The MMO PVP Problem

This is a preserved post from an Aion thread I found today. In it the original poster was complaining about the pvp in the game (ganking, specifically) had gotten to the point where she was being killed in the broker, aka the "trade" or auction house located in a city-type area that is supposed to be protected by guards so that players can relax and conduct their business without having to worry about dying.

This lead to numerous supporting and opposing threads.  Supporting threads touched on other aspects of "broken" pvp mechanics, such as twinks in full gold gear running around in lower level areas obliterating lower level players who are trying to quest.  It also featured a report from one server where the losing faction was so demoralized and scarce, that the dominant faction can literally afford to "spawn camp" the losing faction at zone entrances, rifts, and virtually every pvp area possible with little consequence.

And of course, the general response amongst all those opposing where "u mad brah", "QQ moar" and other phrases brimming with insight.  The systemic problem I found is that people seem to have the misconception that all of this is somehow the fault of the game designers - and while I agree that game designers can (and should) intervene on certain occasion to level the playing field, the absolute lack of personal accountability on the part of the players for their culture was astonishing, so I felt compelled to post.

All of this has also been going on amidst a controversial server merge in which NCSoft is temporarily allowing players to server-transfer their characters.  Their reasoning is that since servers are merging, and since you cannot have opposing faction characters on the same server, you are to use this time to move conflicting characters to other servers.  Unfortunately, people are instead using this as an opportunity to maximize dominance by moving their characters to servers where their chances for success as maximized. This would be like the NBA temporarily allowing players to pick their own teams during the 90's.  Suddenly, everyone is a Chicago Bull.

So now, the competition gap is even worse. At the time of this writing, there is only one server where Asmodians (aka the "dark" faction) have even been successful, so as a result all of the failing Asmodian refugees are jumping ship on their servers to join the one winning server, further segregating the game in the negative direction:

Original Post:

"So, I really would hope by now that people who play MMOs and have played several over the past 5-10 years would realize that a discussion like this is the inevitable outcome of any game no matter how it is initially designed. 

The problem, I hope you realize, is not a game design problem, it's a culture problem. It's not the game, it's us. It breaks down to a concept called Game Theory. In a nutshell, the theory describes that we, as humans, will naturally break things down into scenarios that yield the most advantageous results. And, as much as we'd like to pretend it's not the case, we're the strategic, ravenous idiots that are capable of ruining any number-based system. 

Why do you think we have terms like "flavor of the month", or "OP class". Terms that have existed well before Aion and seem to magically follow us around from game to game?

Example 1: Who remembers the old days of single-server pvp in WoW? Remember how you felt when you found out that "High Warlord" titles were being handed out to people who would regularly do things like account sharing? Remember how you felt when you found out Horde and Alliance top-end guilds would coordinate outside of the game and arrange battlegrounds so they could trade honor dominance?

Example 2: Who remembers the days of faction-selling? Or the Jedi "fight club" cartels where players would agree to throw fights vs others under pre-determined conditions? What, you thought that only happens here in Aion?

Game developers spend countless hours having to change, correct, stop gap and otherwise ****** normally honorable game mechanics not because they suck at software development, but because they are constantly undermined by people who want to find every way to maximize their gains and virtually eliminate their losses. Which, as they will always tell you, is the smart way to be.

But as many others have eluded to, it creates an eventual culling of competition (read:prey) that is unrecoverable by normal means. Thus, the only solution for players long term is to literally roll alts or start new accounts and defect to the other side to artificially create "new" competition.

This is why games like WOW have had to introduce things like "Random" battleground queues, and cross server BGs. Much harder to cheat or run a cartel across multiple servers. Much harder to "predict" if the next fight your going to get into is going to cost you progress.

The conclusion on both sides is pretty straight forward:

1) You can't really blame people for playing an arbitrary number game to the best of their ability. That would amount to calling someone a coward for not going "all in" with every hand they are dealt in in poker. It is logical to not want to fight when the risk is losing progress. It is logical to arrange a controlled situation where you can advance to the gear you want with minimal risk. It's not the most "honorable" way to go about things, but the rankings aren't based on character or personality tests, it's based on the bottom line of the AP you earn vs. the AP you lose.

2) Likewise those at the top should not play the "QQ" card on those at the bottom. First off, progress is not linear as you'd like to believe. The more the upper tiers of people continue to progress, the disproportionally more difficult it becomes for someone to start at 0 to reach the same goal. 

Additionally, as history has shown, most of the people at the top are actually terrible players who simply managed to surround themselves with the right people, and usually got there by exploiting one of two fundamental PVP progression concepts: A) Lack of Competition and B) Broken Game Mechanics.

Broken game mechanics are straight forward. They usually involve the fringe people who get up to maximum level first, and begin to reap the rewards of some mechanic that was previously not well tested. They purposely do not alert the authorities to this discovery, and use it to get as far as possible before it gets discovered. This usually carries with it, of course, the risk of getting banned, and you see it in every MMO that exists. Joe Badass who you used to respect for being the first dude to max level and the first dude to get all this sweet epic gear suddenly disappears one day, and you come to find out that it was for exploiting. Still, sadly, in many cases Joe Badass still somehow retains so much of his "street cred" and people give him undue respect, usually citing the exploit as a "****** game mechanic" and putting it on the developers for being stupid enough to let him get away with it.

But I digress. The one people don't usually focus on (because it hurts their insecurities) is the former. You see, in any game system, or really any MMO system where Gear and Levels have significant involvement in the potential of a character to do well in PVP, one of the most critical aspects of that game is to do everything in your power to achieve max level first, and immediately begin "grinding" PVP-type activities. Leveraging your level advantage first, the next strategic goal is to get key pvp items as soon as possible. These might be speed-increase boots, trinkets, or even just potions and consumables that give you the biggest advantages in combat. 

The sooner you do this, the sooner you enter what I call the "Fighting preschoolers" phase where your complete lack of actual skill can be masked by the fact that your levels, consumables, and gear essentially mimic a full grown adult "pvping" against a class of pre-schoolers: There is no contest. This is the avenue most people take because unlike exploiting, there's no negative recourse to this behavior. It is simple food chain mechanics: The big fish eat the little fish. And, as I've seen here in Aion, people have gotten so good at this version of reality that by the time a server even *reaches* a level of maturity where legitimate competition is available, the bulk of these people have in their possession all the gear they could possibly need, and "retire" to the recesses of pretending like they had to fight hard for their gear. These "elite pvpers" can usually be found as permanent fixtures in popular towns or banks, or rolling around in very controlled posse's of people where their individual lack of skill won't be noticed. 

The rest of the server in the 80% "normal" bell curve sees competition the entire way through, until you get to where games usually die: Locusts camping every fort spawn, maxed out twinks rampaging through newbie areas, all trying to scrape together morsels of AP.

I hate to use WOW as an example again, but this is why they do things that expressly raise the bar of the entire population whenever the game is ready to move to the next level. It ****** a lot of hard core people off, but without letting the bottom rung of competition bridge the gap in gear before moving on, you will quickly find yourself in a situation you find now: Everyone is either a super hero or a peasant with nothing in between.

So we reap what we sew. This is the way MMOs work until we can change our culture to be one that values genuine competition and honor over Min / Max calculated risk scenarios.

As an aside: 

Why do you think FPS games work better for PVP? Because at the beginning of every level, the entire population is on the same page. Sure, some of them might know the map better, and therefore will have a head start, but even if that happens, after 15 or so minutes, someone is going to win, and the entire processes starts over again. Additionally, even if someone manages to get overpowered, their struggle to maintain that power is constantly shadowed by the knowledge that if he dies, he gets knocked back down to normalcy. 

Both of these naturally limiting factors are not present in an MMO. The game never resets, people don't all lose their gear and start over. The penalty for death is not a loss of gear back down to a normalized level, it's just the annoying loss of time, money, or both."

I hate not offering a solution to the problem when I post, but I made the basic assumption that people's eyes were going to glaze over 2 paragraphs in when they realized that everything I had to say either conflicted with their fucked up belief systems, triggered their cynicism to altruistic ramblings, or simply lost itself in a flash of ADHD when one of their friends posted a comment about them on Facebook in another window.

In reality, the sad truth is that the culture we live in will not be changing any time soon, thus game designers are bound to the exploitive behaviors of its users.  I give World of Warcraft props for using creative randomization as an effective tool to combat this - it just sucks that it has to be this way.

- Logos aka Ronin

Inception

Theory
The entire plot was carefully orchestrated therapy for Cobb.  This theory makes no judgement as to if Cobb is still dreaming at the end, or if the "reality" scenes were in fact reality or just another dream level.  It could just as easily be understood as one or the other.

Having said that: Based on the specific circumstances of the end, mainly the children being in the exact same clothes, age, situation, etc as his "visions" throughout the movie, the evidence would indeed suggest that he is still stuck.

The main point of this interpretation was that almost all of the other characters involved - Saito, Ariadne, etc, were all real.  But not only were they real, they were expressly interested in helping Cobb work through his issues by orchestrating a "double blind" scenario surrounding Fisher so that Cobb would not be aware of their intent.

Evidence
1) Saito just so happens to get involved with Cobb and Arthur in a job-gone-bad situation in which he flips the script on Cobb and, in turn, "hires" him in a corporate take over. You would think, that for such a typical situation, there are thousands of less extravagant ways of going about it, and yet here is a situation that *just so happens* to trigger Cobb into offering the solution of Inception, and just so happens to know exactly what to offer him: A chance to get back to his children. In psychological spaces, this is called "priming".

2) Once involved, Saito insists that he come along with, citing a desire to "ensure that the task is completed". Logically this makes no sense. Assuming all of the characters are self motivated for a moment, just because Saito has been trained to protect his mind from invasion, doesn't automatically give him the ability to actively participate in shared dreaming and all of the assisting he signed himself up for. The actual professionals (Cobb, Arthur) wouldn't have agreed to bring him in being such a liability. And certainly, even if they initially agreed to do so, once the plan evolved into having to go 3 dreams deep, there should have been immediate concern that Saito, or several other characters, wouldn't have been able to handle it.

Furthermore, the perceived time-pressure created by the flight to LAX is also un-necessary. Cobb's motivation is to return to his children who live in a specifically peaceful place and in a specifically peaceful society. He's not "escaping" to the US to live on the run, his aim is to return to a repaired family situation. Saito could have just as easily "made the call" to clear him at LAX, not gotten involved in the risks of entering the dream, and threatened Cobb with the idea of making *another* call to re-ruin his standing should Fisher  fail to break up the corporation.  Easy, simple, self-motivated.

Saito instead insists on going with. This tells me that he is a plant, and essentially represents the promise of hope. His agreement with Cobb, his entire purpose, is to remind Cobb of the "one last job" that sets everything straight if it goes well.  This gives Cobb an "eye on the prize" perspective.

3) Cobb needs an architect for the program. He visits Miles, who just so happens to have the perfect student for the job - Ariadne.  Miles also makes sure to "prime" Cobb with the idea that she is *better* than Cobb could imagine. This is a psychological disarming technique because Cobb, being an excellent architect himself, would not be able to accept (or to his perspective, work with) a person of perceived inferior ability.

Ariadne plays the roll perfectly - starting off as only mildly put off by the fact that she was being asked to participate in something highly illegal, morally questionable, and extremely risky.  However, she just so happens to become extremely involved not only as an architect for the job, but personally with Cobb to help "uncover" his repressed issues with Mal - even through Cobb already has a friend figure (Arthur) who is aware of the Mal situation and could be offering more direct support.

The point here is that if Saito represents the goal, the promise of correction, then Ariadne represents the guiding hand of therapy through the obstacle. She is there to ensure Cobb confronts Mal in his subconscious.

This is also why Ariadne is with him for almost all of the scenes involving Mal. This is why, instead of being terrified of his "elevator of horrors" (aka compartmentalization), she takes the risk of forcing herself down into the Basement - she was analyzing him, forcing herself into the full extent of what Cobb had created, closing the distance of Cobb's willingness to work with her.

Finally, Ariadne is a figure in Greek Mythology who helped Theseus overcome the Minotar and escape the Labyrinth. This is essentially the similar role she plays for Cobb - except the Minotar is the angry shade-reflection of his wife.

4) When it is apparent that Fisher has mental security (dream stage 1), Cobbs is livid with Arthur for not realizing this. Arthur is perceived to be incompetent in this regard, however you get a different impression of this later when he is charged with guarding over the team in the hotel (dream stage 2) and figuring out a way to "kick" them without gravity. In that dream, he was operating in almost Matrix Agent like precision, kicking the shit out of bad guys in 3 dimensional space, protecting everyone, and devising a brilliant way to synchronize it all to the sound of music and wired explosives.

This tells me that he and everyone involved very likely knew that Fisher did have protection, but Cobb couldn't know until everyone was already committed to the plan, or he would have done things differently (or not at all, as he explains that they are "not at all prepared for this" in the garage escape scene).  It was necessary for the therapy to provide circumstances that were not easily escapable.

4) At the end, during the turbulent scene where Cobb is negotiating with Mal over Fisher, Ariadne is supervising the most crucial part of the entire session - ensuring the resolve between he and his subconscious - when this becomes apparent to Mal, it turns into the same "revolt against the subconscious" they explained with Fisher being tricked into becoming paranoid of his own guardians. Mal's reaction is to attack Cobb, which would have resulted in a violent, undesirable resolution (and pre-mature wake-up), so Ariadne shoots Mal, neutralizing that threat.  Now here is the second crucial point: After resolving such a deep seeded, psychologically draining situation, the question becomes "What now?". Cobbs may have resolved things with Mal, but that doesn't necessarily mean he has anything left to live for in that moment of loss and despair.

5) Which brings us full circle to Saito, and the promise of returning to his children. With Mal "taken care of", Ariadne reminds Cobb of the dire situation with Fisher and the fact that they need to go. When he says that he is staying behind, Ariadne is concerned until she confirms that he is staying behind to locate Saito.

At this point Ariadne's role is complete - which is why she allows herself to dive off the building of her own free will.  In other movies, having already come that far with the protagonist, through so many trials and tribulations, the classic response would have been for her to refuse to leave, to stay with him even if it means her doom, in which cases the protagonist usually has to force the issue - i.e. Cobb would have *pushed* her off the building when she refused - but this was not the case.

6) Which brings us to the close of the movie, where Cobbs washes up on the shore of his limbo again. only this time, there just so happens to be a patrolling sentry who finds him.  And this armed escort just so happens to lead Cobbs to the whereabouts of Saito, who just so happens to have a cozy little place nearby, even though limbo is described (by Arthur I believe) as this vast, infinite, unconstructed space.

I'm slightly torn here. I think the idea of Saito surviving the entire story unscathed would have been plenty to ensure Cobb has motivation to continue. Instead, he got shot, which appeared to be a genuine, unforeseen circumstance. When he died, and got stuck in limbo, it may very well be that the entire visit was a deliberate rescue attempt by Cobb, and not really part of the "overall plan". He still believed he needed Saito to get to his children so he did what he needed to do - thus I don't believe it was directly part of the "Mal Therapy".

Putting it all together:

How do you hypnotize a master hypnotist? How do you con the con man? How do you "fix" the broken psyche of a person who's primary job it was to manipulate the minds of people as his professional career?

By making him believe that he was being asked to do nothing more than his job one last time.

By offering him an immutable desire to repair his broken past, and finally, by allowing him to orchestrate an entire plan around Fisher, a plant, who had to have his own psychological issues to work out between he and his father, or it wouldn't have been believable.

You have to make Cobb believe that the central focus isn't on him through preoccupation. It has to be his idea to accept the job, his convincing the team he assembled to help, (many of which only offered a few brief moments of objection to the absurdity of it all). He needed a guide, an architect better than him to help him through the confrontation of Mal - but most importantly, he needed the bargain with honorable Saito to give him a concrete reminder that he had something tangible, his children, to return to once it was all said and done.

In Short: Inception appears to be a movie about a man who has Inception performed on him, unknowingly- by preoccupying him with the task of performing Inception on someone else, to repair the repressed guilt of consequences that resulted from doing the same to his wife.

So who's in on it? 
I believe that Fisher and Cobb are the only two people who didn't know the whole story. I believe Fisher did have real father issues, but that this was merely used as a believable stage for setting Cobb up. This is why people like Eames are genuinely interested in Fisher's outcome when he gets unexpectedly shot by Mal.

Mal offered a genuine wild card in the entire situation that the other characters did have to react to and work around. I don't think it was "planned" that Mal would incapacitate Fisher like she did, so those situations at least were improvised.

Were they all in on it because they were really figments of his imagination?
This is the interesting stance taken by some people I've discussed the movie with.  The basic premise was that Cobb created everyone - Arthur, Fisher, etc, artificially - that it is a sort of twisted self-therapy where helpful aspects of his subconscious manifested to help him fend off negative aspects of his subconscious and that he was the only "real" one at all.

The problem I have with this is twofold:

1) People who are crazy don't know they are crazy until they are presented with external evaluation that says they are crazy. So right off the bat, it seems a bit of a stretch that his mind could go through so much strange and grandiose effort to self regulate by creating this elaborate story for himself and just working it out on his own. Most therapists, doctors or psychologists don't even diagnose/treat themselves, it usually requires the aid of others especially when the trouble is serious.

2) There are too many situations happening in parallel that have literally nothing to do with Cobb and seemingly happen without even so much as a psychological consequence if they are all aspects of him.  My prime example is when Arthur and Ariadne are sitting in the lobby of Fisher's building, and Fisher's subconscious bodyguards are starting to get suspicious of them, so Arthur "tricks" Ariadne into kissing him as a distraction, which fails. "It was worth a try", he jokes.

Think about that scene for a moment and try to reconcile all of it as being all in his head. In the same instant, "real Cobb" is actually somewhere completely different, negotiating with Fisher himself and trying to trick him into trusting him.  So now, not only is his mind multitasking on an absurd number of levels and motivations now, but different aspects of him are making flirtatious plays on other aspects of him in the heat of danger? If so, call this movie "Sybil" and stick a fork in it, it's done.

The kiss scene is just one of many aspects of things that happen with, to me, obvious proof of individual, independent thought and intent that could only come from those people being real, bona-fide participants.

Which leads me to the final question:

Was this ALL a dream? AKA did his wife make it out, or was she crazy?


This is where my theory is altruistic. I will answer this question by following a pattern of logic and motivation.

Lets follow the logic path that says the "reality" they came back to was still a dream and his wife actually liberated herself from that second dream, pleading that Cobb do the same.  Mal, upon waking up to the real real world, would very quickly realize that her effort failed when Cobb does not wake up.   Now ask yourself: What would you do.

She is obviously somewhat trained in all this dream stuff. It's somewhat unclear if she was a "pro" like Cobb, but at the very least, she understood how things worked. So my first inclination would be to wake my husband the fuck up. Remember: The only reason the whole Limbo thing was a concern during the main story line was because they were in a chemically induced sleep which is harder to wake up from through normal kill-yourself means. I get the impression that this was not the case for Mal and Cobbs. They were merely staying in the dream world too long by choice.

So, wake him the fuck up. Throw him in a tub of cold water. Take him to the Log Ride at the local water park. And if she doesn't have this capacity, she could ask his father, who is like the Dumbledore of the entire story.

Hop back into his dream and shoot him in the head. Hop by back in his dream and simply reason with him on multiple levels: Show up- tell him it's not real, and if you get kicked out, show up again and tell him it's not real again. Involve other people.  Do you see where I'm going with this?

If everyone else, mainly his wife,  is "out there somewhere" just watching him lie in a hospital like an idiot while he dreams up the entire rest of the movie, then the entire story is a sham.

It is more believable to assume that IF his wife made it out, and basic attempts (prior to the contents of this movie) were futile in waking him up because he has fortified his mind to stay in the dream world, then my theory fits perfectly: They had to come up with an alternate, indirect way to help him resolve his issues by distracting him.

The problem here is that all versions of his wife in the Fisher arc are clearly figments, not the real deal. It seems unlikely that they would have left her completely out of helping, unless they felt that her presence would have caused a conflict with his versions.

It is more believable still that this is a story of a man who has locked himself in his mind because of the real loss of his wife.  He disassociated and created a series of compartments (elevator) to cope, figuring that he could work through things on his own and, slowly but surely, make his way down and confront Mal himself. But he was failing. Amidst trying to work through it all, he was starting to waiver on his resolve because he also wanted to preserve this memory of his wife where in the real world she was gone. As a result, his ability to keep his grips with reality in his jobs began to suffer, and it was clear to his friends and family that he was not pulling through as he should be.

Thus it is logical that his friend (Arthur) and his father (Miles) would have pooled their resources together to help him out by employing the same methods they were already well-versed in.

What about the final scene?

The facts are pretty hard to avoid. The children seemingly haven't aged. Everyone is wearing the same damn clothes.  The only thing that's different is the kids actually turn to face him and he spins the top on the table which, in all truth, actually appears to lose momentum right at the end, implying that it would fall over. Previously, all instances of the top "spinning forever" were clear and unwavering.

Anyhow, this scene indicates one of two logical conclusions:

1. He's still in a dream.
2. He is not in a dream, but not much time could have passed.

If he's still in a dream, then my theory would say that he still has things to accomplish before he's ready to wake up.  As with traditional therapy, you don't really try to resolve ALL of a person's issues at the same time, you typically dig to the deepest one (in this case his relationship with Mal) and then once you resolve the those, you can move on to solving other problems. So it wouldn't surprise me to learn that even though he has successfully gotten over Mal, he's still locked away holding on to his kids, which is another story entirely.

If he is NOT in a dream, then my theory would say that we are observing the affects of time-compression expressed through the dreams. It could very well be that when the mysterious agent that came to his house with the plane ticket (The "It's now or never" guy) that he was in fact being led into the plan plan that was prepared ahead of time. 

For all we know, he could have gotten into the cab with the fellow, drugged, brought back into his house, and laid back into his own bed, all the while the kids are outside playing with grandma.  

Then you take him into a dream where he believes he has fled the country, several other dreams where he believes he is passing the time as a dream secret agent, and then kick the whole plan off by introducing Saito's initial story.  

At final resolution, he wakes up, groggy, and stumbles out into the kitchen to find his kids, sill playing outside peacefully - and we're all left believing that it all happened in a space longer than 148 minutes.

Theory: Unconsciousness and the Shadow-Network

I began explaining this theory at the end of my notes about the Lost dream. I felt it was too generic and important to be a footnote, so I've moved it to it's own post.  I almost explained it there because, in the case of that dream, I felt it necessary to attempt to "align" the dream reality I was living in to that of the one I reside in now - that is - to reunite this kindred feeling I had in discovering "Andi" behind the counter who was completely unaware of me with the memories and bond we shared in the other life.

I have a theory (completely unfounded of course other than gut-feeling and educated supposition from the works of other men whose intellects on these subjects far surpasses what I could hope to achieve) -  that when we dream, our unconscious "checks out" of the current body and is somehow allowed to pass in the shadow, like a sort of internet comprised of all the unconsciousness of all its inhabitants, into other locations.

I use the term locations very loosely. I believe that the construct that the unconscious operates in has very little restrictions by way of traditional bounds of reality:

• I believe that it has no time concept, in that we can visit aspects of our past and future events seamlessly, or even combine multiple aspects of time within the same construction (dreams in which people meet or co-exist that would be physically impossible chronologically).  
• I believe that it is capable of crossing the barriers of the multi-verse, producing dreams with the peculiar feeling that you are you, but not you. A sense that you recognize yourself within but there are details about the situation, or your appearance in a mirror, in a photograph, etc, that clearly do not align. 
• And finally, because sometimes we can half-consciously impose our wills upon the dream (lucid dreaming), that this place we are in is an active simulation, a negotiable interaction, and not simply a pre-recorded sequence that we, the observer, are merely stuck watching. 

Assuming for a moment, at the very least, the idea of a multi-verse - and assuming that within each universe, our species has the similar requirement of sleep or meditation time where we become unconscious for a period of time relative to how often we are conscious, some interesting "what if" scenarios begin to surface.

The overall theme, I will present plainly -

What if the various incarnations of our selves in each of these universes is merely an avatar, behind which exists a core being that represents our true selves behind the veil of our current manifestation?

To help illustrate my my point - I will relate the concept to two easy-to-understand concepts in modern technology.

The Hardware

First, many people understand the concept of "Remote Desktop" or remote computing.  I sit at my current machine, and via remote connection over the network / internet, I "log on" to a machine that is not physically in front of me, and assume control of everything short of physically touching it.  Even certain controls, like opening the CD drive or powering the machine down, are achievable via remote commands.

This is the first level of understanding I arrived at in my theory of the unconscious - that I am but a terminal, a machine that thinks it is being operated in the first person, that all that exists around me is merely a reflection of myself and what I can perceive. Certainly, much of that is true even in the computing world. If we personify a remotely controlled machine, a few statements are true:

• Upon logging on, the remote machine has little awareness if they are being managed in person or remotely. The only way it can tell is at a lower software level, where it can perhaps realize that certain background software services are in effect, and communications across certain ports is taking place. Thus, we operate under the same general awareness, assuming that we are autonomous as individual human lives.
• This line becomes further blurred if the control is not behind remote desktop, but perhaps a KVM switch instead - where the physical hardware inputs and outputs are routed to a hub which allows a single user to "switch" between the various machines with a single mouse/keyboard, making it more difficult to determine if you, as the machine, are being controlled elsewhere.
• The outside perception of the machine is limited by it's physical manifestations - not necessarily by the operator. The operator may, for instance, log onto a particular machine and realize that it does not have Adobe Acrobat installed, whereas the other machines he has access to do have the client software installed. Thus the perceived reality of the machine is that Adobe does not exist, and can only exist if the operator decides to install a plug-in / driver which allows the machine to interpret pdf documents in the same ways that his other machines can.  This concept is in line with Jungian psychology where reality is relative - and nothing truly "exists" outside of our interpretations of them, and concepts only become real, true, or false after we learn them.

In the hardware of the computing world, all matters of ailment affect the machine's ability to operate properly. Technology available at the time, proper software maintenance, or simply hardware performance. All of these things have very human psychological and physiological counterparts - but what I would most like to point out is the concept that in the event of catastrophic failure (CPU, hard drive, memory, motherboard aka heart, brain, nervous system), the shell of the machine may perhaps "die" - but all this really means is that the machine, or the body, is no longer accessible remotely.. thus the operator simply retreats back to their local environment, and a determination has to be made as to what it means for the remote machine to be "down".

This parallel offers a lot of commonalities, but for me, it wasn't quite enough. Something about it simply being a remote desktop system felt too.. hardware, too finite, omitting all of the visual and personality characteristics  that are in play in our lives. It also makes the barrier to self-awareness a tad oversimplified, as if any one of us "machines" could easily "realize" that we are being driven by simply analyzing our running tasks or calling an  operating system procedure to determine if there's an open direct connection to us from somewhere else.  

I would perhaps go as far as to surmise that perhaps the machine-level understanding is encapsulated within our genetics - our DNA code - which, while not "personified" or "alive" within itself no moreso than the hardware of a machine is, within it still is contained the details, the blueprints for how this machine is going to run, and what its capabilities are. But, certainly, genetics and hardware alone are not all that a machine, or a human, is comprised of.

The Software

Thus I turned to another area I'm deeply familiar with, and that's gaming.  Specifically, gaming in online, persisted worlds otherwise known as MMO (massively multi-player online) games.  Unlike traditional games, when you turn the console off, the entire universe doesn't cease to be, much like "real" life. When we sleep, events occur outside of our presence, time "continues", and when we awake we must discover what, if anything, was missed, and what the ramifications of not being present had on the outcome. This is the same as online games, as the characters within it, and the game itself (to a certain degree), also evolve and progress even if you choose not to log in or even play at all.

Lets ease into how this relates by starting with a single universe theory. If this reality we know is the only reality that is, then our analogy becomes a single machine (aka reality construct) that is running a single instance of an MMO game called "Life", wherein we are avatars that are created into this world and only this world.  

Notes that there is still the concept of the computer being controlled by a core user (i.e. that we are not the computer itself and that if we should fail, poof, that's it), but that now another layer has been added (by way of virtual-world software) that abstracts the knowledge of the computer system from the observer, which we'll call the character, or Avatar. 

Through the characters we play, we develop a profound knowledge of the environment we play in, our avatar grows and obtains more skills by way of "experience" and eventually rise to a particular powerful hero status that performs various helpful or self-serving tasks in day-to-day existence. 

On a different avenue - another common behavior pattern within an MMO is the idea that the character you create and drive isn't the character that you will ultimately become or enjoy the most.  The "reroll" concept is one in which a person decides their current character isn't appropriate to their style of play, and so they re-make or re-roll a new character with (hopefully) better traits to suit what they ultimately wish to do. In many cases, the character may even collect any useful items they have acquired with their original character(s) and set them aside for the new character to use. 

Sound familiar? This concept is not unlike modern Buddhism reincarnation - particularly in the practice of Phowa, wherein the mindstream is transfered into a new living body - allowing a new Dalai Lama to be located who is capable of identifying his belongings of the previous life (previous character).  Granted, not everyone in our reality is capable of such a feat, or believe it to be real, but if possible, it indicates that the body, much like the avatar, is simply a vehicle for a faceless, shapeless conscious entity which is capable of embodying a new avatar.

Another key concept is our personalities, specifically in the way we behave and interact with each other. As many people who play MMOs know, not everyone who plays a character behaves in the same manner that they behave in "real life".  Certainly some do, but in many cases you see a spectrum of difference, running the gambit from the very similar to almost complete opposite, particularly in the areas of introversion vs. extroversion. Our behavior patterns, as Freud and Jung explain, are tied to not just our conscious functions and values (ego, id, etc), but also inexorably linked to repressed or unconscious reflections that manifest, in most cases the opposite, of what we put forward. 

Thus, another what-if comes to mind. What if, as we turn our psychological studies within, as we face our shadow to better understand ourselves, what if we are not simply understanding ourselves as one contained unit within the confides of a machine, but instead we are also looking through to something deeper on the other end - our core selves, the user behind the avatar behind the machine?

Who's on First

A distinct image of a police interrogation room comes to mind. Our conscious perception sits at the table, observing its surroundings, and is at first struck by the ominous surveillance camera sitting up in the corner, watching.  This is the undiscovered modern man, constantly worried about external judgement of his actions - always wondering what the lens is capturing and who is sitting behind the monitor deciding what the outcome will be.

Then onto the existential man, who begins to focus less on the camera in the corner, and instead diverts attention to the massive mirror within the room. Left there, with nothing but his own reflection staring him down, he begins to reflect on his own actions, his own visage, facing the sometimes terrifying or ugly faces he sees in the mirror, until eventually he masters himself, and with a certain calmness, is capable of sharing the silence of the room with nothing but himself, and the enlightenment and understanding that he feels when he brings his conscious and unconscious minds into harmony and no longer represses the feelings that lie beneath in the shadow.

And... then there's me, and perhaps others like me who, after a certain time spent feeling complete, understanding, and harmonious, we begin to notice certain... peculiarities... about the massive mirror in the room...

Why is it there, anyways? Why not simply 4 solid walls, the camera, and a piece of paper on the table saying "Forget the camera, it's not them, it's you"? Wouldn't that make things easier?

So I start to become aware of the mirror itself, defocussing my eyes from my reflection, noticing what I perceive to be a faint haze - a secondary light source - a layer behind the mirror - and I wonder... is there really nothing but wall behind this mirror? Is it really just me? Or is this some kind of.. one-way mirror.. and if so... who's behind it?

And thus, why the shadow? Why dreams that have topics outside of our own lives? How so the idea of reincarnation? If all we are is what we observe, what importance then are any of the relationships we hold within our waking hours if nothing comes of it when we pass? Why the deep-seeded, instinctual need to leave a lasting impression? Is it really merely a function of primitive survival - or are we each avatars of a core being who's goal is unknown in this massively multi-player Earth we inhabit? 

m-Avatar Theory

Now lets say that we do live in a Multi-verse, only this time the constant that exists between all of the variations is indeed our "core beings" which embody us as avatars within this reality.

This would be analogous to a person who plays multiple MMO games at once. No two games are created equal, although several games may have common themes, even common avatars.  Thus, I can have several "warrior" type characters in multiple games, although each version of this archetype will play differently in their detailed versions. Additionally, I may have certain appearances that are similar between games, or I may have a variety in what I play. For instance, in Warcraft, I'm an Orc, but in Aion I'm a Daeva (angel), and finally in Age of Conan I am Khitan (similar to Mongolian).  Now, all of these versions are vastly different than what I personally am (human Hispanic-American), but I embody them all remotely and each one takes on aspects of my core personality when I play them.

Furthermore, while I might (technically) be able to run all versions of myself in these games simultaneously, it's fair to assume I can only really "focus" on any one character at a time. Realistically, I will only have one character logged in and the other games won't even be running.  Thus, you could say that my other avatars are "unconscious" while I am logged into the current one.

As it is in our reality, my characters being offline in other games has a passive effect because, as I noted earlier, those worlds persist and continue to progress even without my involvement.  Now, I realize that our bodies are unlike a game avatar in that they cannot simply run ad infinitum. Physiologically our bodies and minds must rest to regenerate, so I cannot present my theory from this angle, but what if - knowing that our bodies must undergo "scheduled maintenance" - our core beings don't simply multi-task and shift their focus to another avatar that isn't currently resting.

Let's take it a step further - now let's say that while Avatar A is resting, I begin to play Avatar B in a different game dimension, and in that dimension I develop a close bond / relationship with another Avatar in that realm. We become friends, etc, and I become very familiar with their personality traits, their goals, etc.  We'll call this other person Avatar C.

Well, Avatar C has a "core being" behind it - who like me - is also playing on multiple MMO dimensions. Thus, I don't necessarily know the core being (unless we meet in real life), all I know is this aspect of the person as personified by Avatar C in the game.

You can likely see where I'm going with this... one day, while I'm back playing on Avatar A in my original game, I run across an individual in my travels who strikes me as familiar - we've never grouped before, we've never met in this game, and yet we both have the distinct feeling that we have met before. 

In the game analogy, things are much more straight forward - as users we simply "break the fantasy barrier" and begin to compare games we play outside of this one, and discover that my Avatar B knows their Avatar C in the other game, and the mystery is solved, albeit it a wonderful coincidence that we should find each other in this game too.

Unfortunately for us in our current reality, we are the avatar, not necessarily the core user, so without a miraculous revelation, the best we can say is "We must have met in another life" . 

Dreams & The Unconscious Gateway

So what of Dreams, then - this idea that while unconscious, it's not always a lapse of time, a blackness that is in line with a game character not being online?  How is it that we continue to "think" on a different level, and in many cases observe situations that are so completely foreign to anything we have experienced ourselves?

I offer that sometimes, these dreams are more than just repressed self reflection sessions of the shadow between our conscious and unconscious minds attempting to achieve awareness and thus balance - I theorize that sometimes these dreams are, in fact, breakthroughs to other dimensions, glimpses into the conscious, parallel thoughts of other avatars, other versions of our "core being" that are currently being focused on  in their own environment...by way of our personal links to the core being.

I'm not quite sure how to describe this concept - or at which level it becomes a cognizant, if at all.  The closest I can come to approximating the behavior in the gaming analogy is this:  many times, as players become accustomed to multiple games at the same time, there is a bleed-through effect that occurs where the player attempts to perform an action or technique that is not compatible with that game, but in fact actually comes as muscle memory from a different game.   (For instance, in most games, the short-cut for responding to an in-game whisper or "tell" is to hit the R-key (R = reply). However, in Aion, the act of replying is actually done with the T-key, so players often complain "Ug, I keep wanting to hit R instead of T when I get a whisper...")

Now, while an example such as that is rather overt and obvious, there are many more that are subtle that a player may never consciously realize they are bringing over - and if it is possible for the core user to have some degree of difficulty separating the games (realities), then perhaps that bleed-over affect has unknown effects elsewhere, particularly in the dream state.

Thus my conclusion; what if, to put it plainly, avatars could dream - what would they dream about? And what if the embodiment of an avatar, particularly in our multi-verse, creates a permanent bond between the creator and the avatar that is not simply a one-way mirror that offers immunity for the core user? What if that psychological link starts to manifest itself more strongly as the avatar becomes more self aware?

Furthermore, what if our avatars, though the practice of lucid dreaming, can somehow break the barrier of simply observing the events of these other realities, and actually affect the outcome of them in some way? Does the core being even realize that his avatar is aware and capable of such things? Is this the goal, as with the purposeful development or Artificial Intelligence, that we eventually gain this capability? 

And what if it's not a welcome outcome, as in the case of the machines in the Matrix, who do not particularly like the awakening of their avatars or their ability to wake others? Perhaps we simply walk the path of the sentient programs - the Oracles, the Merovingians, the Agent Smiths - now self aware in an artificial world and fighting for our survival and independence?

And, of course, the most selfish of questions an Avatar like me could have: When I pass on - when my motherboard crashes or when my game subscription ends - was the purpose of my existence merely a way to pass the time, or did my "play time" contribute to something greater? 

At the very least, I hope that through me, my core being was able rack up a ton of achievement points they will look back upon fondly and recount to his fellow gamers :)

Dream: "Lost" and Found

This dream occurred 2 nights ago (5/30).  In the dream I'm walking through some kind of public place, either a hotel lobby or a mall, and there is some kind of counter with a woman standing behind it, attending it.

I walk up to the counter and get her attention, and it's my fiancée, except, she has no idea who I am and I cannot say that I had met her before.  I get this overwhelming sense that I should speak to her, and so I do - and as we chat, I further get the distinct sense that I should ask her out on a date, and so I do.  At first, she doesn't seem very interested - the details are fuzzy but she may have even mentioned already having a boyfriend - but at some point I am struck with a light, a flood of memories that rushes through me, drowning out everything around me in a vision.

After a rapid flash strobe of images - I "come to", still standing there, and she's looking at me oddly. I tell her we really need to try and see each other, she asks me "Why? Why are you so sure?" - and from the vision I begin to recount: "Because in another universe, right now, we are together - we're happy - we have 2 beautiful Great Danes, a beautiful house, and every day we make each other laugh and feel loved and complete and - knowing all of these things -  how can I not try?".

I believe it had some effect; as about halfway through when I mentioned the dogs a tear rolled down her cheek as if she was listening to something that was familiar within her - but sadly I was not able to get her official response / reaction as I was woken up by, coincidentally enough, my fiancée.

The dream was not unlike the sensation that the characters felt off the island at the end of Lost as they "rediscovered" their memories - and likely had an influence in the stylization of my dream - but in another sense, if you subscribe to the multi-verse theory, perhaps Jet-Li was onto something in the movie "The One" where, if, somehow, you can change your persona's in these other universes and have it alter the sum of the whole of all your instances across all of them.  Except in this case- I'm not really looking to "kill" the other versions of me so I can become stronger in my universe... instead I'm wondering what would happen if all versions of me embarked on the same quest to discover the same soul-mate, the same spirit that, in my universe, takes the shape and name of Andi?

Recurring Dream - Hotel

Much like the dream in which I am in high-school, confused about what class I should be heading to - at some point in my late 20s this dream shifted to a variation that is distinct enough, in my opinion, to warrant a separate account.

Rather than a school, the dream begins in a hotel. Sometimes I am in what I assume to be my own room, others I am in the hallway outside of what I perceive to be my room. There is a trigger: but rather than an internal trigger (i.e. the sudden realization that need to get to class) there is an external trigger, almost always in the form of my cell phone ringing.

I answer, and someone I know is on the other end. Sometime it is a friend, sometimes it is my girlfriend, sometimes it is a family member.  They always describe a situation in which I need to go meet them, nothing urgent really, and I agree to do so.

This is where it begins. It usually starts with a trip down an elevator that has many floor options, and I press what I assume to be the logical choice for making it to the lobby, but it never works out - from here there are a few variations:

• In one such dream, the elevator doors open and I am presented with a subway system, only instead of a small number of tracks and car options, it is literally an enormous underground area of dozens upon dozens of tracks in all manner of directions, each track only separated by the slightest bit of gap. The various lines are unintelligibly labeled, and I must rely on asking the attendant which one I should take.
  
  Doing so almost always leads me to a new junction, with a new attendant, but I never experience the actual travel from one place to the next. I simply emerge, ask the next attendant which hop I should take next, and I step aboard. After a few iterations of this, however, I begin to grow anxious, much in the same way that I did in the high-school dream when I realized I wasn't able to make progress towards finding my class.
• In another version, rather than an underground subway, I exit the elevator and am presented by a series of tube-slides. Not quite as large and ominous as the dozens of underground tracks, the tubes are less in their number of choices, and appear to be built into the very hotel itself.  The other key is that there is no attendant, as I emerge from one tube there is a seemingly logical or self evedent next choice of tube that I take.  Just like all the variations, I do not experience the travel through the tube itself, and after a few iterations, I begin to grow anxious with the inability to reach my destination.
• In still yet another version, the elevator only goes down as far as, say, the 50th floor, and forces me to exit. When I exit, I am presented with several other elevators choices - each one appears to service a particular set of floors - one might service upwards, reading 50-100, another dowards (50-25), and so on.  The loop then is created where I select a seemingly appropriate elevator to continue downwards (50-25) towards my intended goal (Lobby), but I can never quite find an elevator that claims it will go all the way down.  To make matters worse, sometimes I will enter an elevator that claims one thing (50-25) and emerge to find myself somewhere worse off (floor 70).
  
  It should be noted that when the latter happens, it never occurs to me to get right back in the misleading elevator and at least backtrack to where I started and try a different approach - I simply accept that I am now further off track and attempt to pick a different elevator that might get me closer. And finally, as with all the other variations, a few repeats of this same process and I again begin to grow frustrated that I cannot seem to accomplish the simple task of leaving the Hotel to meet the person I promised I would go meet.

All of these variations express themselves to the same final conclusion - that is - I never actually make it to a destination and, just like the High School dream, I always just wake up feeling unsettled, but never really angry or scared, per se.

As with the high-school dream, I usually wake up and wonder why the simplest of troubleshooting techniques didn't occur to me, like asking someone else which set of elevators I should take to make it to the Lobby.  Particular to this dream, it never dawns on me to use my cell phone to call for assistance, nor does it dawn on me that I should probably call the person back that I agreed to meet and apologize for taking so long, or even ask them for help - the idea that I even have the cell phone on me becomes lost the moment I hang up with them at the top of the dream and I begin my attempted journey to meet them.

Recurring Dream - School

I don't have this dream anymore - but it was prevalent from about age 20 to age 28.

The dream always went something like this -

The first thing I remember I'm already at school - always high-school. I'm standing in the hall between classes, there's students walking around all around me, but no one interacts. I immediately realize that I should be heading to a particular class, but I cannot for the life of me remember which.  In some versions of the dream, it is merely this - not knowing which room I'm supposed to be heading to.  In other versions, not only am I not aware of where I should be heading, but I also realize that I have not done any of the work I should have been doing along the way, so there's the added anxiety of feeling that I really really need to make it to class so that I can hopefully understand what is necessary for me to "catch up" on so as to avoid failing.

After the realization, the dream shifts to trying to devise ways to figure out where I should be heading, but I don't make any rational decisions about how. For instance, I could attempt to scan the crowd for a friend who might know what class I'm in, but I never do. I could go to the office and ask the office attendant to pull up my schedule, but I don't.  I check my pockets for any kind of papers or notes, but nothing.. I look around at the various doorways and hallways hoping that one of them will strike me as "familiar", but none do.

There is never a resolution to this dream. There is no abrupt end, either. It was always simply this climax of wandering about, trying to figure out where I should go on my own, and then I simply wake up along the way - at most feeling somewhat "displaced" by the feeling, but not necessarily frightened or panicked.

And then, as I mentioned earlier... at some point I just "stopped" having that particular kind of dream, until recently when it was replaced (for lack of a better term) with a different kind of dream that is similar only in the sense that I am again faced with being lost and trying to figure out where to go (covered in Recurring Dream : Hotel)

Observations on Complex Problem Solving in a Group Dynamic.

Some of the competing factors in progress towards problem solving are design, feasibility, immediacy, and execution. These notes attempt to reason through some of these factors and draw understandings based on experience and observation as to how these factors can be minimized while maintaining a sense of self-checking decency and balance that corrects and improves a society over time.




Design



After capability is determined, solution designs are then created. In a group dynamic, many designs can be submitted for a single problem. Logically this has one of two outcomes: The group can decide on one and only one solution to implement, or they can decide on multiple solutions to implement, either in parallel or by designating additional solutions as contingencies.



Design is slowed then by two core factors (amongst many): Complexity in arriving at potential solutions (some problems are more difficult than others) and the review & refinement process itself to determine which, if any, solution(s) to implement.



Speaking for a moment about a single-minded dynamic- that is- a single person attempting to solve a problem rather than a group. Individuals also tend to create and review several potential solutions when approaching a problem. Certainly, some individuals seem wired to simply go with "the first thing that comes to mind", but it's important to note that the group dynamic is more than just the sum of its individual parts- each person represents an idea factory that is capable of quickly & subconsciously drawing upon many internal designs to arrive at solutions they deem viable. The benefit of a single-minded solution is speed of creation - each internally evaluated solution does not need to be expressed to a group to "bring them up to speed" or align thinking. The detriment and thus the lack of focus on this topic is that the presented solutions, no matter how internally refined, offer all the subjectivity and flaws inherent to a single consciousness (id, ego, technical expertise, etc).



Additionally, as complexity rises, the ability for a single mind to comprehend all the facets fully and arrive at a comprehensive solution or set of solutions decreases. Thus the phrase "two heads are better than one", or concepts like multi-threading, multi-core processing, or multi-channel throughputs exist in the computing world. We should always, then, strive for group-minded solutions when we approach problem solving.



Design.Complexity



Complexity is solved by adding more minds (multi-processing) or increasing the capabilities (via education, training, etc) of the minds already on hand. A group may quickly arrive at a solution if they happen to be fully trained on the subject matter and feel comfortable and confident in the design process, but the same group presented with a different scenario may fail to efficiently arrive at a design.



The potential failing point of Complexity then is directly related to the minds on hand that are attempting to resolve it. Technical gaps (I don't know how this works), lack of consequential evidence (I don't know what will happen if I/we try this), and lack of precedence (This has never been done before) are risks that must be accounted for, and should be taken with a high degree of responsibility and ownership.



In many cases, these failing points are socially excused- as it is human behavior that only some feel true regret and are compelled to resolve short-comings in a design while others attempt absolve responsibility. At its ugliest, this leads to concepts like plausible deniability and negligence which destroy progress by allowing solutions with dire consequences slip through into implementation. Without a sense of vested ownership, there decreases the chance that fallout or short comings will be addressed. A good expression of this concept is the Chicken and the Pig fable commonly mentioned in project management circles.



Finally, the assumption is that all the minds tasked are morally aligned to create solutions that drive for a genuine betterment of the system as it relates to the symbiotic whole. Failures of this can be as benign as technical gaps (understanding that gasoline can power an engine, but not understanding that the byproduct is harmful pollution) or as malicious as sabotage (proposing a solution you know will have ill effects but disguising it as being beneficial).



Both of these issues are related to education and transparency. Education is easily solved through the constant drive to observe and learn, and thus why all ideas and solutions should be considered emergent and not static- as what we learn tomorrow could greatly alter the design of what we know today. This too plays into uncovering the malicious intent of individuals who seek to exploit. In almost all cases short of overt coercion, the only thing separating the exploited from the exploiters is ignorance to some fundamental truth or understanding and a lack of transparency into their actions and intent. Complexity creates this uncertainty, especially in new realms of science, and it is usually these safeguarded secrets that are leveraged to gain control while the majority is still naive to its true nature.



Design.Review & Refinement



Like many animals, humans are capable of reflecting upon actions and reactions and using outcomes to adjust future ideas and behaviors. Unlike animals, however, humans display (almost) precognitive capabilities- or at least advanced reasoning capabilities that allow for design conclusions based on probability, experience, and forethought.



This valuable tool is sometimes misused, however, in the realm of problem solving. True precognition can only occur if you believe in clairvoyance, and even in a 99.9% probability scenario, there's still that 0.1% chance that can (and often will) manifest under the right conditions.



This is important when we talk about feasibility in later sections, but for the sake of refinement and review, sometimes we create a false sense of doubt by adhering too closely to deductive reasoning, or incorrectly applying weak inductive reasoning as a way to "shoot holes" in a design.



This can be done for a number of reasons that should be carefully avoided - passive/aggressive aspects of our personality may look to discredit an idea because it would require too much effort or stress, or our lack of understanding may draw naive conclusions (weak induction). In truth, all ideas are valid if they adhere to the genuine betterment of the system as it relates to the symbiotic whole. And even if some ideas appear to be less feasible than others, if they are at least within the realm of possibility and capability, they should be remembered and revisited at future states for re-rationalization just as the "winning" solution should be reviewed for consistency and relevance.



There also seems to be another slippery aspect I cannot personally identify in human behavior: When faced with a multitude of ideas to review, or a multitude of potential refinements to a particular idea, there often times grows an anxiety within some individuals during the process that creates a sense of exhaustion to additional ideas. You may have heard the phrases "We can play the what-if game all day long, but we aren't getting anywhere" or "I don't really care anymore, just pick one and let’s move on.” I'm noting this here even though it seems to overlap with the concept of Immediacy because I have observed this phenomenon even in situations where there was no outside pressure or urgency to quickly arrive at a solution. There simply seems to be a threshold within each person, at various breaking points, that can only stand to carry out or undertake so many iterations of review and refinement.



This is, sadly, dangerous to the ideal emergence and transparency necessary to create a self-checking system by which problems are solved, solutions are revisited for improvements, and potential exploitation is kept to an absolute minimum. Examples of this are constantly expressed in software development. Be it banking software or video games, testing of the product is limited only by the capability of the testers (reviewers) and the developers (creators/refiners) over the duration, creativity, and tenacity of the tests performed (what-if scenarios). No amount of review is ever sufficient to claim a solution to be perfectly holistic. Testing and refinement of code only creates an illusion of confidence that the system will behave properly. Once this confidence level hits a certain threshold, the solution and product are deemed "sound", and usually no new forms of testing are created, only existing methods of regression testing occur to ensure "nothing breaks" during other development.



This is the realm where exploitation lives - if the designers don't play the "what-if" game, someone else will, and they will invariably discover gaps in the solution either accidentally or purposely through their own methods of testing or vulnerability probing. At that point your design is subject to the will and morality of the individual- will they approach the solution creators and alarm them to the potential problem so that it can be solved? Or will they keep these vulnerabilities secret and attempt to leverage them for personal gain/control?



Logic should, of course, be to assume the worst as it is within the realm of possibilities, and why a constant, ongoing review and refinement process is necessary to (hopefully) prevent or uncover design short-comings before they are leveraged. Creative examples of this in the real world are situations where computer hackers are caught and, rather than punished, are actually employed by security firms to safely and purposely help them test the systems and uncover vulnerabilities.



I say then, with every fiber of my being, that one of the cornerstones of a society that attempts to solution any problem, or aspire any feat, be them technological, social, spiritual or otherwise, do so under the constant and unhindered, uncensored moral and technical scrutiny that its citizenship can offer through emergent, strongly inductive and existential review.



Finally, during these processes, rationalization should be kept to a minimum, as it tends to cloud affairs with inconsequential excuses for why rather than root-causing the gap. Identify the root, determine the gap (education/understanding/technical) and progress to refinement.



Feasibility



Feasibility is the weak force that, like gravity, pulls the other factors together. Once problem solving creates potential designs, feasibility is then weighed (often closely with immediacy) as one of the determining factors for which design to implement. Say the problem is determining the best way to cross a river. One person may propose bridge be built using lumber from nearby trees. Another may suggest sending a strong swimmer across with a long rope to secure to the other end, allowing the rest of the people to cross using the guide.



Both ideas are feasible, so the process of evaluation begins. Is sending someone across safe? Will using the rope be safe for the others? Do we have the tools to create a bridge? Does anyone know how? Does the way across need to be maintained for future crossings?



The answers to these questions begin to rank the feasibility of the presented solutions, either actively or subconsciously, and the group (or those in charge of deciding) begins to gravitate towards one solution over the others.



If the perceived feasibility of one solution seems to greatly outweigh the others by high margin, the other solutions may be scrapped completely within retention or further discussion. If two or more solutions seem marginally similar, both may be attempted to determine which will be the ‘official’ solution as they near completion. Finally, one solution may only be more lucrative than the others because it circumvents or alleviates one of the core design hurdles (and usually at the expense of some accepted risk). In this situation, the less-popular “wishful” solution may be attempted while making the dominant solution the contingency should the wishful attempt fail.



In any regard, it is the manner and outcome of this ranking which introduces the first key level of negative human behavior in a group dynamic: Pride. Sometimes, the passion and originality that goes into a plan brings with it personal attachment to the idea. If the idea “wins”, this elevates to a heightened need to rationalize and defend the idea from scrutiny and reform.



There are countless examples dating back through all of history that illustrate this. One that stands out is China’s Great Leap Forward. One aspect, the advent of the backyard furnace, was put forth by Mao (without a metallurgy background or support) to boost China’s industrialization through the production of steel from scrap metal.



This solution was implemented, and a large scale effort was carried forth to install these steel furnaces throughout the communes, and production began. The result was mass production of pig iron, not steel, which was hardly suitable for construction and low value to export. How did it get that far? Pride, and Censorship. Mao distrusted intellectuals and often carried out movements without the input of trained engineers (many of were killed off anyways during the Hundred Flowers Campaign). It didn’t stop at the failure to produce steel, either. Admitting that it was a terrible idea to the masses would diminish their support, so instead the project was only quietly abandoned after some time.



Personal attachment to an idea or design goes the other way, too. The rejection of one’s submitted idea can prompt resentment, depression, or aggression which negatively impacts the measure of a design’s feasibility. They may immediately scrap support of their idea at the first sign of opposition or scrutiny “It’s fine, it’s a stupid idea anyway” or feel as though they are being personally attacked – “I was just trying to help...”



As sympathetic as a group could aspire to be to the feelings of those who contribute, it should be the personal goal and development of each and every contributor to set aside their personal attachments, pride, and insecurities in lieu of objectively reviewing ideas.



It will be natural that some people will contribute more feasibly sound ideas than others- these people aren’t to be shunned as “know it all’s” but should be kept in check to make sure they don’t try to dominate the design sessions simply for the sake of vanity or over-achieving . It will be natural that some people are better at pointing out vulnerabilities in plans, but not necessarily as capable in formulating their own concepts- these individuals should be valued as safe-guarders of quality, not “negative” influencers or opposition.



Put plainly, there is no room for a sense of direct, human competition amongst the people for feasibility of ideas. Each idea must be weighed of its own merit, in relation to the ideas before it, the other ideas being weighed, and the symbiotic consequences it holds in relation to all things affected by its implementation.



An example to illustrate this concept of direct and indirect competition could be this: If I write a computer program today that calculates a large sum of items in the span of 30 seconds, tomorrow there could exist a computer program that can do the same calculation in only 10 seconds. Whether it is that I created the new program or if another person or entity created it is irrelevant, the fact remains that an improvement was made and should therefore be considered.



Evaluating the change itself reveals that the new program does not feel a sense of direct competition with the old program, as neither is determined capable of feeling “competition”.



My language is carefully chosen because there exists a gray area as we as a species continue to weave the notion of unconscious, unfeeling automation into our daily lives. The factory worker, the telephone operator, the elevator man, the mechanic, the gardener, the photo developer, the accountant, the banker, the line judge- as new designs look to make human labor obsolete, greater care must be taken to evaluate not only the emotional attachment to the idea itself, but the attachment the idea itself may contain when faced with feasibility ranking.



As a humanitarian, I believe much of this can be avoided with some simple, general acts of sympathy that is not beyond the realm of effective problem solving. We incorporate many of these aspects already- be it thanking someone for their contribution or proactively calling out the benefits ones ideas provide even if it is not the candidate for implementation. I believe also that designs that don’t make it to implementation should be retained indefinitely as a historical marking of other paths considered, something that hasn’t happened nearly enough in the history of the world. The truth is, in the realm of anything being possible, sometimes an idea that is not feasible today, even an idea that seems completely irrational, can take on a completely new form in the future as our thought processes, technologies, and evolutions continue.



Thus, if everyone who contributes ideas feels that they can freely do so- and if everyone works towards becoming self-confident enough to discuss those ideas and refine them in the face of criticism, and if people pause to do so in a generally positive way with a degree of patience and understanding, you can then unlock the truly explosive, renaissance potential that is human ingenuity.



Immediacy



Earlier I mentioned immediacy in relation to the review and refinement process. Time is always a factor, but sometimes our perception of its passing skews the objective conclusions we should be drawing about when certain things should occur. In short: the time element of all emergent systems must be weighed objectively and cannot be subject to the typically impatient will of man.



Is the problem at hand dire? Are we avoiding procrastination or are we simply impatient? Are we frustrated that there are no solutions yet? Frustrated that there are too many solutions and we can’t seem to agree upon one?



All of these factors play in, and much like the personal growth required to correctly weigh feasibility, I feel we must also constantly strive to correctly identify immediacy objectively.



If the situation is dire – a life is at stake with only moments, seconds, or minutes to react, this will obviously affect the problem solving process and there may not be ample time (if any) to create multiple solutions, review them, refine them, and then carry a one out. In many cases, even in a group dynamic, the entire process may only even occur as a single-minded process as each individual instinctively “reacts” to the situation. Emergency situations are a topic for another time- for now I’ll focus on strategic problem solving in situations that aren’t quite so immediate.



Peace, love, and understanding is all well and good- but stress, urgency and imposition can also create advancement though pressure-based ingenuity, right? Wrong. Behavioral psychology has shown time and time again that creating pressure-based immediacy for no real reason is actually detrimental to progress, yet somewhere within us, again unclear to me, there exists that conditioned threshold I spoke of earlier where, for no other sake than progress itself, we create timelines and deadlines and other artificial forms of immediacy when solving problems.



To some, the perception that no actual, tangible work is being done towards the goal, so the elapsed time is perceived as time wasted or laziness, or procrastination- perfectly viable explanations for the anger or anxiety that comes with envisioning or planning to solve a complex problem. Laziness and procrastination are also topics for another time, as I’ve always wanted to investigate the group dynamic as it relates to motivation and participation in the individual. Suffice to say that personal development in the areas of patience should be applied to correctly separate truly negative “lack of urgency” situations from the benign “lack of necessity” situations.



Some immediacy, valid immediacy, can be determined from objective sources. Perhaps shelter needs to be resolved before nightfall because of the cold, or food harvesting and storage needs to be completed before the winter. Perhaps a particular resource is becoming scarce, or a particular solution of old has now been found to be affecting the positive symbiotic whole in an adverse way… these considerations, again tempered by feasibility, can have an effect on group problem solving in somewhat of a “positive” light (for lack of a better term) by providing external observations… consequences, reactions, which bring about change.



Three ways that can positively affect Immediacy is forethought (preparation), available options (technology), and experience. Experience, being, the least quantifiable as many (but not all) theories can be practiced ad nauseum, but usually differ in their actual occurrences.. thus many experiences cannot be expressed and therefore instantly and intimately understood, they must be experienced.



Forethought and having available options are things that we can directly affect and plan for. Pursuing several solutions for power generation as opposed to one gives us options if one or more individual options become unviable. Creating a new “hovering” prototype vehicle that has never been driven but taking the time to add safety features which prevent crashes or protects the passengers in different ways traditionally found in ground-based vehicles shows forethought in planning which indirectly saves the potential immediacy having to recall the vehicle because it is unsafe.



It can be said that many of these aspects evolve rapidly over time as we perfect the art of creation or expand our knowledge and technologies which increases our capability. Coupling this capability with a constant re-evaluation process and the retention of other design solutions poises us to make less near-sighted decisions along the way, avoiding the pit-falls that come with rushed design.



Execution aka “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men.. “



At long last, the plan for action has been decided upon, and it’s time to implement the culmination of all the review and brain power. People eagerly work on their parts, the prototype is built and… nothing happens.



Failure, as we all have hopefully learned by now, is an inevitable outcome in this the world we live in. We can count on one hand the number of times our designs have worked flawlessly out of the gate, and we have, at least once in our lives, abandoned a perfectly sound idea or endeavor simply because we were not successful at it the first time we tried.



Execution plays on two key elements in human behavior: Fear of failure, and perception of competence. Internally, we want to present ideas and perform actions correctly (unless we are maliciously motivated to do the opposite). When our attempt fails, the reaction dives into a number of negative behavior patterns more suitable for other discussions (perfectionism, self-deprecation, anxiety, depression, stress, OCD, etc), but it can also prompts various other positive responses (optimism of progress, furthering knowledge, gaining understanding of the nature and interdependence of things, motivation to continue)



As with all the other aspects covered here, there is again personal growth that is necessary to cultivate the positive motivators in trial and error while reducing the negative anxieties which can hinder refinement and ultimately progress.



Edison said it best: "If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward".



Execution drives of all the theorizing and all the “what if’s” that occurred before it to refine a solution to its elevated states via observation of failure. While I mentioned this should not be something that is feared, care is needed to evaluate the actual cost of each attempt as it relates to everyone and everything else. Failure to do this, in the blind name of scientific progress, is in part what leads to things like devalued perception of life (mass scale animal testing), un-necessary depletion of resources, or unknown, permanent damage to the environment or ourselves (nuclear testing).



The final, and often overlooked, portion of execution is the feedback cycle or the self-reflection cycle. So many problems in our current society exist only because there is no “closed loop” in the cycle by which the outcomes of implemented ideas are evaluated against the source for a root cause.



Instead, we ignore these cause and effect relationships, treat them as inherent “cost” for operating the solution, and begin to develop new ideas to serve as workarounds for the flaws inherent to the original system. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but often, these workarounds or band-aids are rarely removed at a future date for a better original design without scrapping the entire project or going with a completely different solution.



It is important that we are constantly reviewing already implemented solutions and comparing the results to the original intent and design and determining if either is inherently flawed or has become flawed. This is how we end up with “Frankenstein” processes and legacy systems that get to a point where no one is left that even remembers how they work or what the original intent was, but they cannot be so much as touched for fear that they will irrevocably break.



Bringing it all together



• The ability for a single mind to comprehend all the facets fully and arrive at a comprehensive solution or set of solutions decreases. Thus the phrase "two heads are better than one", or concepts like multi-threading, multi-core processing, or multi-channel throughputs exist in the computing world. We should always, then, strive for group-minded solutions when we approach problem solving.

• All ideas and solutions should be considered emergent and not static- as what we learn tomorrow could greatly alter the design of what we know today. This too plays into uncovering the malicious intent of individuals who seek to exploit. In almost all cases short of overt coercion, the only thing separating the exploited from the exploiters is ignorance to some fundamental truth or understanding and a lack of transparency into their actions and intent. Complexity creates this uncertainty, especially in new realms of science, and it is usually these safeguarded secrets that are leveraged to gain control while the majority is still naive to its true nature.

• It is human behavior that only some feel true regret and are compelled to resolve short-comings in a design while others attempt to absolve responsibility. At its ugliest, this leads to concepts like plausible deniability and negligence which destroy progress by allowing solutions with dire consequences slip through into implementation. Without a sense of vested ownership, there decreases the chance that fallout or short comings will be addressed.¬

• One of the cornerstones of a society that exists to solution any problem, or aspire any feat, be them technological, social, spiritual or otherwise, do so under the constant and unhindered, uncensored moral and technical scrutiny that its citizenship can offer through emergent, strongly inductive and existential review.

• During refinement, rationalization should be kept to a minimum, as it tends to cloud affairs with inconsequential excuses for why rather than root-causing the gap. Identify the root, determine the gap (education/understanding/technical) and progress to refinement.

• As sympathetic as a group could aspire to be to the feelings of those who contribute, it should be the personal goal and development of each and every contributor to set aside their personal attachments, pride, and insecurities in lieu of objectively reviewing ideas.

• There is no room for a sense of direct, human competition amongst the people for feasibility of ideas. Each idea must be weighed of its own merit, in relation to the ideas before it, the other ideas being weighed, and the symbiotic consequences it holds in relation to all things affected by its implementation.

• Designs that don’t make it to implementation should be retained indefinitely as a historical marking of other paths considered, something that hasn’t happened nearly enough in the history of the world. The truth is, in the realm of anything being possible, sometimes an idea that is not feasible today, even an idea that seems completely irrational, can take on a completely new form in the future as our thought processes, technologies, and evolutions continue.

• If everyone who contributes ideas feels that they can freely do so- and if everyone works towards becoming self-confident enough to discuss those ideas and refine them in the face of criticism, and if people pause to do so in a generally positive way with a degree of patience and understanding, you can then unlock the truly explosive, renaissance potential that is human ingenuity.

• Time is always a factor, but sometimes our perception of its passing skews the objective conclusions we should be drawing about when certain things should occur. In short: the time element of all emergent systems must be weighed objectively and cannot be subject to the typically impatient will of man.

• Three ways that can positively affect Immediacy is forethought (preparation), available options (technology), and experience.

• Execution drives of all the theorizing and all the “what if’s” that occurred before it to refine a solution to its elevated states via observation of failure. While I mentioned this should not be something that is feared, care is needed to evaluate the actual cost of each attempt as it relates to everyone and everything else.

• It is important that we are constantly reviewing already implemented solutions and comparing the results to the original intent and design and determining if either is inherently flawed or has become flawed.