Saturday, July 30, 2005
video virtual and the awakening extra senses
As a kid I played video games but of course a very different kind. The one and only time I tried Play Station was at my Dad's, and it was fun. Weird to be playing with him, and he actually had to talk me into it, but it was fun. And I was thrilled with the angle of the world it presented, but after playing I wasn't that interested in owning one. Which is fine. It's the sort of thing I would feel the need to time, so I didn't spend too much of my time doing.
To say the "sense experience of such an activity is all but absent" might be your own personal experience Frank, but I'm not sure you can vouch for the rest of the world here. The mind activates the body in the dream state, why not a waking dream state? Why not in a state of concentration on a virtual landscape?
No, I believe the opposite here, I believe that these games could be the intuitive senses awakening for an entire new generation, and maybe in ways much of the world has lost.
And to be honest I have indeed encountered fat kids playing Game Boy, but they're certainly not the majority of kids I see playing. Plenty of kids who look like they probably play basketball or football on a regular basis seem to also have Game Boys. To make the argument that it's just a bunch of fat asses out there playing video is not true.
Dangerous? Any more dangerous than watching television? At least with Game Boy or XBox there is a motivating factor or involvement on some level. If anything the argument could be made that these video games are a step in the right direction AWAY from television. It might be difficult to find an experience more passive than television. In fact my argument is that video games are anything but passive.
As far as football, I used to have all kinds of judgments against football, but that was mostly about being abused by high school jocks. I don't have too many feelings anymore about it, and don't care about it. And maybe you're correct about all the things you say about the sport Will. To be honest I would like to hear more about what you have to say on football, it's interesting, what you say.
Lately I have been very interested in listening to poets talk about sports. When a poet starts to talk about baseball (which is what most poets I've heard talk about sports talk about) the sport becomes an amazing kaleidoscope I had never considered on my own. Baseball never did much for me, but I'm glad it does for other poets, that way I get to hear a whole new view on the matter, which is what I hope will be the case hearing you discuss football Will.
CAConrad
To say the "sense experience of such an activity is all but absent" might be your own personal experience Frank, but I'm not sure you can vouch for the rest of the world here. The mind activates the body in the dream state, why not a waking dream state? Why not in a state of concentration on a virtual landscape?
No, I believe the opposite here, I believe that these games could be the intuitive senses awakening for an entire new generation, and maybe in ways much of the world has lost.
And to be honest I have indeed encountered fat kids playing Game Boy, but they're certainly not the majority of kids I see playing. Plenty of kids who look like they probably play basketball or football on a regular basis seem to also have Game Boys. To make the argument that it's just a bunch of fat asses out there playing video is not true.
Dangerous? Any more dangerous than watching television? At least with Game Boy or XBox there is a motivating factor or involvement on some level. If anything the argument could be made that these video games are a step in the right direction AWAY from television. It might be difficult to find an experience more passive than television. In fact my argument is that video games are anything but passive.
As far as football, I used to have all kinds of judgments against football, but that was mostly about being abused by high school jocks. I don't have too many feelings anymore about it, and don't care about it. And maybe you're correct about all the things you say about the sport Will. To be honest I would like to hear more about what you have to say on football, it's interesting, what you say.
Lately I have been very interested in listening to poets talk about sports. When a poet starts to talk about baseball (which is what most poets I've heard talk about sports talk about) the sport becomes an amazing kaleidoscope I had never considered on my own. Baseball never did much for me, but I'm glad it does for other poets, that way I get to hear a whole new view on the matter, which is what I hope will be the case hearing you discuss football Will.
CAConrad
