Define your Reality II

[Artimus]

(FYI - This was written before I read Rule 3.6 and its intent is not meant to incite controversy. My references are strictly for allegory purposes only. If it gets deleted, so be it. What will be, will be.)

This blog entry was inspired by:
http://www.entropiaforum.com/forums/blogs/andreea/1056-pixels-vs-rl.html

I do not “prefer pixels instead of hand made work”, but rather see no distinction between the two and here is why:

Define art. Art is in the eye of the beholder. To define art is to define your reality. Art is the process or product of deliberately and creatively arranging elements (whether natural or zeros and ones) in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions, especially beauty. In its narrow sense, the word art most often refers specifically to the visual arts, including media such as painting, sculpture, and printmaking. However, "the arts" may also encompass a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music and literature. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy which studies art. I, personally, tend to lean toward a Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans. An object may be characterized by the intentions, or lack thereof, of its creator, regardless of its apparent purpose. Leo Tolstoy identified art as a use of indirect means to communicate from one person to another. Is not this, “Humans are depending more and more on computers, pixels, electricity…” then necessary for our indirect means of communication that, even now reading a blog, we all treasure so as an Entropian society and as an Earthly global one?

A blog in the LA Times by Carolyn Kellogg asks the question, “Can art create order?…I needed to be supremely rational and brilliant to cope with the challenges ahead, and the way to do that was to create an environment that encouraged the furthest flights of intellect.” By the year 2011 80% of peeps who use computers will have an avatar, a persona, an image, a representation of themselves in the cyber universe. MA is a pioneer, as such, and those that where called kooks for investing in what was, “just a game”, have inadvertently cracked through the looking glass, torn the veil over their eyes, and let their hearts, minds, and souls run as fast as fast as they will. We have and will create the virtual worlds and our co-inhabitants of life; never-before-seen wildlife and strange humanoid mutants, and in doing so, we choose to breathe together in a unified setting. Yet each of us cherishes our inalienable individual right to create our surroundings, our reality, as we see fit.

Creation is in the hand of those that create, in the hand of Gods as it were. God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. Many notable medieval philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God, attempting to wrestle with the apparent contradictions implied by many of these attributes. Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, and others. In philosophical terminology, "existence-of-God" arguments concern schools of thought on the epistemology of the ontology of God. Many know their God and have found comfort, peace and joy in the pursuit of a relationship with God and thus benefited thereby.

Do you know your God? Do you talk/pray to your God? Is he/she a God of chaos? As much as I would love the boost to the membership of my in game society, I deduct that God is a God of order. Whether we create our art as a God of order or a God of chaos, are we not all Gods in embryo, learning each moment one more infinitesimal truth after the next, until we are old and decrepit in body and clinging to a mind filled with a lifetime of learning? When the bounds of the Earth, of the sky, of our physical and mental universe are lifted and our sphere of understanding expands, will not each soul continue to grow, to learn, to live true to the truth that he or she has discovered, been lead to, or searched for? It seems to me that upon the threshold of mortality one must certainly have a new perspective on the ageless questions of, “Where are we from?”, “Why are we here?”, and “Where are we going? The following link will illuminate my point and what will be, will be.

http://www.computer-arts-society.org/Programme/index.html

Follow all the links and let your mind part the veil, crash through the matrix, plug in to the idea of a constant awareness of our mortality and therefore, ultimately, the “blink of an eye” that this life experience is in comparison the limitless expanse of the universe. Like unto early modern-day explorers of the Americas, MindArk is a new Columbus, breaking through to a new found truth. Land existed across the pond, did it not? The earth was not flat. Earlier civilizations even seemed to show an understanding of this truth. Columbus followed the path of truth; science, mathematics, and maybe some intuition or even divine enlightenment. He discovered a seemingly limitless terrain to explore. He did then, as others do today; record what they find, map it, share it, sustain oneself from it, grow in skills and strength, and reproduce (much to the chagrin and eventual decimation of the natives). “Run to the Hills!”. As we can witness today, the Pacific Ocean is pretty much the other side of that little expedition.

In contrast, the cycle of life beyond these walls of time is a straight line. There is no cycle or “circle”, and no end. Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes better and better with no end. Do you really think that we will be magically perfected when we die or ever for that matter? The term “perfected”, as it is past tense, alludes to the notion that it has an end, as though one can ultimately reach some end to their progression. I purport that the term “perfect” is a verb, not an adjective or a noun, as in “to perfect”. A verb is action, motion, to perfect, to continue to eternally learn, to grow, to know as God is all knowing. God is all knowing? As though he has no more capacity to grow, to learn, to expand his awareness or his influence forever? Maybe as far as we can see or comprehend now, but are we not blinded by the trappings of the carnal, the flesh, of the frailties and ailments that keep us continually in this state of decay on this lone and dreary Earthly planet? I do hope for and believe that our “time” and our common earthly reality of being human here is not in vain. The antithesis hypothesis is that there is a purpose and a far more reaching power to propel ones spirit forever. Line upon line, precept upon precept, eternally in a state of perfecting oneself, we will continue into the afterlife learning many great and wonderful things.

Here on Earth, by comparison, we learn such simple things as creating pottery, painting, building bridges, waterways, mathematics, metaphysics, alchemy, astrology, biology, etc. Do we know genesis or creation? Do the real-life elements follow under your direction? I have not learned, yet, how to make a flower or a bird or a lightning bolt. Do you think God just spontaneously combusted in some big bang and immediately knew how to direct the elements to follow his will? Or did he learn, from other Gods, as we may learn from Him, how to create an atom, a molecule, a cell, a group of cells, an organism, a working community of organisms with the common purpose to perfect, to progress, to expand, to grow into being plankton, an embryo, a larvae, a seedling, a plant, a tree, a stone, a source of light and nutrients to sustain, energize, and unite forms into bigger and bigger relationships of co-existence like continents, oceans, planets, moons, stars, solar systems of a seemingly endless frontier? I should hope so or he would cease to be God. Is not his realm far vaster than ours? Can you imagine getting a personal tour? “So then I planned out this little ball of hot magma I like to call Earth”. As the ultimate architect, I am sure God imagined the creation before creating it. The universe beyond our atmosphere, the universe beyond our mortality, can only be imagined by us. All that is, was created. All that is created first came from the imagination of the human heart, the manifest destiny of the spirit, and the soul of man, through his mind. I use computer drafting and design software to create a reality from my imagination. Does not then the definition of my reality stem from thought, imagination, and vision having no end, a limitless palette from which to draw from, to define onto a limitless canvas?

The platform that MindArk has now separated from Calypso proper is, also, a limitless canvas. We are on the verge of the greatest exploration ever known. It will surely intertwine our global community together more than ever thought possible. There is a compelling urge of man to explore and to discover, the thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before. Most of the surface of the earth has now been explored and men now turn to the exploration of outer space as their next objective. NASA in the physical realm has achieved success in exploration. And, even now, plans to explore the virtual world to bring education and their knowledge to us in a much more direct way. I take night school classes and may never stop. I love to learn, to grow and expand my awareness. To this purpose, I have shared of myself to encourage an intellectual discourse among all EF participants. A school of thought, of sorts, with no walls, no boundaries, and no homework! lol

...to be continued...same blog time(ish), same blog channel.