The Game Plays Us

The game plays us.

We talk of AI and our fears. Yet the reality is we are already running multiple Algorithms of multiple distributed Symbiotic Intelligences.

From Corporations (literal lawful embodiments of ideological spirit forms) to religion, to culturally distributed patterns of behavior.

Each idea we hold, shapes our perception of reality, it shapes our behaviors and actions in the world.

What happens when we change these defaults?

This is a question I have been actively exploring through play (amount with many others) over the last year.

Why Play?

Change is scary. It’s the unknown. When we consider change we foolishly consider the change to be permanent, yet the reality is all changes are intermediate states – a step on a path of continuous change.

Spaces of play are a way to test the ground, to take a step in another direction, secure in the knowledge we can still step back.

A context of exploration and experimentation.

A way to gain experience without the threat of permanence.

When we model reality in our imaginations we are victims of our bias. Our bias is generally cautious, fearful. But even if utopian, it is still limited by our bias, and we can easily fall into the trap of looping our imagination building castles in the sky.

Through play we bring ideas into contact with reality. We gain experience and build skill.

The game I have discovered helps to change reality through play.

That’s not to say imagination isn’t important, but dreams without deeds can never find the soil in which to grow.

Seeds must be planted to become trees.

Many seeds are growing. Now the game plays us, for we are more than one. Different Algorithms from the norms you are used to (what some call Game A). Through play we discover new ways to relate to reality. We gain experience, creating knowledge grounded in reality rather than abstract thought forms based on Mediated experiences.

I used to write polytopian* fiction. Now my reality is stranger and more beautiful, and it is growing into the reality I dream of. Now I must share some stories of my reality.

In tune with the reversal of behaviors I will tell this story by means of Kairos.

The Greek’s believed in two gods of time, Chronos and Kairos. Chronos is linear, time as progression. Start and End. Kairos is time as cyclical, “the right time”. The hero’s cycle rather than the heroes journey. Serendipity. Flow.

Trees reveal what their seeds contain. I want you to take the seeds, first I must show you what this small sapling is already producing. Many fruits are starting to ripen.

Mushrooms are surfacing from the soil of playful connection, ready to spread their spores.