In Your World

in your world:

"in your world that might be a famous person, but i've never heard of him."

is there a metaphysical significance to that? could it be that we are really living in our own worlds, our own versions of Earth, only it just seems that we are living in the same, standardized Earth, with the same people in it? the invention of the computer and the internet showed us what was possible first of all and introduced concepts that we could borrow from to better understand the metaphysics of reality.

"ok, what if this person only exists in my world, i mean, i know when you say "in my world" you generally mean the place where you live, the people you know, etc. and that's individual but you assume that the media is the same, right?"

"maybe it isn't. how far you can test it is doubtful too. maybe you could look it up, this guy you're talking about, on the internet, and show me that he exists, but how do i know that you haven't just delivered that media to me through some channel in real space, just now, by us being together? and that he really didn't exist in my world before, but now i'm with you, he does? if you see what i mean."

"so real people meeting each other involves some kind of trade of information?"

"yes. so it opens up channels, i don't know, i'm tempted to say subspace channels but that's something else on Star Trek, maybe "interpersonal data channel" is better. i don't believe in the concept of the external world so how else could it work? i mean, of course, the data channels are open even when we're not together but presumably they're even more open when we are."

"so say we live in a more or less standardized, common Earth. i guess for it to be 100% standardized, it would require some central "Earth supercomputer" and maybe that doesn't exist. everyone has their own local Earth supercomputer, like everyone's an internet server, so to speak, in their own right."

"yeah, so data flows back and forth and yeah, obviously you each have some kind of supercomputer to render all your visuals, everything you see, and hear of course."

"and maybe data gets corrupted, there are errors in the transmission."

"and signal noise. that could explain how we live in slightly different versions of Earth. like we all live in parallel universes. because of poor connection. but i had an experience, where i was waiting to meet someone in a public place, and they appeared out of nowhere, literally."

"that happens to me too. we were going abroad and we were in a large train station and my father had wandered off and i was getting worried because i couldn't see him and then he appeared suddenly, just like that, at a distance. it's things like travel where you get paranoid whether the whole thing actually "works" or not."

"and then i was upset once, very emotional, and then either the dvd player broke or there was no electricity or something but it wouldn't come on. and then when i calmed down, it worked."

"i mean you could explain it away as, "oh, it's all in your mind", it was just an electrical fault, but the worrying thing is that if the external world is not real, it really is all in your own mind! weird things, frightening things, happen when you are very emotional."

"yeah like machines break. maybe it's harder to meet real people, assuming lots of simulated Non Player Characters, not just because there may be few real people, but because everything has to work, there has to be an excellent connection between real people."

"i don't know. real people. in one way, i think it's more frightening. what if you don't get along? a virtual character, someone simulated, you don't really care, right? it doesn't matter."

"well i don't know about that. what if the NPC came from someone else's, a real person's, database of characters, maybe they're not real but they're just like someone real, and they would know how you treat one of their simulated people."

"my army of illusions against someone else's? i still think it's less intimidating to deal with someone simulated and wouldn't you convert a character from somewhere else to someone more suitable in your own matrix? i don't know. but trade is good, right? when i was a kid, i really don't think i could write that easily. i mean, like when i was 6, we had to write an essay each weekend on that week's lesson on Native Americans, one page. it wasn't easy for me. maybe i could write better in a previous life and just forgot, but it's like, when i go to a book store and see all those titles on the shelves, that's got to come from elsewhere, other people have done all that, my unconscious or local Earth supercomputer may be able to create simulated people and a few snatches of speech but it's hard to believe it could come up with thousands of different books."

"think how much your world has changed. and you're not alone is what that shows. there are a ton of ideas out there."

CLEARCHARGE