My reading has been almost exclusively autobiographies over the last few years. I read about one a week. Recent ones include the true life tales of UFC fighter Ronda Rousey, Aussie actor Magda Szubanski and... I can't quite think back further than that at the moment... (I have become much quicker at discarding information that does not serve an ongoing purpose. Like a juicer: I extract the potent, nourishing and useful nectar and jettison the rest. Sip, sip.) If a book does not keep me interested, I stop reading. Think of each chapter as a station on a train track. Sometimes, even after the reasonably thorough sifting process done at the library (of which one in three books of interest actually gets carried out), I will still get off a train and switch to another about 10% of the time.
There is not a limitless selection of autobios available, so I really do, sometimes, if nothing new has appeared, have to dig deep into the stacks and consider random possibilities. I am reading one such book at the moment. I can't remember what it is called, in fact, I don't think I even really cared much about the title - because the synopsis and reviews were enough to snag me - but it is about a guy who has spent his life playing computer games and simulations, beginning in the late 70's/ early 80's with the most basic of such games (in a style similar/based on Dungeons and Dragons).
The interesting thing about this guy's story (so far) is that he was only seven when he convinced his father to buy him one - which was aimed at players 16+ (not due to adult content but to do with development levels). When he talks about how his very young mind stumbled into these worlds and tried to make sense of them and navigate through them, it is truly fascinating, in a large part because, his mind is still that young that he is also still trying to assimilate and navigate through the parallel world of 'reality'.
The games, in these early days, are visually rudimentary, but involve advanced and sometimes complex thought processes and decision making, where actions have consequences. If a then b. They are often about survival in a challenging two dimensional landscape and are about navigating through conceptual terrains while attempting to collect 'life force' to use against increasingly dangerous foes and scenarios.
One of the most mind-blowing things for him was when, after months of play and having achieved double digits in power, he somehow skipped ahead and ran into a troll who was so fierce that he could usurp power from a player, with one violent pummel that would cost 390 points. He could not imagine such a thing. Until he came across it. The concept of even amassing that many points (and all the game time, processes and procedures necessary to do so) for him at that stage were near inconceivable.
So, I'm right into this book! He also talks about the relationship between 2D worlds and 3D worlds - making an interesting and valid point that 2D worlds are often more satisfying because their natural limitations, in fact, allow for much more imagination and interpretation and, as well, can be less distracting. Where I am up to now, he is about ten years old and has found (when not playing a game) a preponderance to wander, through his neighbourhood for example, seeing maps and worlds and possibilities templated over the existing structure and finding that time has disappeared, three, four hours at a hit, without him being aware.
As life often does, when you find a new interest in something, suddenly, you discover connections and related offshoots all around you. So I find myself his evening watching on YouTube: the 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Is the Universe a Simulation? Headed by Neil DeGrasse, a panel of five physicists, astrophysicists and philosophers discuss that nature of reality and ask some interesting questions. I am actually just 29mins into the 2hr presentation currently, and actually paused it to write this because my mind was stimulated and I felt the urgent need to say a few things myself (to myself). And to you (reader) as well. But I know nothing of you and cannot with 100% certainty even assume you exist. True, from responses to my past posts, I do know that these pages do get a three or four thousand weekly hits (according to numbers and graphs on my site home screen - which I find it convenient to believe has some basis in reality), so, at least on some level, I can be pretty sure that this will be read. But for the moment -as I compose it - it is just me.
So, what I am doing is attempting to create a simulation of my mind scape, using these words, to convey it firstly to myself, for clarification and amusement - as well as a kind of progression/record - and then secondly to a group of others from my species who will then interpret them for their own amusement, nourishment, awareness expansion and then will extrapolate upon them in their own multiple and limitless ways. Which in itself, is not dissimilar to that kid with his games. This is not technically a game, but in some ways it is. I am doing it for fun. I am making something up. There are set boundaries - it is an artist's journal, a creative's meanderings that has been posted on the internet on Sunday, June 26th, 2016. Did I know where it was going when I began writing? Not really. I had some idea of a theme. So, in a way it is a journey that I am going on. And you are following in my footsteps. You are curious, too. I am curious, interested in, intrigued by the contents of my own mind and how I have processed information from the minds of others - that writer, the panel - and I am putting it into a fresh context and through some original filters and re-presenting it.
How will you process it? I wonder. Will there be some new thoughts sparked inside your consciousness that bring some fresh excitement, new ideas? I'm sure. And so, on and on, we pass concepts to and fro between each other, in an infinite variety. And with the internet, now, it is so much quicker and more powerful. Indeed, within just minutes of my completing this process of my recordings somebody else will likely be absorbing them! No old school time gap between a hand written journal sitting on a desk for months or years, then being edited, assimilated and finally printed/distributed into a shop or library that stores volumes of thoughts collected in 3D tomes for absorption. No, it's now instant. I'm going to click a button and here it is. You have it. (And so on...)
One thing I noticed while watching (listening to - I soon realised there was not much need to be visually attentive and traversed to other tabs with the audio in the background) the panel was how clunky we humans are when we attempt to verbal express things. As well as the distractions of voice, personalities, surroundings, there are so many barriers to expressing the often magnificent complexity of thought that takes part in our minds. Even in the short bit I have seen so far, I can perceive, so much interference and distraction going on and have to sift through for the juicy bits. I do believe that we are actually SO much smarter, more aware and advanced than we are able to actually express. I guess striving to get better at it is part of the fun. And that is why I write stuff like this, here; for fun and stimulation. As well, to connect. We are in it together. This wonderful world, er, simulation, er, whatever you want to call it.
There is not a limitless selection of autobios available, so I really do, sometimes, if nothing new has appeared, have to dig deep into the stacks and consider random possibilities. I am reading one such book at the moment. I can't remember what it is called, in fact, I don't think I even really cared much about the title - because the synopsis and reviews were enough to snag me - but it is about a guy who has spent his life playing computer games and simulations, beginning in the late 70's/ early 80's with the most basic of such games (in a style similar/based on Dungeons and Dragons).
The interesting thing about this guy's story (so far) is that he was only seven when he convinced his father to buy him one - which was aimed at players 16+ (not due to adult content but to do with development levels). When he talks about how his very young mind stumbled into these worlds and tried to make sense of them and navigate through them, it is truly fascinating, in a large part because, his mind is still that young that he is also still trying to assimilate and navigate through the parallel world of 'reality'.
The games, in these early days, are visually rudimentary, but involve advanced and sometimes complex thought processes and decision making, where actions have consequences. If a then b. They are often about survival in a challenging two dimensional landscape and are about navigating through conceptual terrains while attempting to collect 'life force' to use against increasingly dangerous foes and scenarios.
One of the most mind-blowing things for him was when, after months of play and having achieved double digits in power, he somehow skipped ahead and ran into a troll who was so fierce that he could usurp power from a player, with one violent pummel that would cost 390 points. He could not imagine such a thing. Until he came across it. The concept of even amassing that many points (and all the game time, processes and procedures necessary to do so) for him at that stage were near inconceivable.
So, I'm right into this book! He also talks about the relationship between 2D worlds and 3D worlds - making an interesting and valid point that 2D worlds are often more satisfying because their natural limitations, in fact, allow for much more imagination and interpretation and, as well, can be less distracting. Where I am up to now, he is about ten years old and has found (when not playing a game) a preponderance to wander, through his neighbourhood for example, seeing maps and worlds and possibilities templated over the existing structure and finding that time has disappeared, three, four hours at a hit, without him being aware.
As life often does, when you find a new interest in something, suddenly, you discover connections and related offshoots all around you. So I find myself his evening watching on YouTube: the 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Is the Universe a Simulation? Headed by Neil DeGrasse, a panel of five physicists, astrophysicists and philosophers discuss that nature of reality and ask some interesting questions. I am actually just 29mins into the 2hr presentation currently, and actually paused it to write this because my mind was stimulated and I felt the urgent need to say a few things myself (to myself). And to you (reader) as well. But I know nothing of you and cannot with 100% certainty even assume you exist. True, from responses to my past posts, I do know that these pages do get a three or four thousand weekly hits (according to numbers and graphs on my site home screen - which I find it convenient to believe has some basis in reality), so, at least on some level, I can be pretty sure that this will be read. But for the moment -as I compose it - it is just me.
So, what I am doing is attempting to create a simulation of my mind scape, using these words, to convey it firstly to myself, for clarification and amusement - as well as a kind of progression/record - and then secondly to a group of others from my species who will then interpret them for their own amusement, nourishment, awareness expansion and then will extrapolate upon them in their own multiple and limitless ways. Which in itself, is not dissimilar to that kid with his games. This is not technically a game, but in some ways it is. I am doing it for fun. I am making something up. There are set boundaries - it is an artist's journal, a creative's meanderings that has been posted on the internet on Sunday, June 26th, 2016. Did I know where it was going when I began writing? Not really. I had some idea of a theme. So, in a way it is a journey that I am going on. And you are following in my footsteps. You are curious, too. I am curious, interested in, intrigued by the contents of my own mind and how I have processed information from the minds of others - that writer, the panel - and I am putting it into a fresh context and through some original filters and re-presenting it.
How will you process it? I wonder. Will there be some new thoughts sparked inside your consciousness that bring some fresh excitement, new ideas? I'm sure. And so, on and on, we pass concepts to and fro between each other, in an infinite variety. And with the internet, now, it is so much quicker and more powerful. Indeed, within just minutes of my completing this process of my recordings somebody else will likely be absorbing them! No old school time gap between a hand written journal sitting on a desk for months or years, then being edited, assimilated and finally printed/distributed into a shop or library that stores volumes of thoughts collected in 3D tomes for absorption. No, it's now instant. I'm going to click a button and here it is. You have it. (And so on...)
One thing I noticed while watching (listening to - I soon realised there was not much need to be visually attentive and traversed to other tabs with the audio in the background) the panel was how clunky we humans are when we attempt to verbal express things. As well as the distractions of voice, personalities, surroundings, there are so many barriers to expressing the often magnificent complexity of thought that takes part in our minds. Even in the short bit I have seen so far, I can perceive, so much interference and distraction going on and have to sift through for the juicy bits. I do believe that we are actually SO much smarter, more aware and advanced than we are able to actually express. I guess striving to get better at it is part of the fun. And that is why I write stuff like this, here; for fun and stimulation. As well, to connect. We are in it together. This wonderful world, er, simulation, er, whatever you want to call it.
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