fractalnavel

... so i'm reading some assinine thread on a forum somewhere ¹, and the thought hits me: is there an evolution game out there ?  i know there's sim-this and sim-that ², but how about something with wider scope ?  a quick search and all i managed to find were some games in the prehistoric life section over at the bbc.

i think that's a great subject niche for any number of games, especially considering current political debates.  in addition the the usual graphical fare, there could also be role playing evolution (which would be a great classroom exercise) in both board and online versions.

one could take on roles of natural law, a particular batch of organisms, or even a designer.  which does make it pretty clear that the idea of creationsim / intelligent design cannot occur, because it makes presumptions about a priori knowledge of the universe that aren't available - with the obvious exception, which is what all the noise is intended to force us to conclude.

on the contrary, “designers” are notoriously poor at solving new classes of problems.  it takes far more creativity than that, of the serendipitous kind.  thus, any creator would also have to be phenomenally creative (keeping in mind the nuances of word usage here).  in fact, what is found is that a priori knowledge is not only insufficient, it's crippling when facing the truly novel. 

the only possible solution is self-organization.

which, in the smaller arena of mundane human endeavours, is somewhat troubling.  take software development, for that matter.  or any sort of craftsmanship.  craig made mention in a recent discussion the analogy of a begining carpenter trying to plan all possible details, as opposed to the master who is able to adapt as he goes along.  the reality, as i argued, is a little of both of chaos and control, and even that balance is dynamic.

why troubling ? in trying to get on top of any problem the impulse is to plan and control.  i would like to think that increasingly sophisticated and subtle thinking would, at some arbitrarily sufficient level, present “the” solution (to whatever).  but this isn't the case. instead, what you find is that the universe is at its most “creative” when it's at the finest line between complete chaos and more stable dynamics. the “problem” is that there is, by definition, no way of planning or predicting the outcome of such dynamics, except that it will be objectively awesome, proportional to it's closeness to the edge.  subjectively, it will be wondrous or horrific or (most likely) incomprehensible.

is this a problem ? only in contrast to certain worldviews and existing structures.  so, the “practical” approach is to back away from the edge in order to exert enough control in order to direct the remaining creativity at the desired problem.

the universe does not do this.  and it's interesting to keep in mind that humans are merely part of the overall process. in this universe, skyscrapers do just “throw themselves together”.  the way it has found to do this is truly amazing.  the issue has never been about what the universe is - all we can affect is how we see it.  and even that has been part of the entire universal evolution.

so - i want to play a game. 

¹ the inspirational line was “Because there are monkeys that don't level up enough to evolve.” evolution as leveling! how cool!  how juvenile!  every time i land on one of these forums (i only lurk) i wonder what the hell is wrong with everyone, and then someone eventually says something like “... and now that i've said i'm a kid everyone will be all biased and stuff”.  ahh, that explains it.  no, sonny, it's a good thing to have your youth known, it gives you a needed excuse.  otherwise you all come off as psychopathic morons.  it is very rare that anyone of that group comes off as respectable in the context of the wider world.  or so i thought, until i considered that the world at large is simply all these idiots a few years later (ie, “us”). i think maybe the only difference is that “adults” seem to have discovered that there is no one out there to correct them, with the results you'd expect.

² i think i am underestimating simlife; i've never played it.  yet, i get the feeling that it isn't quite what i have in mind.  so i guess i'm just inadequately explaining myself.