Version

Are Religions Virtual Worlds?

by Merci

Right now I’m reading about player behavior in MMOs. I keep thinking how similar those player behaviors and game worlds are to the fantastical real-world-overlays we know as religions. Both imbue players with feeling of elevated direction.

Religions and MMOs give believers/players a lot in exchange for their subscription. Believers get a realm to achieve in that doesn’t necessarily affect what most people hold to be the real world. Recurrent personalities exist at the same time as the believers, but persist regardless of the life span of any one believer. Your grandmother's Jesus is your Jesus. The NPC you met last week during a quest will be there two months from now when you sign up a secondary character. And lastly, religions and virtual worlds both contain objectives that can be broken down into steps for the believer. Religions almost always require believers to do at least one thing, even if it's only to take an NPC into their heart. That action is not much different, and frankly, takes much less time, than solving riddles, collecting items, or grinding XP.

On a daily basis, religions exist mostly as information overlays on the everyday lives of people that subscribe to them. Believers translate the information they receive from the 3D graphical world into strategic information which determines their action in that world. This action-to-strategic-decision chain can be as ephemeral a believer getting a feeling after prayer that a problem has been resolved by that prayer. The believer may continue in the world without needing to confront the problem through any other action, secure in the knowledge that ‘something has been done.’ What other human activity offers this kind of achievement?

Players communicate, often on a daily basis, with other human beings that are participating in their personal instantiation of the experience. But religions can be pretty different from each other, or at least they contain varying teachings and characters. So are religions just shards of the same virtualspiritual world that humans have concocted? If you’ve ever seen the “all religions have a Golden Rule" posters (“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” et cetera) then you’ve seen that the underlying values of nearly all religions are the same.

Players also communicate with the personalities directly tied into the fiction of the world. Saints, gods, buddhas - or NPCs? Though a very High Level of NPC is ususally barred from communicating with the believer, until a certain “level” has been reach, at some point the believer will go to heaven, reach nirvana, or ascend. Or does the believer just level up?

Religions even have their power gamers. I think of John Donne as a religious power gamer. He left the Catholic church for the Anglican church. It might be more that he left one guild for another, seemingly more powerful, guild. His poetry, in which he pleads, demands, and then cajoles with an unmoving non-player character seems as efficient a strategy as any in a world in which your turns are very limited... And he wasn’t even a self-fashioned god or prophet. Aren’t self-fashioned prophets and saints just demanding more agency in the game world? It is called god mode, after all.

Here I am not positing that virtual worlds are religions, but rather that religions are virtual worlds

Here's the full post.

Religion in Neuromancer

by Keith Feldman

So much can be said about Gibson's prophetic work, The Neuromancer Trilogy, that when I sit here and try and place my thoughts on my computer screen, (in some foreign language with some foreign syntax I was just taught yesterday) things become blurred. Gibson presents such an over-archingly dark and depressing picture of the future of technological society, that one could examine all sorts of themes, from apparent feminism, to the role of physical experience in the virtual medium, to the place of entertainment/past-ti me activity. 

The most intriguing path into Gibson's world is through the place/role of religion in a society that is increasingly in complete control of their surroundings, while concu rrently giving away their freedoms by creating simulated organisms that can be a rightful(?), and sometimes oppressing participant in their daily lives. I haven't gotten very far in Count Zero, a book that apparently confronts many of these notion s head-on; in Neuromancer, though, Gibson presents a blue-print of the world that exists in all three books, including a few brief passages explicitly examining the place of a higher power, someone or something that commands an overall control.

"This way's better for you, man." He took his Partagas from a coat pocket and lit one. The smell of Cuban tobacco filled the shop. "You want I should come to you in the matrix like a burning bush? You aren't missing anythi ng. back there. An hour here'll only take you a couple of seconds."

This passage, where the partial Artificial Intelligence conscience known as Wintermute presents himself to Case, is the first overt mentioning of the role that AI can take in one's life. Wintermute's extreme control of Case's surroundings, the fact that he can a ppear on any television screen anywhere, that he can track Case's every movements (recall the airport scene where the telephone-rings seem to follow Case's footsteps), these show the omniscient powers that Wintermute holds. Indeed, the whole of the plot of Neuromancer can be viewed as just the method of one element of an artificial consciousness, Wintermute, doing everything in its power to join with the other element, Neuromancer, and create a complete ultra-organic mechanism of worldly authority .

Wintermute was hive mind, decision maker, effecting change in the world outside. Neuromancer was personality. Neuromancer was immortality.

Indeed, I'd like to push the possibility that this ultra-organic el ement of human construction can be seen as one part Divine and one part Diabolic. Using the template of western religion, a simple metaphor can relate Wintermute to God and Neuromancer to Satan. For instance, in contemporary religion, the participants are neither allowed to utter the true name of the Divine, and if they try to write it down, apparently it instantly disappears. A similar situation is true in Gibson's realm, wh ere, in order to gain control of the evil AI, Case has to learn its true name, uttering it at just the right time. Names like Wintermute and Neuromancer are merely aliases for un-utterable names.

"Neuromancer," the boy said, slitting long gray eyes against the rising sun. "The lane to the land of the dead. Where you are, my friend. Marie-France, my lady, she prepared this road, but her lord choked her off before I could read the book of her days. Neuro from the nerves, th e silver paths. Romancer. Neuromancer. I call up the dead. But no, my friend," and the boy did a little dance, brown feet printing in the sand, "I am the dead, and their land." He laughed. A gull cried. "Stay. Your woman is a ghost, she doesn't know it. Neither will you."

It doesn't get much more demonic than that. But what does it mean when God and Satan join together? Where does humanity stand once al l that is good and all that is evil combine forces? Since these divinities are creations of humanity, does that mean that we can finally perform those acts of god that for centuries we've been flailing at? Is this all just hubris, or since the concept of god is a human construct (much like AI), does Gibson just follow the path of logic?

In the beginning... was the command line

from the "Complete Review"

Stephenson is very concerned about GUIs. Consumers like them -- but they come at a cost, one people might not be aware of. Stephenson makes a good argument here. He is a big fan of the written word -- "a digital medium that humans can, nonetheless, easily read and write". All other media are analog -- and digital has many clear advantages over analog. As he states: "the digital nature of the written word confers upon it exceptional stability", while analog is much more messy. By doing everything with GUIs rather than simply words Stephenson finds we are also limiting ourselves. GUIs are pervasive now in many technical products, but none more obviously so than in operating systems. And Stephenson believes that when we are buying a GUI-focussed operating system:

What we're really buying is a system of metaphors. And -- much more important -- what we're buying into is the underlying assumption that metaphors are a good way to deal with the world.

       Stephenson, of course, does not think they are. 
       Working at command line level -- working with words -- is completely different from working with GUIs, and Stephenson is concerned with what is lost in the transition. But it is not only a cultural argument (which he sets out nicely), but also a technical one. GUIs are now well-integrated into operating systems like Windows; indeed, they are inseparable from them. But operating systems become unwieldy and messy as new features are added with updated version, pieced on to what came before. This works for a while, but eventually gets out of hand (the incredibly complex behemoth that is Windows -- filled with every conceivable feature (which most people never have a reason to use) -- is only the most obvious example). Old programs are no longer supported -- particularly (and rightly) disconcerting to Stephenson -- and the operating systems themselves become slow, clunky, awkward to use. Eventually they are worthless, superseded by the next operating system. 
       Stephenson compares the differing approaches taken by those responsible for the four operating systems he focusses on. He believes, for example, that Microsoft has its priorities all wrong, and writes amusingly (and fairly convincingly) about this. Apple, too, has gone down several wrong roads. The cases that interest him most are the open and largely free Linux, as well as the innovative BeOS -- very different approaches to how operating systems work and reach the public. 

from Wikipedia

Stephenson explores the GUI as a metaphor in terms of the increasing interposition of abstractions between humans and the actual workings of devices (in a similar manner to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) and explains the beautyhackers feel in good-quality tools. He does this with a car analogy. He compares four operating systems, Mac OS by Apple Computer to a luxury European car, Windows by Microsoft to a station wagon, Linux to a free tank, and BeOS to abatmobile. Stephenson argues that people continue to buy the station wagon despite free tanks being given away, because people do not want to learn how to operate a tank; they know that the station wagon dealership has a machine shop that they can take their car to when it breaks down. Because of this attitude, Stephenson argues that Microsoft is not really a monopoly, as evidenced by the free availability of other choice OS's, but rather has simply accrued enough mindshareamong the people to have them coming back. He compares Microsoft to Disney, in that both are selling a vision to their customers, who in turn "want to believe" in that vision.

Mythology in Blade Runner

Prometheus created the mortals from clay, Athena put life in them so in that way he challenged and disobeyed the Gods. Indeed, he gave humans the light of knowledge. In order to punish him, Zeus chained him at the top of Mount Caucasus where an eagle was coming every day to eat his liver, which was always regenerated. Prometheus taught the mortals the way to disobey the gods.

From this story of Prometheus, who challenges Zeus, we can draw a parallel with the character of Roy. In the same way, in sequence n° 18, Roy meets his creator and faces him as in Greek Mythology. He disputes with Tyrell, creator of replicants, so, indirectly, God. We can say that because when they are in the elevator which goes up to Tyrell’s, it is reminiscent of Humans going to Heaven’s door. But although there are similarities, we observe differences. For example, Prometheus didn’t win whereas Roy first wins intellectually with the chess game, and then phyically when he kills Tyrell. In Greek Mythology, Prometheus is chained to Mount Caucasus and is condemned to have his liver eaten every day by an eagle.We can notice that there is a relationship between Prometheus who is chained to Mount Caucasus and Roy who dies at the rooftop of the skyscraper. Just as Prometheus is the slave of the eagle, Roy is the slave of death. Indeed, Prometheus is constantly threatened by the eagle, Roy is constantly threatened by Death. We can also suppose that, when Roy sets the dove free, he also sets himself free from the spell that Tyrell put on him before. For him, death is the deliverance from his enslavement.

Like Roy or Prometheus, Tyrell dares God because he creates replicants. But only God has the power of Creation. So, in that way, Tyrell is a Promethean rebel, too.

 

When Œdipus was a baby, his parents, Queen Jocasta and King Laios, abandoned him, because the Oracle had predicted that Œdipus would kill his father and would love his mother. As a result, Laios threw him into the sea in a basket, that is why he grew up with adopted parents. Becoming an adult, he decided to leave the village to come back to Thebes in order to find again his real parents. Before he arrived in Thebes, he met a man, had a fight against him, and finally killed him without knowing he was his real father. Then, he delivered the town by solving the following enigma which was asked by the Sphinx: "I have four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three legs in the evening, who am I?" The answer was "Man". As a reward, he married Queen Jocasta, who was actually his own mother. He fell immediately in love with that woman. One day, he discovered the truth, that is why he blinded himself and the Queen hanged herself.
To put it in a nutshell, we can say that this story shows us the importance of fate in our life.

First, we can draw a parallel because in Blade Runner, eyes take an important part and we have just seen that Oedipus blinded himself. Indeed, in order to know if a person is really a replicant, the Tyrell Corporation has created the Voight-Kampft test.This test consists in asking questions and putting a camera on the eyes of the man who must answer, like Leon Kowalsky. There is also a parallel because Oedipus killed his father and in the same way, Roy kills Tyrell, his creator, so his father.

But Œdipus did that without premeditation whereas Roy did it on purpose. The parallel comes from the fact that both of them blinded each other. Then, we can say that there is also a parallel between who Œdipus had to find the answer to the enigma of the Sphynx, and Roy who finds the way to checkmate Tyrell.

To put in a nutshell, we can say that Greek Mythology plays an important role in Blade Runner. Indeed, we have just seen that Roy is a Promethean rebel and also with Oedipus and the important role of the eyes in this film.

Avatar - it's history in language.

Derived from the Sanskrit avatra, meaning “descent,” avatar first appeared in English in 1784 to mean an incarnation or human appearance of a deity, particularly Vishnu. Hindu mythology avers that 10 incarnations of the peace-loving divinity will appear on Earth, each an avatar, or “descent,” of the god himself. (That Vishnu has four arms is not in dispute. As to the qualities of his bosom, however, the Vedas are mute.) From that celestial origin, the term’s meaning expanded beyond the strictly religious, coming to mean something akin to “an embodiment, or object of worship,” as in David Masson’s 1859 derogation of John Donne (a poet whose claim to the metaphysical was of a wholly different stripe) in his book “The Life of John Milton.” “Glad that the avatar of Donne, as an intermediate power between Spenser and Milton, was so brief and partial,” he wrote. Though Masson has assuredly done Donne wrong, it is video games to which today’s brief attention spans are partial.

The proliferation of avatar’s second meaning can be traced to Second Life, a multiplayer online virtual world, where players fashion their own online personae called avatars. The popularity of the game has shot the term into the mainstream. Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life, defines avatar in the gaming sense as “the representation of your chosen embodied appearance to other people in a virtual world.” Considering that Second Life avatars may assume literally any guise — wings, a dragon’s head, gills and flippers — the key to avatarness, in Rosedale’s view, is user control. And insofar as a Second Life avatar does and is precisely what the player wants, not just a little Mario who can be made to run and jump or a shapely diva gyrating of her own programmed will, it comes far closer to being a full-fledged virtual persona.

...

I turned to F. Randall Farmer, a creator of the online multiplayer game Lucasfilm’s Habitat, for the origins of the term’s current incarnation. He and Chip Morningstar invented the game in 1986, when they also coined avatar in the “online persona” sense (though gamers had already been exposed to the word’s Sanskrit meaning with the 1985 computer role-playing game, Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar.) “Chip came up with the word ‘avatar,’ ” he recounts, “because back then, pre-Internet, you had to call a number with your telephone and then set it back into the cradle. You were reaching out into this game quite literally through a silver strand. The avatar was the incarnation of a deity, the player, in the online world. We liked the idea of the puppet master controlling his puppet, but instead of using strings, he was using a telephone line.”

The new use first hit the woefully analog print media in the August 1986 issue of the computer magazine Run. Margaret Morabito wrote, “Once a human being enters Habitat, he or she takes on the visual form of an Avatar, and for all intents and purposes becomes one of these new-world beings.” Though perhaps the greater boost came in 1992 with the sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunktilious novel “Snow Crash,” where he invented his own online jargon. He called his virtual world “the Metaverse” and its digital inhabitants “avatars.” Stephenson later gave credit for the coinage to Morningstar and Farmer in the book’s paperback edition.

Full article

Comics and Film

Superheroes saved Hollywood this summer, boosting box office to record heights and funneling $1 billion and counting into studio coffers. Now, emboldened by the success of The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted and Hellboy II, filmmakers are stampeding toward comic books and graphic novels to find bigger-than-life stories for the silver screen. Here's a rundown from Wired on the next comic adaptations.

Article here.