Yesterday's post was disappointing to say the least, but there was a reason for that: sleep deprivation.
Empty flat below us + fire alarm going off all night X council refusing to do anything about it = no sleep for me or the wife.
So, thanks to the above I was unable to bang out a post to my satisfaction. Not sure if this one will be a winner either as I'm still feeling the effects, but the beauty of this blog is that no one reads it.
Now, I'm don't want this to the be case forever, but it's fine for the moment as it gives me a chance to experiment on the blogging front without people telling me I suck.
But getting back to yesterday, what I was trying to achieve overall with the computer game discussion was that people, since the dawn of time, have wanted to control reality and we're well on our way to achieving this (to a certain degree).
Is this truly what I mean? It seems stupid now that I've written it down, but I thought about this over and over again on many an occasion. Writing, films, games - they all create an alternative reality in which the creator can play around with these worlds and explore situations that effect them from the comfort of their own homes.
However, the above isn't completely true, well the comfort of their own homes bit at least, as there have been a number of books written whilst the author was in captivity. But they were still creating a world they could explore so as to seek answers and solace in their own (Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes and Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy spring to mind).
So, I will go back to 1-UP Part 3 at some point and edit it. Editing after all, is what writing is really about.
Another thing I wish to discuss is thought, especially this: if you take a moment to look around you right now, what do you see? You may be at home so you'll see the contents of your room, or perhaps out and about, maybe even on a hillside over looking a city or something. The point is, with the exception of naturally occurring events such as the sun, hills, seas, animals, etc., almost everything else you're looking at started off as a thought in someone's head; the screen you're currently looking at, the text you're reading, the chair you're sat on, even the building you're inhabiting at this moment - all of it started as a thought in a fellow human beings mind.
Why do I find this so interesting? Well, for a number of reasons, but a thought struck me on the way home from work the other evening. Here I am, Sean Z P Harris, and I have created a world in which my stories can take place. Now, even though these stories are quite unique, the elements that make them up are all found in this world. I basically took elements from this reality and re-arranged them to create my own. Even if I was to write about a golden mountain, something that isn't found in our world, the elements 'gold' and 'mountain' are, so if I write about a golden mountain, most people will be able to picture it. I believe it was David Hume who first noted this in his theory on how ideas are created.
But getting back to that journey home, there I was thinking about stories and Hume's theory of ideas when a thought struck me: what if god was a kind of author who has used elements combined from his/her own world to create ours? It would mean that literally everything in our world started off as a thought in someone else's (maybe even a groups) mind.
Now, let's pretend that the worlds we create actually have an existence beyond that which we see. Say I wrote a sci-fi novel. Even though I've created this fictional world, what if I'm actually accessing an entire universe and I only get to report on small sections of it; that in actual fact it exists somewhere and the people who populate it create there own stories - they could combine the fantastic ideas I used to create their world (space ships and golden mountains) with their own ideas to produce even more startling universes whose unseen occupants could do the same.
Where would this lead?
I have no idea, but one things for sure: I'm having a lie in on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment