Conversations from Exile

DJ : Greetings, Rhys. Have you read the new lore post?

Rhys : Yes, I’ve seen it and was disappointed. Luke argues there must be a guiding principle to our cult; then conflates this principle with a spirit, and says that the spirit must exist. The boy spends so much time looking backwards he can't see what's in front of him. You can see it in his ideas and his references to Plato; he is stuck in the past. He clings onto the true gamer because he is afraid to enter into a future the lengths of which have not already been explored. Translucent or transparent, neither is sufficient: I won't stop until the glass lays shattered at my feet.

DJ: If we remove the true gamer, what is left? How would we move forward?

Rhys :I alone can't chart the path we should take; that’s a discovery for the group . What I can offer is a new way to understand our place in the world.

First, recognise that almost nothing can be known for certain. Our senses cannot be proven to be reliable, and so we can never know that what we think exists really does.

Our minds transform the information they receive into a coherent model of the world. Thus, our understanding of the world is the model our brains have constructed from information they have received. Whether this information has any basis in reality is both unknowable and irrelevant. The model is consistent either way.

DJ : But this is not a truth for our cult but would be a truth of all human understanding. Even the old religions exist under this framework: they supplement the information available to their model with their idea of god.

Rhys : Yes exactly, old religions enhanced their believers' models of the world. Providing guidance and solutions in otherwise unsolved areas. This is what religion has done, but also is the purpose of science. In this way, science and religion are not opposites but are both human attempts to understand the world. And yet throughout history they have clashed, for religion overreaches and then science disproves it. But religions always risk being disproved and science can't exist without admitting what it does not know. We can move past all this by recognising within ourselves that all ideas are just models and that the only important thing for a model is that it is useful for the current task.

DJ : So, there is neither knowledge nor truth. We must adapt ideas to the current moment and always be ready for change. How does this help us? Does it constitute a real set of ideas and not just a dismissal of what has come before? It is easy to tear down all you hate, but harder to rebuild.

Rhys: After removing the burdens of truth and knowledge, we can set a philosophy compatible with our new world view. Again we return to our core belief - games. The purpose of a game is to challenge and enhance our model of the world. A game offers much with our modern lives lack; real consequence, opportunity for success and failure, and instant and direct feedback. Not only does a game allow you to check the health and effectiveness of your internal model, but it tunes it, keeps it flexible and useful. There is immense value in mastering the game, for it involves mastering your own mind and so the world.