The Project, In Short

If we use the What, Why, and How format to describe this project, I’ll have to spend a moment to decide which kind of answer should I give. Because I’m explaining it in a non-interactive way, I’m assuming you’re an average person, having average job or go to an average school, has an average taste in music, art, at least aware of games, and, just because you’ve read past the intro, I’ll assume you want to do something(or at least, be aware of what you’re doing) to the world.

Every single person is different, so here’s one(of the many) approach to describe this. I’ll be comparing this project with our general concept of God.

(Picture explanation below)

“What is it”?

God is omnipotent, omniscient, the almighty who created everything so far and will create everything from now on, in eternity. This is our general concept of God; a concept even atheists can understand.

Whether God actually exists in this reality or not is open to debate, but this is not what I’ll be talking about.

Speaking about reality, I like to divide it to 2 types:

1.         The Shared Reality, which is what we all see. From the “I” point of view, you, you over there, and everyone else besides the “I” falls to this Shared Reality. It’s basically this certain place or stage where every actor contributes their influence in shaping it. Actor in this sense means other people, animals, plants, and basically anything that is outside the direct control of “I”.
   
   If we compare this Shared Reality to an abstract art piece, God would be comparable to the artist who made the art piece. When this art piece is placed right in front of you and if you happen to have the urge to try to enjoy, or at least understand it, there are usually 2 methods in which we try to understand. First is to observe it from every angle, touch it in every place to make sure it won’t explode, bring it to a lab, or anything along those lines. The second method is simply, to ask the creator, in this case the artist, this question: “What the hell is this?”, and hopefully the artist answers.
   
   If only we can ask God the same question, then we wouldn’t be spending so much effort in science, space travels, and everything else.
   
2.          The second type, I call The Personal Reality. It’s what we think, where we think of our next step, and where we figure out what kind of action, or intention, we should project unto the Shared Reality. Simply put, before I figure out what I should do in this sandbox, I picture massive amounts of thoughts in my Personal Reality, on which I eventually came up with a design of a sandcastle. The decision of actually making that sandcastle(projecting my idea unto the real world) is another question to be decided in my mind, but generally what we consider upon figuring out the answer to that is to make the Shared Reality that much closer to our image of reality in our Personal Reality, or hesitate/be shy/doubt and end up not making the sandcastle altogether.

In conclusion, the existence of God in the SR(Shared Reality) is questionable, but there is definitely a God in the PR(Personal Reality), which is our own mind that governs our thoughts.

If we go back to our original question, that is, “What is this world?”, we’ll just go back to the lab researching protons or figuring out how big the universe is with our telescopes. But if we try to be God, take the role of the Creator, and make another world where we can explore the strength of our imagination freely, wouldn’t it be a more interesting approach to understand this world?

And of course, if we take another look at the abstract art piece, there’s no way of understanding it fully if we don’t take into account every point of observation available, like seeing it from all possible angle or detect anything necessary in order to understand it. In this world, there is no one who is able to see everything that’s going on, no matter how much security camera the higher ups have installed. In a simpler term: There is no single entity who holds the absolute truth. This is why we communicate, upon wanting to know what we can’t see, we ask a friend what’s written on our back, or at least stop trying to look with just our eyes and look for a mirror.

“Why it?”

The will to understand the world is within all of us. Some may take it to another level and wanting to control it(Lots of Master Yoda quotes would go here), but this issue is more about morality, which this project will also try to handle.

This is why, in order for this to work, we’re supposed to respect every point of observation existing in this world. Not only every people’s subjective view of the world, but also animals’, plants’, and basically every contributing energy within the universe. That sounds too extreme; we’re currently nowhere even close to being able to keep track of all that information. But at least, we should understand, that it is only then can we understand the world as a whole. Since we can’t do that yet, why don’t we, for now, make a world our own?

So we’ve come to the first meaning of Godplay: (Fortunately, this one’s also the simplest one):
To understand the world not (only) by being the observer in a certain reality, but take the role of the Creator in a fictional(man-made) reality we all can control and contribute. A simulation, maybe like in the Matrix(but the digital world in Matrix is created based on a very messed up intention, so, not really), except we figure out what we want to achieve, or understand, before we make it. We figure out the Question, before we Play it.

“How will we do it?”

Everyone has their own way of contributing a change to the world. Every action one does is simply an effort an individual does to make the world change towards this certain world he has in his PR, no matter how small their effort is.

The main intention of this project is actually neutral. It does not provide an answer, or a definite method to save the world. In fact, the project itself has nothing to do with saving the world.

How this project works is to provide a certain “platform” for people to contribute ideas, and let others see, criticize, support, or scrap the idea. Up to this point, it does sound very similar to kickstart.com, and it’s exactly it with many other features and methods.

I did say it will relate to saving the world. Well, since this project is my creation, there are many things I want to suggest and contribute to it. Not only the project itself, but the contribution of ideas from myself, which mostly will relate to saving the world. If you’re in, then it is your right to criticize the ideas I will present from now on, or suggest an idea yourself.

Every person is like a point of observation to see the abstract art piece that is the world. Every point of observation contributes to the real understanding of the piece, and every person’s ideas relates, complements, or disregards each other’s result of observation. In short, every person’s ideas are important.

-d

3/12/13