From Evolutionary Spirituality

Hey, Lion! I did watch the Spore video and it was quite fascinating. Interesting lessons on mutation and selection. Do you know of any game(s) which covers collective evolutionary factors like communication, cooperation, and social organization (alliances, networking, hierarchies, etc.)? Those are the kinds of evolutionary dynamics I want to understand more, which seem to have direct bearing on our efforts for conscious evolution as a civilization. Tomatlee 23:39, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, you mean something like this.

LionKimbro

Comes closer, but is not from an evolutionary perspective. I was raised in a nonviolent-action oriented progressive family and evolved into a more social-dialogue-as-the-source-of-social-change-and-self-organization perspective. That latter perspective has more of an evolutionary feel to me. The fact is that I'm groping here. I don't know yet what exactly I'm seeking; I just know when it isn't there. Hopefully after a few months of researching cultural evolution I will know more what to ask for. -- Tomatlee 00:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

If books can be social dialog, then why not games?

Games have the power to embody a complete simulation, and dynamically answer questions that a book might not have the space to catalog.

I think games have the ability to communicate complex messages, both as a static medium (a game that plays the same way every time, and thus resembles a book,) and especially as a dynamic medium (a game that models the world, and can generate it's own responses, to answer the player's "questions.")

The reasoning does not contradict the idea that social dialog is at the root of change. Games are dialog, written by people, written for people.

LionKimbro

Ah, I obviously didn't speak clearly, Lion. I don't know if I can, but I'll try. It isn't Spore as a game, that I was not satisfied with. It was the fact that the game variables were mostly tools, technologies, and body forms, all of which were designed, rather than emergent. What I would be most interested in would be one that had body structures, technologies, social forms, ideas, activities, etc., emerging out of interactions (especially communication), which is what evolution seems to me to be about -- and is, especially, the kind of evolution we need to be able to model and simulate and practice. I imagine that that kind of game is WAY in the future, due to technical challenges.

In the meantime, I don't resonate much with Spore, although I did find the video about it fascinating -- it is a novel artifact. As an activity, Spore seems to demand much more time than I have and I don't feel I gain a lot of knowledge or other benefits from doing the game (other than simple enjoyment). I feel I would get more useful knowledge and insight about evolutionary dynamics from a book or video or conversation. Currently my practicing conscious evolution is happening in my life, in conversations with people like you and Michael and Peggy, not in games. Which isn't to say that games aren't great for some people. I'm not denigrating them. I'm just not into them. But I'm open to learning more about the role they play in so many (especially young) people's lives, and thus in our culture. And I really look forward to the emergence of games that help people try out -- and live into -- different ways of living and relating and taking action that apply to our here-and-now world or one we hope to be able to evolve into in the immediate future. Or more games like Sim City that teach systems thinking...

-- Tomatlee 05:27, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Hah!

Spore is one of the most "emergent" game, in that the vast majority of the content is user created.

But then that's not enough, because the tools themselves are not user created..!

(I'm grinning here.)

It's sort of like: "Well, OpenSource software isn't all that special to me. Because, like: What about the computer it runs on, hunh? Can you give me blueprints, such that I can assemble the sticks and stones outside my house into a working computer? Because if not, I'm just not impressed."

What I'm saying is:

The degree of flexibility and customization that this game provides is near unheard of, in computer games. What is happening is that we are witnessing an evolutionary development towards greater user customization and sharing, and Spore is a huge milestone in this evolutionary path.

We shouldn't say: "These games aren't at 1,500 miles yet." We should say: "Yay! We made 500 miles!" Because you can say to people: "Look, here's this trend. See? We've gone from 100, to 300, to 500, and next we'll see 700."

Second Life, too, is radical. Players can program the environment, and make their own shops, and all kinds of stuff, within the virtual world. It, too, is part of this major trend.

As for systems thinking: The great majority of games promote systems thinking. They do not necessarily apply it to a manifest city, but it does provide an avenue (if not the major avenue, for young children,) for thinking about things originally, rather than having answers handed to them.

Games have already emerged that lead to critical thinking, exploration of roles, and so on. Anda's Game is fiction, but the basic explanation is, (I think,) true. I know that participation in the Open Source world has done the same for me, and I understand that the basic structure is very similar.

“Yes,” she said. “But I did more treading than getting trodden on.” The other girls were really fat, and they didn’t have a lot of team skills. Anda had been to war: she knew how to depend on someone and how to be depended upon. -- Anda's Game, chapter IX

I'm not sure what can convince you that Games are evolutionary significant beyond being a mere cultural artifact. "Oh, look, the children are playing with green rocks. When I was growing up, they were grey."

The significance is much clearer to me:

• Games induce original, critical thinking.
• Games teach far better than instruction.
• Massively Multiplayer games cause teamwork. People are self-organizing in these environments.
• Games grow in complexity, and are interesting to minds because they are more complex, and grant greater freedom.
• Games host some of the most advanced collaboration environments outside of the material world that exist, and are steadily growing richer. One day, they will overtake the material world in expressive power, after merging with it (Mixed Reality.) Games will go beyond what "realistic" is capable of, and lead straight to virtual reality.

So this is all of evolutionary importance, and it is of evolutionary importance to the social system as well.

The social system has the possibilities of an augmented social network, when it happens in the game world. There is good reason to believe that games are leading us there: For example, the "guilds" in games. I suspect that we will see more advanced mechanisms for organizing communications in games, as time goes by. If the game makers don't write it, the players will.

The picture I want to paint, is a big arrow going from games, to self-organization.

The kids who are forming teams and sub-teams and sub-sub-teams in these games, participating in these networks, are going to do the same when they grow up. They will understand the process and the mechanics of self-organizing, because they did it.

Reading books wouldn't do it for them. Neither would listening to lectures. The kids thirst for interactivity, they thirst for mind, they thirst for engagement. I believe that these things point straight to self-organization.

I can't think of anything that would do better. Can you?

LionKimbro

addendum: I'll move this to a "Computer Games" page.

LionKimbro

[edit] ken wilber, integral philosophy, spiral dynamics

I really enjoy your perspectives on this and the ethical perspective you inject.

On that front, I've found great insights in the work of ken wilber et. al on integral philosophy, spiral dynamics, and the like. These recognize powerful themes in the evolution of individuals and cultures, and reject a simplistic single philosophy and right answer for all situations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Dynamics http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7187/victor.html

NealMcB 23:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)NealMcB