off is the definition of God that has been put accross the world...
I respect your belief...in my case i know there is a higher intelligence...but again pple's believes r based on how they interpret the diffrent perceptions and there past experiences in life....and i dont think any two pple cld interpret a perception the same way....so in this case no one is right or wrong.....
lastly anyone figured out the origin of a thought.......
Just as Suho said there were at least 2 major logical flaws in the video 1) the video assumes that because a VR is possible then that must be the reality 2) and then it made an even stranger assumption: because we can see and touch our brains that too must be an illusion which somehow constitutes the existence of a 'soul' ... it was basically saying in the end that the soul is what really thinks and the brain is there just for the fun.
The video also makes a mistake of using the general model of 5 external senses: touching, hearing, feeling, smelling and seeing while at the same time talking about such things as brain, soul and possibility of a virtual reality. The problem is that at that level we actually have more senses such as thinking and memory. We can easily perceive that we think and that we have memory and we can perceive the quality of our memory and other parameters of our mental processes. This shows that the video wasn't very well thought through because we can also manipulate our physical brain and it's processes and at the same time perceive the changes. Simplest example of this is drinking alcohol. It's not just the 5 external senses that are affected by alcohol. This again means that it can't be the soul that does the thinking.
The most annoying _fact_ about the video is that while it tries to sound factual and scientific it doesn't actually present _any_ proof for anything. Which basically means that it's lying while it's saying that this is a scientific and not a philosophical video. So my opinion is that this a very deceptive video that supports itself on flawed logic and a strong agenda which it tries to hide.
From: The Happy Hunting Grounds... Insane since: Mar 2001
posted 12-12-2008 17:33
Well, all things aside for a moment (btw - nice breakdown, Master Suhu. Very nice, indeed).
If it was just perception here that was needed, then perhaps there would be some more merit in the discussion.
But there is also time and the consequences (or effects) that are left by something that also needs to be taken into consideration here.
I do not need to perceive something, to prove that it had been at point X at time Y. Clues will be left on the material, etc to indicate this.
Through deductive reasoning and the ability to think and reason over time (something the human mind does fairly well, IMHO), we can create systems (logic, math, the scientific process) to identify and catalog clues, so that we are able to identify the said "something" correctly.
This seems to say that reality, as we perceive it, is real, at least for all intents and purposes that is important. It would seem, then, that perception is only one factor in a much greater whole.
The age old "if a tree falls in the forest, and no-one was there, did it make any sound?" - well, kind of hard to say if one looks at it that way.
But perhaps we can do some measurements afterwards and compare them with measurements beforehand. I am sure that at some level, it would be possible to measure the sonic impact upon some material there in the forest, that would prove that it did, indeed, make a sound.
Thus the laws of Physics are preserved, even if there was not a viewer at that particular point in time.
Of course, one could speculate (or even argue) that there is a global (or universal) viewer that "takes over" in such a case.
Well, prove it.
I sincerely doubt that such is even provable, because one would have to have something to test it against - like a situation where there was guaranteed no viewer possible. Since we are talking about a speculation (global, universal, all-seing, whatever viewer), and that the actual properties of this viewer itself are not defined, how then can we create a situation where there is no viewer to test against?
We cannot, not unless we can decide on the properties of this viewer. And in this case, we will need to be able to prove these properties, as well, and be able to show and demonstrate factual evidence thereof.
Since we have not been able to do this (and still are unable to), this remains in the realm of non-science.
WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles
I'm bookmarking all this so that I can come back to it. I meant to post my thoughts on this topic way back, but there's never the time to properly formulate a structured and sensible response - a good couple of decades of inconclusive thought on the subject are hard to boil down to something concisely expressive.
Personally, I don't subscribe the 'The Big Crunch' theory; expansion of the universe is accelerating observably.
I do subscribe to matrix and holographic reality theories - have done since I was a kid, and before I even knew they were real theories. Theoretical physicists gave names to things I'd dreamed of in the cot.
Sorry to keep you waiting, Binary. I haven't had a weekend for a couple of weeks, and the last few days have been crazy (I'm a physical wreck today). I plan to enjoy the video properly, make a comment, and put forward another interesting little snippet of theoretical physics that I find utterly compelling - all in the next two days.
Of course, the way I'm feeling right now, I might get home tonight and set my alarms for Sunday afternoon. Heh.
Sorry to double-post, but I did promise a comment.
I'd like to express my delight at the mention of Douglas Adams regarding the almost absurd reference to mayonnaise, and its part in the quest to understand the universe.
A prominent theme, and one that will likely always be present in all areas of science, is the incredulity that new ideas and theories are met with when they fail to fit perfectly the established methods and theories. It's nice to know that not all crazy scientists are relegated to the annals of forgotten ideas, otherwise we might not have anything like the level of understanding (however incomplete) that we have now of the universe in which we eke out our little lives.
Of course, a certain level of scepticism is not a bad thing - heard of the Joe Cell? I wonder how much (or how little, perhaps) will come to light as sensible from the vast volumes of crazy mumbo-jumbo floating around the world today - there has always been a thin line between 'outlandish' and 'wrong', and many theories proved by experimentation today were dismissed not so long ago.
As the pieces out of which the universe is made get smaller and smaller, it seems that theory moves ever more into realms we will eventually lack even the projected ability to observe or prove, but again, it wasn't so long ago that the theorised neutrino was considered to be unprovable and unobservable.
Now even quarks aren't the smallest thing any more, and the smallest theorised unit of space-time seems well beyond any known means to detect... but what if all we see and observe in reality is in fact just a projection of interactions on some other level of the unseen universe? What if the apparent universe is just the observable result of interactions on some other plane of the unseen universe?
Theories of a holographic reality aren't new, but it seems that certain aspects are gradually being accepted as plausible. The whole idea seems outlandish, yet could be used to explain, for instance, the seemingly impossible phenomena of entangled particles - the reason two particles at two distinct points in space may exhibit some way of 'knowing' the state of one another might simply be that they do not exist as separate entities at all, but as observations of the same phenomenon from different angles, in a way, within a holographic universe.
This also offers up the compelling possibility that as a projection, the universe may actually be blurry; reality may be 'grainier' than the theorised particles that constitute it.
Physicist Craig Hogan postulated just such a thing, and possibly even the means by which to observe this graininess - or more accurately, what observable effect this graininess might have in practical experiments. The following by no means proves anything, but the fact that postulated and observed effects coincide is something I find rather exciting:
This is just a little snippet of the sort of things that keep me awake at night. Honestly, I don't understand it all (as I'm sure is quite normal for the average person) but that doesn't stop me being compelled to read, and read, and read, in the vain hope that some of it might become clearer. I have long been obsessed with the seemingly insubstantial nature of reality, and it saddens me that I don't have a greater capacity to understand - I'm no theoretical physicist. It saddens me more that despite so many recent discoveries and advances in science and technology, even if I were to live many times longer than a single lifespan, much will still be un-knowable.
Heck, if I lived forever it would still be impossible to know and understand everything there is to discover in our universe. In the grand scheme of things, our little lives are full of greater worries than whether or not this is all real, so I try not to let it drive me mad.
Still, if I could find a bug somewhere in the matrix, perhaps I could hack reality and give myself super powers!
quote:Then all space and all of time will be held in that one singularity.
In that one "moment" we will all exist for eternity. Not only that but we will all also be one.
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together"
In Taoist thought, the Tao is the mother of all things, like the proposed singularity from which the universe exploded. The Yin Yang symbol is a representation of this first state of being, and from this first state all other things arose.
This is our basis in a way in Christian thought as well too. That we will all become one in the supernatural end of all things in the span allocated and dictated by the laws of the cosmos. I believe we are all one in the physical as well as spiritual because our origins are from one same source. I think John Lennon, weirdo that he was sometimes had it right in his' I am the Walrus,"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together"
I read an article the other day that how rate of the universe in its expanding is starting to slow down.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the December 21, 2012 theory? That time will end on that day.;
Addendum:
If wierdo means one who is labelled as weird and by weird you mean a significant deviation from what you regard as the norm.
Then I regard your norm as weird.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the December 21, 2012 theory?
The Mayans thought that sacrifice was a good way of getting rid of sins and like Egyptians they had a god for every activity. This is just to show that ancient civilizations believed in many things. Besides afaik it's not even known whether Mayans themselves believed in the end of the world in 12.19.19.17.19 eg December 21, 2012. Even if they had such a prophecy then what reason/basis do we have for believing that it will come true? I don't know of any superstitious prophecy Mayan or otherwise that has come true and that hasn't been ambiguous enough to come true anyway or by chance.
For sure I miss John Lennon..
I meant he did wierd things sometimes but I feel in his heart he meant well. He just wanted us all to live in a harmony. Though his wife was very un-attractive he saw deep down his soul mate and did not care to have a model looking younger mate like many rich celebrities do.
In regard to the December 12, 2012, I know scientist have validated many of the Mayan prophecies in regard to the cosmos. Like in the planetary alignment that will take place and that the earth will indeed wobble. The Mayans were obsessed with time and i guess since they had nothing better to do, they studied the stars, etc. for thousands and thousands of years. The were great mathmeticians in their day and with no computers they were able to figure out many things. I think scientiest are still trying to deciper many of thier writings.
But I believe the world or time will not end. The earth is always evolving, I just think we are going to embark on another way of time if that makes any sense. I could see us as a people becoming extinct evenutally, rather than the earth blowing up or going anywhere. With wars, disasters, diseases and a nuclear holocaust just waiting to happen. The earth will then be renewed again with new civilizations.
posted 06-12-2008 04:41
432Hz...how deep is this rabbit hole....seems 2 b converging @ a central place 
