Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
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Two things I've come across recently. One, an interview with Susan Greenfield about her new book:
Quote:
Which means what? "All the things I said in the new book." Ah yes. ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century says people who spend a lot of time interacting through the screen can become emotionally detached, seeing life as a series of logical tasks that demand immediate reaction. Language gets crunched, along with the ability to imagine or analyse. Attention spans shorten. "Human beings always listened to stories and had long working memories. Now it's action, reaction, action, reaction."
What worries her most is a shift of focus from content to process. Think of a book about a princess locked in a tower, she says. You go on reading because you care about what happens to the princess. You're lost in the content of the story. Now think of a computer game about the same thing. "You don't give a stuff about the princess, do you? She's there as a goal." It's not about her. It's about you completing a task. "You focus on the process. The experience offered by a computer is the excitement of an anticipated reward. And frustration if you don't get it. In neurochemical terms, it's very similar to when you take a drug."
This is her specialist area. Rescuing the princess produces a chemical in the brain called dopamine, she says, which makes you feel good. But too much of it may damage the prefrontal cortex, and that can limit your ability to understand anything much beyond the here and now. Other addictions have the same effect.
"Many people like downhill skiing, or dancing, or wine, or sex, or food," says Greenfield. "Up until now, [pleasure seeking] has always been part of our lives but a polar opposite to seeking meaning. I fear we are shifting too much in favour of the literal, the hedonistic, the here and now, and losing meaning, context and content in favour of process.".......
She also explains antisocial behaviour this way. "If you're trapped on a sink estate and you don't even know the capital of France because you've been excluded from school, you're stuck in a literal world where all your stimulation comes from your sensations," she says. "So is it surprising that you will eat strong, greasy, salty food to stimulate the tastebuds? Or kick down doors, or take drugs? The only way you can drive your brain is by grabbing strong sensations." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...ns-825916.html
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& a report on TORn about a new LotR based computer game:
Quote:
For the evil campaign we have something interesting, in the books and the films they make reference to how horrible the world would be if Sauron were to acquire The One Ring, but there is not too much detail, we’ve taken that idea and run with it. For the evil campaign we’ve taken the end of the story and hit ‘rewind’ a little, and you get to play a Ringwraith who stops Frodo from destroying the Ring. You actually get to deliver the Ring to Sauron, this sets off a series of events where you get to play the side of evil with Sauron’s forces. Sauron resurrects his generals, The WitchKing, The Balrog, Saruman and more. You get to play on the evil side and ride oliphaunts, ride the wargs and basically get to play as your favorite evil villains. You get to go through all of Middle earth and sack The Shire, destroy Rivendell, confront Gandalf and Elrond, destroy Helms Deep, attack Minas Tirith and so on.
Xoanon: This is one of the first LOTR games where we get to play the bad guys and live out our darkest fantasies right?
Giz: Right, that’s the beauty of the game, because it’s very systematic, it’s not a very scripted game at all. http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2008...it/#more-28812
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& I couldn't help feeling that that's exactly the kind of thing Greenfield is condemning - the guy behind the game states he is a 'fan' of the book. He clearly isn't. What he is is a fan of the 'stuff' Tolkien invented, not of the underlying philosophy/moral value system. You can be 'evil' as easily as you can be 'good' - because 'good' & 'evil' are simply 'sides' iin a game. The essential difference between Tolkien's work & this game 'based on' it is that this game has no 'characters' which suffer or grow, there's no-one to care about or get emotionally involved with - in Greenfield's words "You don't give a stuff about the princess, do you? She's there as a goal." It's not about her. It's about you completing a task. "You focus on the process. The experience offered by a computer is the excitement of an anticipated reward". This game is Tolkien's creation reduced to outlandish beings attempting to slaughter each other just to see who wins - & ultimately it doesn't actually matter who wins, because its only a 'game'. 'Action, re-action, action, re-action'.
Last edited by davem; 05-11-2008 at 03:20 PM.
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