I Know, I'm a little behind the times, but i have just read this article. My first thought was "EEUUGGH" but then luckily i found the dumbed down version and was just about able to grasp the idea.
I would like to put forward the idea that we may never find out whether we are in a simulation or not, as if we are in a simulation theoretically surely we will never get to the point when we develop this technology, because we are simulations. If this is the case and we are simulations then we will only find out if our simulators wish to allow us to know. Which is plausible as i am sure they are nice people at heart, even though they could've simulated a utopia for us to exist in, but i'm sure if they are historians they would prefer to keep things realistic. So, if we are living in a simulation and our simulators are historians then theoretically we will never get to know the truth (which means we could end up assuming that we are not in a simulation and be very wrong in this assumption). Also, if we are in a simulation does that mean that we re-run the same period of human existence over and over or are we left to mature as our simulators did, in which case we would have to have the ability to reproduce, and how does that work in a computer simulation? And, if we are left to continue to progress do the simulators have thouseands of different simulations in which they re-start humanity from different points and throw in new, or original problems for us to solve. Does hirtory repeat itself, or is there a different outcome each time? is this what the simulators are studying, are we mearly rats in a cage, reacting to electric shocks and yet still wanting the cheese?
OR, is there a massive expanse of space somewhere in which there are many different compartments, each containing it's own simulation, and ours has simply been left on by accident, draining all the energy running up the electricity bill and no one realises?
Monday 29 October 2007
Wednesday 24 October 2007
A few thoughts on Role Play games
Well, although this week we have been talking about cool i would like to throw something completely different into the subject ring.
Role Play games and the grip they seem to hold on many people. My boyfriend being one of them, a couple of nights ago, (i can only admit this because heather has given me the leway by re-iterating in our seminar that geek is now apparently cool- i'm always the last to know these things!) after playing the same gam for almost the entirity of the day when i got into bed that night he was still playing. After asking him if he could save the game and stop playing it (the clicking of the keyboard and mouse is enough to send anyone trying to sleep completely crazy!) he explained that as he couldn't save the game mid-battle he would have to spend a few minutes running the battle through, although to get it done quickly he would have to submit to a few extra casualties.
As a woman who's love of computer games stops at sonic the hedgehog (the original, and even then only the first four levels because i have never had that desire to finish the game) i could presumably be forgiven for hurrying him along to grasp every moment of his attention before sleep took hold. Although instead i immediately told him that he shouldn't harm his game, or more iportantly the character he has worked so hard to build and mould. This surprised me as i was unaware that it was possible for me to feel sucha deep seated sense of empathy for a character in a video game, even if that character is a form of personification of the man i love.
This empathy has definately come from a greater understanding of the ability and time that role play games require for successful outcomes. Across the internet one can find a multitude of sights that hold online dungeons and dragons games (a game based aroung chance in the form of dice rolls.) many role play video games are based aroung the logics of dungeons and dragons and there is a surprising amount of effort put in to make them play more and more like a real D&D game, with the amalgamation of the interests and imagination of it's players.
The point i am making here, is that there is a strange sense of empathy i feel towards my boyfriend's virtual characters. There is no real reason fort his except the fact that i love him and somehow these characters have become a part of him, or have been created from him (dependent on the game and how much the character can be produced by the player). This empathy can also be seen in 'American Dad', an american tv series spawned from family guy. In the second series there is an episode called 'dungeons and wagons' in which we as an audience are able to explore steve's world within internet role play games. The episode begins with steve and his friends playing the game within reality and remaining in character. When Steve's sister Hayley dumps her boyfriend Jeff he gets drawn into Steve's world as a form of escapism. This produces a form of jealousy within Hayley as if she has lost her ex boyfriend to a virtual world that is more interesting than the real. Hayley destroys her brother with the help of the family fish, but then feels so bad about ruining his life and making him start all over again with his character that she works with Jeff to go on an extensive journey in order to revive her brother's character. The main part of this episode that effected me was the fact that Hayley was so cut up about Steve's character that she felt the need to spend her time givin her brother back what she took form him. Within teenagers i have the feeling that this empathy would have to be double that in an adult for the fact that often siblings become rivals within teenage years.
I don't know quite how to deal with this realisation that i actually care about a fictional character i know nothing about. I am an avid reader and so i am used to the idea of caring for a fictional character. Although i am also not exactly a virtuality kid. Before this week i seemed unaware of the reality of the extent that virtual performance in the form of gaming has already infultrated my life.
Role Play games and the grip they seem to hold on many people. My boyfriend being one of them, a couple of nights ago, (i can only admit this because heather has given me the leway by re-iterating in our seminar that geek is now apparently cool- i'm always the last to know these things!) after playing the same gam for almost the entirity of the day when i got into bed that night he was still playing. After asking him if he could save the game and stop playing it (the clicking of the keyboard and mouse is enough to send anyone trying to sleep completely crazy!) he explained that as he couldn't save the game mid-battle he would have to spend a few minutes running the battle through, although to get it done quickly he would have to submit to a few extra casualties.
As a woman who's love of computer games stops at sonic the hedgehog (the original, and even then only the first four levels because i have never had that desire to finish the game) i could presumably be forgiven for hurrying him along to grasp every moment of his attention before sleep took hold. Although instead i immediately told him that he shouldn't harm his game, or more iportantly the character he has worked so hard to build and mould. This surprised me as i was unaware that it was possible for me to feel sucha deep seated sense of empathy for a character in a video game, even if that character is a form of personification of the man i love.
This empathy has definately come from a greater understanding of the ability and time that role play games require for successful outcomes. Across the internet one can find a multitude of sights that hold online dungeons and dragons games (a game based aroung chance in the form of dice rolls.) many role play video games are based aroung the logics of dungeons and dragons and there is a surprising amount of effort put in to make them play more and more like a real D&D game, with the amalgamation of the interests and imagination of it's players.
The point i am making here, is that there is a strange sense of empathy i feel towards my boyfriend's virtual characters. There is no real reason fort his except the fact that i love him and somehow these characters have become a part of him, or have been created from him (dependent on the game and how much the character can be produced by the player). This empathy can also be seen in 'American Dad', an american tv series spawned from family guy. In the second series there is an episode called 'dungeons and wagons' in which we as an audience are able to explore steve's world within internet role play games. The episode begins with steve and his friends playing the game within reality and remaining in character. When Steve's sister Hayley dumps her boyfriend Jeff he gets drawn into Steve's world as a form of escapism. This produces a form of jealousy within Hayley as if she has lost her ex boyfriend to a virtual world that is more interesting than the real. Hayley destroys her brother with the help of the family fish, but then feels so bad about ruining his life and making him start all over again with his character that she works with Jeff to go on an extensive journey in order to revive her brother's character. The main part of this episode that effected me was the fact that Hayley was so cut up about Steve's character that she felt the need to spend her time givin her brother back what she took form him. Within teenagers i have the feeling that this empathy would have to be double that in an adult for the fact that often siblings become rivals within teenage years.
I don't know quite how to deal with this realisation that i actually care about a fictional character i know nothing about. I am an avid reader and so i am used to the idea of caring for a fictional character. Although i am also not exactly a virtuality kid. Before this week i seemed unaware of the reality of the extent that virtual performance in the form of gaming has already infultrated my life.
Friday 19 October 2007
what constitutes a performance?
So, Ian got me thinking this week in class, what exactly is a performance? Is it simply when the person being watched intends and understands that they are being watched, that they are performing? Or can a performance be unknown to the actors? I know it is possibe to have invisible theatre in terms of the audience, but can this genre be extended into the manipulation of unwitting actors?
For instance, the videos we see so often posted on youtube containing the nastier aspects of humanity, such as violence. These videos encompass the acts of gang violence imposed upon victims, do these victims then become performers? Can this video then be seen as a performance rather than a crude and insensitive action by a group of (often but not always) teenagers who have not had the adequate socialisation and empathetic skils enstilled upon their psyche to behave in a humane way towards others.
I entered a state of severe perturbation when looking on youtube for videos to use for a module in which i needed visual accounts of female violence. The part that concerned me most was that within many of this videos, interspersed in the background noise can be heard the laughter and mirth of a multitude of males geering and celebrating this girl-on-girl action as such. The question then arises, are these girls performing for the camera, is this a performance staged by them for male attention? Are they aware that they are being filmed? certainly there were a number of examples such as mud fights in which the women/girls were entering into a fight wittingly and with the understanding that a performance would be required. With the fact that throughout a lot of these videos regardless of the arguement as to whether the fighting was intended as a performance or not, the live audiences were majoritly men/ boys. This led me to think about the fact that it was likey that on more ocassions than not the camera was being operated by a male leading me to the conlusion that it would more than likely be this male that posted the video on youtube. The fact is that i am working under the assumption that many of these videos were put there by males (excluding those posted by the females themselves to boast and humiliate the looser) for males.
The perturbation i experienced surrounded the fact that it was blatant acknowledgement of the phallocentric conditions many women are still forced to (and some agreeably) live under. It bothers me that women are still being exploited as entertainment for men. I do not believe that women are innocent within this, as there are some who choose to be a part of this word. However it is the attitude of popular culture that tells women they mus be unrealistically thin and beautiful and without this the only way to get male attention is to 'flaunt it'. It is the perceived mae expectation that creates this reaction within women, i say perceived as i am more than well aware that not all men are mysoginistic pigs this type of 'performance'.
I do not believe that all of these videos are performances. It becomes obvious within a few of them, due either to their poor placing of the camera or the reactions of the girls if they become aware of the fact that they are being filmed. Some of them are light hearted performances that involve bouncy castles and a lot of oil or mud, these are simply girls either having fun or exploiting the male idealistic fantasies of girl-on-girl action. I which case the shouts and jeers of the male audience members is sought after. It is the videos in which the girls are unaware they becoming part of a performance that the male jeers begin to perturb me. It is in these cases that the jeers are derogatory and in which people who try and break up the fight are condemned, and seen as some form of 'fun police' . These videos disturbed me, both becuse of the violence but mainly due to the male reactions and the realisation that too many people enjoy this violence; and girl-on-girl violence is seen as something that is funny and cute and of no significance to the masculine world.
I don't believe i have adequately explained myself, but hope you can understand what itis im trying to put across.
For instance, the videos we see so often posted on youtube containing the nastier aspects of humanity, such as violence. These videos encompass the acts of gang violence imposed upon victims, do these victims then become performers? Can this video then be seen as a performance rather than a crude and insensitive action by a group of (often but not always) teenagers who have not had the adequate socialisation and empathetic skils enstilled upon their psyche to behave in a humane way towards others.
I entered a state of severe perturbation when looking on youtube for videos to use for a module in which i needed visual accounts of female violence. The part that concerned me most was that within many of this videos, interspersed in the background noise can be heard the laughter and mirth of a multitude of males geering and celebrating this girl-on-girl action as such. The question then arises, are these girls performing for the camera, is this a performance staged by them for male attention? Are they aware that they are being filmed? certainly there were a number of examples such as mud fights in which the women/girls were entering into a fight wittingly and with the understanding that a performance would be required. With the fact that throughout a lot of these videos regardless of the arguement as to whether the fighting was intended as a performance or not, the live audiences were majoritly men/ boys. This led me to think about the fact that it was likey that on more ocassions than not the camera was being operated by a male leading me to the conlusion that it would more than likely be this male that posted the video on youtube. The fact is that i am working under the assumption that many of these videos were put there by males (excluding those posted by the females themselves to boast and humiliate the looser) for males.
The perturbation i experienced surrounded the fact that it was blatant acknowledgement of the phallocentric conditions many women are still forced to (and some agreeably) live under. It bothers me that women are still being exploited as entertainment for men. I do not believe that women are innocent within this, as there are some who choose to be a part of this word. However it is the attitude of popular culture that tells women they mus be unrealistically thin and beautiful and without this the only way to get male attention is to 'flaunt it'. It is the perceived mae expectation that creates this reaction within women, i say perceived as i am more than well aware that not all men are mysoginistic pigs this type of 'performance'.
I do not believe that all of these videos are performances. It becomes obvious within a few of them, due either to their poor placing of the camera or the reactions of the girls if they become aware of the fact that they are being filmed. Some of them are light hearted performances that involve bouncy castles and a lot of oil or mud, these are simply girls either having fun or exploiting the male idealistic fantasies of girl-on-girl action. I which case the shouts and jeers of the male audience members is sought after. It is the videos in which the girls are unaware they becoming part of a performance that the male jeers begin to perturb me. It is in these cases that the jeers are derogatory and in which people who try and break up the fight are condemned, and seen as some form of 'fun police' . These videos disturbed me, both becuse of the violence but mainly due to the male reactions and the realisation that too many people enjoy this violence; and girl-on-girl violence is seen as something that is funny and cute and of no significance to the masculine world.
I don't believe i have adequately explained myself, but hope you can understand what itis im trying to put across.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
