Fiction, fantasy, and the imagination: more than real
Among other things, a comment about my pet peeve:
What worries me is that if something as innocuous as imagining a piano lesson can bring about a visible physical change in brain structure, and therefore some presumably minor change in the way the aspiring player performs, what changes might long stints playing violent computer games bring about?
That eternal teenage protest of ‘it’s only a game, Mum’ certainly begins to ring alarmingly hollow.
Everything is real and nothing is real (so says the sophisticated Zapata King, but in a much more sophisticated and less general way). The novel 1984 shows that fiction is just as powerful and influential and representative of reality as? As reality.
Saying “it’s only a movie,” or “it’s only a play,” or “it’s only a game,” is like saying “it’s only a thought.”
But Dave, the Great Admirer of the Cuckold, the Cuckold being The Standard of Great Intelligence, but Dave, the Great Admirer of the Cuckold, has infinite admiration of the Cuckold’s “it’s only a game” statements, such as in Another day, another scare:
Wolfenstein 3D and Mortal Kombat, the two games that are primarily responsible for violence in video games, were both published in 1992. That year, there were 23,760 murders in the USA which represented a murder rate of 9.3 per 100,000 population. In 2005, following more than decade of spines being ripped out with bare hands and demons being disemboweled by chainsaws, there were 16,692 murders, but the nation’s larger population means that the murder rate is 5.6, a 40 percent REDUCTION.
Another day, another video game scare.
I’m sure Dave didn’t notice, and didn’t care to notice that if the statistics are true, although Dave might not have read that post, but if he did, I can imagine that he gave a hearty amen to the it’s-only-a-thought-another-day-another-video-game-scare statement; I can imagine this because it fits in with his “most everything is just a game in life” mentality.
Never mind that the derivative of x squared is 2x, a fact that revolves around mere thoughts; that is, mere thoughts about imaginary objects, in particular, imaginary objects called numbers. To clarify, I’m speaking of the imaginary objects called the real numbers, not the imaginary objects called the imaginary numbers, which, of course, are the imaginary objects called the complex numbers, which happen to contain the real numbers, but it’s best to restrict my example to the real numbers, since these are the numbers most people think about when they think of numbers; otherwise, I might confuse someone.
Yes, never mind that completely abstract ideas, ideas such as numbers, result in real world consequences. Is this too deep for Dave and the Cuckold? Should I now expend massive effort to help Dave and the Cuckold make the connection between violent video games and what I’ve said about numbers?
But, in one form or another, at one time or another, Dave didn’t care to notice, in one fashion or another, that there’s the possibility that the murder rate can go down while the increase in murder can go up due to the influence of violent video games; after all, it’s a complicated world, where many voices are crying out, the end result being that many thoughts are induced into our minds; and no, people don’t play a violent video game and immediately go out and emulate it; no, it’s a complicated world where a multitude of ideas influence us, some for the good and some for the bad, but now I’m repeating myself, because it bears repeating.
But Dave is the Great Admirer of the Cuckold. Why? I think I understand why.
And I’m assuming that the Cuckold is a producer of violent, sex filled video games, so of course he’s going to give a simplistic dismissal to any complaints about violent, sex filled video games.
But Dave, the Great Admirer of the Cuckold, admires the Cuckold too much to care about the Cuckold’s flaws. Why? I think I understand why.
