general media How this game on Rick and Morty challenge the sense of self and reality

[Buck Testa 5,505]

 

In this clip Morty puts on this helmet and proceeds to experience this virtual reality video game. However this has a drastically different component than the VR games that are going to be coming on the market today, and this different aspect brings up some fascinating questions of the sense of self and our perception of reality.

 

See, when you typically play a video game you control an avatar whom has a prescribed set of movements and animations. The avatar is ultimately a tool for you to experience the world with, and its not really you. Even in a typical virtual reality scenario where your division between the avatar and yourself is thinner, that division is still there. You are not your avatar, you just control it. 

 

That barrier is entirely shattered in this scenario (at least with Morty). When you play this game, you are entirely convinced that you are that character, that that is your life, and it has all the emotional attachments that come with it. He gets married, he gets a job, he has kids, he fights through cancer, had a midlife crisis, a whole slew of things you experience in a lifetime in the span of a couple minutes of real time. After he got out of it, he had to recenter himself in reality and establish who he is as a person, kind of like waking up in the middle of a dream/nightmare.

 

Such a game, believe it or not, could very well become a thing. We've been mapping out the brain, and we know for a fact that our minds can construct all kinds of elaborate stories and visuals especially in dreams, and we've been able to implant thoughts and ideas in animal test subjects. Its also been proven that our perception of time can be greatly manipulated, to the point where 8 hours could seem like 1,000 years to your perception of reality. If you combine this with a device that uses your mind as its game engine, you could very well play a game where you absolutely believe with every fiber of your being that you are that character in that story. 

 

But the question is; What does this say about the sense of self and of how we perceive reality? 

 

If you spent an entire lifetime believing you were this person and all these thoughts and feelings are real and then "woke up" at the end to find it was all some video game that your real self was playing, what does that say about being able to trust our senses and what we think is real?  

[Roughshod 720]

Reality is perception. A game like this would breakdown barriers of identity and world experience, you would cease to be you except to those observing you dream.

 

Hypothetically you could say you or I or all of us were experiencing such 'dream'. Because such proof would essentially lie beyond our current knowledge of existence no one could prove you right or wrong. While I'm dreaming that is reality. When I awaken the reality has changed. But you must act with the information and choices available to you.

 

As for how I feel about using such an escape myself... I'm very hesitant. It seems like a gateway to insanity. Changing your entire identity and views on reality could shatter your psyche, leaving you to question everything in a existential paralysis. It could have devastating effects socially speaking. But it could also provide a new frontier in exploring all the aspects of the human condition and how we perceive ourselves and one another. We're literally talking about changing reality here. There's too many possibilities to list.

 

Intriguing doesn't say enough.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Roughshod

[Koukatsu 5,899]

I just take reality one day at a time. If I wake up tomorrow, and the last 27 years were a game? I'd get over it. You can't undo the fact that you played the game, and you can't necessarily guarantee yourself an identical playthrough in some attempt to relive the fantastical life you lost. The only thing to do would be move on.

[Buck Testa 5,505]

Reality is perception. A game like this would breakdown barriers of identity and world experience, you would cease to be you except to those observing you dream.

 

Hypothetically you could say you or I or all of us were experiencing such 'dream'. Because such proof would essentially lie beyond our current knowledge of existence no one could prove you right or wrong. While I'm dreaming that is reality. When I awaken the reality has changed. But you must act with the information and choices available to you.

 

As for how I feel about using such an escape myself... I'm very hesitant. It seems like a gateway to insanity. Changing your entire identity and views on reality could shatter your psyche, leaving you to question everything in a existential paralysis. It could have devastating effects socially speaking. But it could also provide a new frontier in exploring all the aspects of the human condition and how we perceive ourselves and one another. We're literally talking about changing reality here. There's too many possibilities to list.

 

Intriguing doesn't say enough.

It could also be a boon to your psyche as well. Having the experience of thousands of different people, being able to truly see things from a thousand different perspectives, gaining experiences that you would never have in one lifetime. I dare say if you had the fortitude for it you could actually learn what it feels like to be someone like Celestia, whom has lived 1000 years and experienced what that is like. 

 

 

I just take reality one day at a time. If I wake up tomorrow, and the last 27 years were a game? I'd get over it. You can't undo the fact that you played the game, and you can't necessarily guarantee yourself an identical playthrough in some attempt to relive the fantastical life you lost. The only thing to do would be move on.

Interesting point, you think the mind would just accept it and move on without any detrimental effects. Interesting. 

[Koukatsu 5,899]

Interesting point, you think the mind would just accept it and move on without any detrimental effects. Interesting.

I don't know about other people, and cannot speak for the masses as a whole. However, in my specific case, as well as one of my brothers, I know we could accept the situation with unusual ease, simply because of the way our minds work.

I would say it's mostly about personality and how open-minded someone is.

I'm open, accepting, and a firm believer in minding your own business. My brother has only two mindsets, rage and apathy.

Because of these things that make up our cores, I can easily see the situation as one that we would both think simply "Oh well." on the matter.

[Fawkes The Phoenix 737]

I love Rick and Morty 

 

I'd be shocked of course. It could have really negative effects on me, because since everything could be just an illusion, why should I care about anything? I believe Rick faces a simmilar dilemma, since he can just move thorugh all the possible universes, each one of them is equally meaningless to the other. Would I get over it? I'd need to be in that situation to know it, maybe I would by learning to live and enjoy my present, after all, who cares if this isn't real or if it has no purpose? It still matters and it's real to me, and everything comes down to my perception, and that's what makes it important. However, it'd still be a big shock. If Morty gets over it it's because he's faced similar things before, like this: