Can Second Life be even considered a "Game"?

[Freya Mokusei]

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

"the most magical of non-magical animals."

If we consider Second Life to be a game I'd call it "the most non-gamelike of games", and if it is seen as a part of some other non-game application category I'd call it "the most gamelike of [whatever.]" From what I've heard, it used to be quite a bit more "game-like" and gradually evolved in another direction, but there's still enough left-over conventions (the avatar that always has to be there, the single point of entry, the single overall environment that all users are part of, etc.) that

I don't see how it can be authoritatively described as Not A Game

.

---

Aw man, I can't even come back with a playful argument against this. Awkward but refusing to say no to whatever her brain says yes to - Tina is my spirit animal.

This is some solid reasoning, I love it. I love everything about it.

By every standard of being a game, I think SL does poorly. But it clearly does well enough to be confusing, and as someone who mostly enjoys inhabiting the grey between the solid colours, I'm entirely okay with this.

Thanks for the carefully constructed argument.

[wherorangi]

if we can use play in any way that can make sense to the both the speaker and the listener

then the speaker could say that their goal is to one day play Wembley, and have this understood by the listener. And the speaker is not a footballer, even tho Wembley is known as a football stadium

[Phil Deakins]

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Nalytha wrote:

I actually put forth what my opinion the "objective" of Second Life is and how the players carry out that role.

---

What was the objective - because there isn't one. Perhaps you invented an objective for yourself. We can all do that, but it doesn't make SL a game,

except personally.

---

If it

is

a game

personally

, how can it not be "not a game"?

---

Are you just trying to wind me up? If you're not, then read again because you completely missed it, and I've no intention of explaining it to you. It's perfectly simple and straight forward english.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Nalytha wrote:

Interesting. The person who criticized my grasp of the English language shows a lack of reading comprehension.

 

Phil. You keep asking for people to repeat things for you. This thread is 24 pages long. If you are struggling to keep up, perhaps you should bow out.

---

I wondered what you were talking about, so I looked at my post that you replied to and it turns out that you don't make any sense at. Check it out

[Phil Deakins]

---

Nalytha wrote:

Why are you nitpicking over the verb? Even if it's not a game, exactly what is wrong with the word play? It's been pointed out that that word is very versatile. I play music. I play movies. I play Second Life.

 

---

Don't be silly. It's all been explained in recent pages. Check it out

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Are you (Theresa) just trying to wind me up?

---

Oh, I hope she is.

You're cute when you're wound up.

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Nalytha wrote:

I actually put forth what my opinion the "objective" of Second Life is and how the players carry out that role.

---

What was the objective - because there isn't one. Perhaps you invented an objective for yourself. We can all do that, but it doesn't make SL a game,

except personally.

---

If it

is

a game

personally

, how can it not be "not a game"?

---

Are you just trying to wind me up? If you're not, then read again because you completely missed it, and I've no intention of explaining it to you. It's perfectly simple and straight forward english.

---

Everything I've seen suggests you're self-winding. You just need to be jogged occasionally.

[Phil Deakins]

I'm in red.

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

Freya Mokusei wrote:

---

Nalytha wrote:

Even if it's not a game, exactly what is wrong with the word play? It's been pointed out that that word is very versatile. I play music. I play movies. I play Second Life.

---

But do you play Facebook? Play Google, or eBay? Can you play email, or play WhatsApp?

What is it about Second Life that makes you think that you

play

it? The only other online services that people 'play' are (

looking at Google results

) gambling, sports or gaming related. Seems likely that 'play' is associated therefore with online

gaming

services.

Think verb usage is important, and probably part of what leads to the cloudiness in making this determination. Non-technical types often make this mistake and, because they aren't corrected on the terminology, the misinformation spreads. Has always been the double-edged sword in SL - technical knowledge is low across the userbase as a whole.

(Not that I think this misinformation really matters. People have been getting it wrong for a long time, and it hasn't mattered.)

---

Facebook, Google, and eBay aren't

simulations

of anything. 

Wow! You got something right. Very well done!

Phil maintains that is a world, "just like Earth"

which is what it is. Any idiot knows that

, but it's a

created

world 

just like the Earth

- a

simulacrum.

Everything that happens in Second Life technically runs on a

simulator.

Phil makes "furniture" for this virtual world, but there's no

need

for furniture in this world. 

There's no need for anything in the SL world.

"Furniture" exists in Second Life only as a simulation of real-world furniture. The word "play" is often used for running simulations.

Quite possibly. You could even say that LL plays SL when they run the simulation - like playing a film or video. What you can't accurately say is the user, such as you and me, plays it. Make make use of the simulation that LL is playing, but we ourselves don't play it. You're tying yourself up in knots

Incidentally, simulations can be considered games - when the military simulates a hypothetical military campaign it's called "wargaming" even though it's done for literally life-and-death reasons of strategic planning.

Wargames ARE games. They are done for the reason you stated but they are games. And they are not simulations. They are models - like lead soldiers

We've established that the word "play" is used for many actions, including actions that are extremely similar to the act of interacting with Second Life.

We have established that the word 'play' is used for a number of actions, and also similar things to SL, such as WoW (because it's a game).

Why would the word "play"

not

be used?

Because it's not a game. It's also not a musical instrument, a film/video, a record (music), etc. etc. Having said that, you can use whatever verb you like, but don't be surprised if/when people correct you on it

---

You really are arguing just for the sake of, aren't you?

[Nalytha]

"You really are arguing for the sake of, aren't you?"

 

What are you arguing for?

[Phil Deakins]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Are you (Theresa) just trying to wind me up?

---

Oh, I hope she is.

You're cute when you're wound up.

---

Aaw lol

Sorry to say, though, that I'm not getting would up at all, even though Theresa gives a big impression of trying it.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

---

Nalytha wrote:

I actually put forth what my opinion the "objective" of Second Life is and how the players carry out that role.

---

What was the objective - because there isn't one. Perhaps you invented an objective for yourself. We can all do that, but it doesn't make SL a game,

except personally.

---

If it

is

a game

personally

, how can it not be "not a game"?

---

Are you just trying to wind me up? If you're not, then read again because you completely missed it, and I've no intention of explaining it to you. It's perfectly simple and straight forward english.

---

Everything I've seen suggests you're self-winding. You just need to be jogged occasionally.

---

lol. There's truth in that. It's common knowledge here that I do enjoy a good argument and, if there's something I can get my teeth into, I do it readily. But that's not the same as 'wound-up'

[Phil Deakins]

---

Nalytha wrote:

"You really are arguing for the sake of, aren't you?"

 

What are you arguing for?

---

I enjoy arguing. But I only argue when I'm right, which necessarily means that those who oppose my arguments must be wrong

The difference is that I am always able to prove my points, which is why I take up an argument, whereas the opposition can only flounder with spurious stuff, and hope for the best.

In this case, the idea that SL is a game is absolutely wrong (that's self-evident). And nobody plays SL. Simples.

[Pamela Galli]

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

An Existentialist view would hold that it is the individual that is the source of meaning, not culture or tradition. 

---

Not necessarily. The individual freely chooses ultimate meaning, but is not necessarily himself the source. Kierkegaard was the first Existentialist, and chose to believe in the God of the Bible. 

---

He believed in God on his own terms though, certainly not based on those of the Church or tradition.

---

Individuals only freely choose ultimate meaning if they have free will. I'm not convinced we do!

And to believe in a God on your own terms just seems like a cop out to me. If I'm going to believe in a God on my own terms, I'm not going to believe in him at all (and I don't). I prefer not to set the terms, primarily because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'll let the evidence set the terms, which of course requires that I believe the evidence.

I'm doomed.

---

"on his own terms" was not really the right way of putting it... based on individual experience is more accurate. For Kierkergaard decisions based on evidence are scientific not religious. A religious experience is mystical, personal and requires doubt to be able to make the leap of faith to believing that is the essence of religion.

Wikipedia explains it better than my verbal fumbling...

The

leap of faith

is his conception of how an individual would believe in God or how a person would act in love. Faith is not a decision based on evidence that, say, certain beliefs about God are true or a certain person is worthy of love. No such evidence could ever be enough to completely justify the kind of total commitment involved in true religious faith or romantic love. Faith involves making that commitment anyway. Kierkegaard thought that to have faith is at the same time to have doubt. So, for example, for one to truly have faith in God, one would also have to doubt one's beliefs about God; the doubt is the rational part of a person's thought involved in weighing evidence, without which the faith would have no real substance. Someone who does not realize that Christian doctrine is inherently doubtful and that there can be no objective certainty about its truth does not have faith but is merely credulous. For example, it takes no faith to believe that a pencil or a table exists, when one is looking at it and touching it. In the same way, to believe or have faith in God is to know that one has no perceptual or any other access to God, and yet still has faith in God. Kierkegaard writes, "doubt is conquered by faith, just as it is faith which has brought doubt into the world".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard#Philosophy_and_theology

---

This is a bit unclear. I describe it thus: While there is evidence supporting both the existence and non existence of God, there is no ineluctable proof compelling either, such as 2 + 2 = 4.  One cannot choose whether or not to believe in gravity or that 2 + 2 = 4 (or 2 + 2 = 5 if you are a poor mathmetician.)

The only truly free choice one can make is regarding things like the existence of God, for which there is no conclusive logical or empirical proof or disproof. I know there is no proof of God, it is entirely my free choice to believe in Him.

(There is however a reason believers choose belief over unbelief, which is the Holy Spirit, with holy having its usual meaning "set apart".)

 

 

 

[Nalytha]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I enjoy arguing. But I only argue when I'm right, which necessarily means that those who oppose my arguments must be wrong

The difference is that I am always able to prove my points, which is why I take up an argument, whereas the opposition can only flounder with spurious stuff, and hope for the best.

---

It must be awesome to be you. 

[Phil Deakins]

It is

And I can't think of a better person to be me lol

[Pamela Galli]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

It is

And I can't think of a better person to be me lol

---

:smileyvery-happy:

[Aethelwine]

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

Until the language of Neurochemistry can evoke the same sort of emotional responses as poetry, it is missing out on some of the meaning. Its language and analysis incomplete. Its function and the type of information it conveys different.

---

Neurochemistry doesn't have to evoke the same sort of emotional responses as poetry to be useful and desireable. The Marsh Chapel experiments and (I wish I could find the article) a similar experiment done in California much more recently showed that spiritual epiphanies, producing lifelong positive changes in attitude, could be induced by the administration of psilocybin (another hallucinogen in the case of the California experiment, I think). I've yet to read a poem that had such an effect on me.

I don't think we'll reach a sufficient understanding of human intelligence to reach Ray Kurzweil's "

singularity

" by his predicted 2045. But, if you believe we will, that suggests we may eventuall be able to inject poetry through a needle. I'm an optimist and think that, even if that happens, many of us will still read it.

;-).

---

I didn't mean to imply Neurochemistry was in any way flawed as a method for explaining and stimulating experiences. Just that it is a category error to think it can explain something like Freewill, which is a moral and aesthetic concept, rather than a scientific one.

Science may well at some point be able to explain in the form of formulas every thing that has happened from the big bang onwards down to butterlfies fluttering their wings and the complex emotional reaction someone might experience from a smell. But that is a different category of thing to the world as described by poetry, the mysticism with which we conceive of our relationship to the world or to ideas of our place with in it.

It is like asking someone to point out the University they have gone to when they are on Campus. The University isn't a thing that can be pointed out, it isn't a building. Going to University, is different to going to a train station because a university and a train station are different sorts of things.

[Aethelwine]

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

An Existentialist view would hold that it is the individual that is the source of meaning, not culture or tradition. 

---

Not necessarily. The individual freely chooses ultimate meaning, but is not necessarily himself the source. Kierkegaard was the first Existentialist, and chose to believe in the God of the Bible. 

---

He believed in God on his own terms though, certainly not based on those of the Church or tradition.

---

Individuals only freely choose ultimate meaning if they have free will. I'm not convinced we do!

And to believe in a God on your own terms just seems like a cop out to me. If I'm going to believe in a God on my own terms, I'm not going to believe in him at all (and I don't). I prefer not to set the terms, primarily because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'll let the evidence set the terms, which of course requires that I believe the evidence.

I'm doomed.

---

"on his own terms" was not really the right way of putting it... based on individual experience is more accurate. For Kierkergaard decisions based on evidence are scientific not religious. A religious experience is mystical, personal and requires doubt to be able to make the leap of faith to believing that is the essence of religion.

Wikipedia explains it better than my verbal fumbling...

The

leap of faith

is his conception of how an individual would believe in God or how a person would act in love. Faith is not a decision based on evidence that, say, certain beliefs about God are true or a certain person is worthy of love. No such evidence could ever be enough to completely justify the kind of total commitment involved in true religious faith or romantic love. Faith involves making that commitment anyway. Kierkegaard thought that to have faith is at the same time to have doubt. So, for example, for one to truly have faith in God, one would also have to doubt one's beliefs about God; the doubt is the rational part of a person's thought involved in weighing evidence, without which the faith would have no real substance. Someone who does not realize that Christian doctrine is inherently doubtful and that there can be no objective certainty about its truth does not have faith but is merely credulous. For example, it takes no faith to believe that a pencil or a table exists, when one is looking at it and touching it. In the same way, to believe or have faith in God is to know that one has no perceptual or any other access to God, and yet still has faith in God. Kierkegaard writes, "doubt is conquered by faith, just as it is faith which has brought doubt into the world".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard#Philosophy_and_theology

---

This is a bit unclear. I describe it thus: While there is evidence supporting both the existence and non existence of God, there is no ineluctable proof compelling either, such as 2 + 2 = 4.  One

cannot choose

 whether or not to believe in gravity or that 2 + 2 = 4 (or 2 + 2 = 5 if you are a poor mathmetician.)

The only truly free choice one

can

make is regarding things like the existence of God, for which there is no conclusive logical or empirical proof or disproof. I know there is no proof of God, it is entirely my free choice to believe in Him.

(There is however a reason believers choose belief over unbelief, which is the Holy Spirit, with

holy

having its usual meaning "set apart".)

 

---

Sanctifying Grace....

Perhaps simpler still for me at least is that God and Religion are supernatural. If they were capable of being proved then they would be of the natural order. Teleological, Ontological and other attempts to prove the existence of God are fundamentally flawed because they would reduce God to the natural, God requires as Kierkergaard puts it that leap of faith.

[Pamela Galli]

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

An Existentialist view would hold that it is the individual that is the source of meaning, not culture or tradition. 

---

Not necessarily. The individual freely chooses ultimate meaning, but is not necessarily himself the source. Kierkegaard was the first Existentialist, and chose to believe in the God of the Bible. 

---

He believed in God on his own terms though, certainly not based on those of the Church or tradition.

---

Individuals only freely choose ultimate meaning if they have free will. I'm not convinced we do!

And to believe in a God on your own terms just seems like a cop out to me. If I'm going to believe in a God on my own terms, I'm not going to believe in him at all (and I don't). I prefer not to set the terms, primarily because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'll let the evidence set the terms, which of course requires that I believe the evidence.

I'm doomed.

---

"on his own terms" was not really the right way of putting it... based on individual experience is more accurate. For Kierkergaard decisions based on evidence are scientific not religious. A religious experience is mystical, personal and requires doubt to be able to make the leap of faith to believing that is the essence of religion.

Wikipedia explains it better than my verbal fumbling...

The

leap of faith

is his conception of how an individual would believe in God or how a person would act in love. Faith is not a decision based on evidence that, say, certain beliefs about God are true or a certain person is worthy of love. No such evidence could ever be enough to completely justify the kind of total commitment involved in true religious faith or romantic love. Faith involves making that commitment anyway. Kierkegaard thought that to have faith is at the same time to have doubt. So, for example, for one to truly have faith in God, one would also have to doubt one's beliefs about God; the doubt is the rational part of a person's thought involved in weighing evidence, without which the faith would have no real substance. Someone who does not realize that Christian doctrine is inherently doubtful and that there can be no objective certainty about its truth does not have faith but is merely credulous. For example, it takes no faith to believe that a pencil or a table exists, when one is looking at it and touching it. In the same way, to believe or have faith in God is to know that one has no perceptual or any other access to God, and yet still has faith in God. Kierkegaard writes, "doubt is conquered by faith, just as it is faith which has brought doubt into the world".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard#Philosophy_and_theology

---

This is a bit unclear. I describe it thus: While there is evidence supporting both the existence and non existence of God, there is no ineluctable proof compelling either, such as 2 + 2 = 4.  One

cannot choose

 whether or not to believe in gravity or that 2 + 2 = 4 (or 2 + 2 = 5 if you are a poor mathmetician.)

The only truly free choice one

can

make is regarding things like the existence of God, for which there is no conclusive logical or empirical proof or disproof. I know there is no proof of God, it is entirely my free choice to believe in Him.

(There is however a reason believers choose belief over unbelief, which is the Holy Spirit, with

holy

having its usual meaning "set apart".)

 

---

Sanctifying Grace....

Perhaps simpler still for me at least is that God and Religion are supernatural. If they were capable of being proved then they would be of the natural order. Teleological, Ontological and other attempts to prove the existence of God are fundamentally flawed because they would reduce God to the natural, God requires as Kierkergaard puts it that leap of faith.

---

Agreed. (Looks around for some kind of award to appear.)

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Pamela Galli wrote:

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

An Existentialist view would hold that it is the individual that is the source of meaning, not culture or tradition. 

---

Not necessarily. The individual freely chooses ultimate meaning, but is not necessarily himself the source. Kierkegaard was the first Existentialist, and chose to believe in the God of the Bible. 

---

He believed in God on his own terms though, certainly not based on those of the Church or tradition.

---

Individuals only freely choose ultimate meaning if they have free will. I'm not convinced we do!

And to believe in a God on your own terms just seems like a cop out to me. If I'm going to believe in a God on my own terms, I'm not going to believe in him at all (and I don't). I prefer not to set the terms, primarily because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'll let the evidence set the terms, which of course requires that I believe the evidence.

I'm doomed.

---

"on his own terms" was not really the right way of putting it... based on individual experience is more accurate. For Kierkergaard decisions based on evidence are scientific not religious. A religious experience is mystical, personal and requires doubt to be able to make the leap of faith to believing that is the essence of religion.

Wikipedia explains it better than my verbal fumbling...

The

leap of faith

is his conception of how an individual would believe in God or how a person would act in love. Faith is not a decision based on evidence that, say, certain beliefs about God are true or a certain person is worthy of love. No such evidence could ever be enough to completely justify the kind of total commitment involved in true religious faith or romantic love. Faith involves making that commitment anyway. Kierkegaard thought that to have faith is at the same time to have doubt. So, for example, for one to truly have faith in God, one would also have to doubt one's beliefs about God; the doubt is the rational part of a person's thought involved in weighing evidence, without which the faith would have no real substance. Someone who does not realize that Christian doctrine is inherently doubtful and that there can be no objective certainty about its truth does not have faith but is merely credulous. For example, it takes no faith to believe that a pencil or a table exists, when one is looking at it and touching it. In the same way, to believe or have faith in God is to know that one has no perceptual or any other access to God, and yet still has faith in God. Kierkegaard writes, "doubt is conquered by faith, just as it is faith which has brought doubt into the world".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard#Philosophy_and_theology

---

This is a bit unclear. I describe it thus: While there is evidence supporting both the existence and non existence of God, there is no ineluctable proof compelling either, such as 2 + 2 = 4.  One

cannot choose

 whether or not to believe in gravity or that 2 + 2 = 4 (or 2 + 2 = 5 if you are a poor mathmetician.)

The only truly free choice one

can

make is regarding things like the existence of God, for which there is no conclusive logical or empirical proof or disproof. I know there is no proof of God, it is entirely my free choice to believe in Him.

(There is however a reason believers choose belief over unbelief, which is the Holy Spirit, with

holy

having its usual meaning "set apart".)

 

---

Sanctifying Grace....

Perhaps simpler still for me at least is that God and Religion are supernatural. If they were capable of being proved then they would be of the natural order. Teleological, Ontological and other attempts to prove the existence of God are fundamentally flawed because they would reduce God to the natural, God requires as Kierkergaard puts it that leap of faith.

---

Agreed. (Looks around for some kind of award to appear.)

---

Pamela, I am not aware of any evidence supporting the existence of God, and I don't think it's possible to prove the non-existance of anything (though there are some who claim it can be done).

Yes, God requires a leap into belief in things absent any evidence. It's a leap we take because of subconscious biases and processes that served us well long ago, but may be of decreased utility as we progress. I feel no need to take this particular leap, as it feels backwards to me and potentially dangerous. Not that the leaps I do take are necessarily forward or safe. My brain thinks it has a mind of its own.

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I'm in red.

I'm in blue.

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

Freya Mokusei wrote:

---

Nalytha wrote:

Even if it's not a game, exactly what is wrong with the word play? It's been pointed out that that word is very versatile. I play music. I play movies. I play Second Life.

 

---

But do you play Facebook? Play Google, or eBay? Can you play email, or play WhatsApp?

What is it about Second Life that makes you think that you

play

it? The only other online services that people 'play' are (

looking at Google results

) gambling, sports or gaming related. Seems likely that 'play' is associated therefore with online

gaming

services.

Think verb usage is important, and probably part of what leads to the cloudiness in making this determination. Non-technical types often make this mistake and, because they aren't corrected on the terminology, the misinformation spreads. Has always been the double-edged sword in SL - technical knowledge is low across the userbase as a whole.

(Not that I think this misinformation really matters. People have been getting it wrong for a long time, and it hasn't mattered.)

---

Facebook, Google, and eBay aren't

simulations

of anything. 

Wow! You got something right. Very well done!

Phil maintains that is a world, "just like Earth"

which is what it is.

How and why

is it just like the earth?

Any idiot knows that

,

We'll see shortly, won't we?

but it's a

created

world 

just like the Earth

-

a

simulacrum.

If Second Life is just like the Earth, what does the Earth simulate?

Everything that happens in Second Life technically runs on a

simulator.

Phil makes "furniture" for this virtual world, but there's no

need

for furniture in this world. 

There's no need for anything in the SL world.

Since Second Life is "just like the Earth", doesn't this mean that "any idiot knows" there's no need for anything on Earth either? That's assuming that there actually

isn't

any need for anything in the Second Life world -  now what would happen in Second Life if the simulators stopped running? Doesn't the "world"

need

them to be running?

"

Furniture" exists in Second Life only as a simulation of real-world furniture. The word "play" is often used for running simulations.

Quite possibly. You could even say that LL plays SL when they run the simulation - like playing a film or video. What you can't accurately say is the user, such as you and me, plays it. Make make use of the simulation that LL is playing, but we ourselves don't play it.

The server simulation - the only thing that happens on LL hardware - has no graphics or sound. We see graphics and sound on our computers. If we're not "playing" anything, where is that coming from? 

You're tying yourself up in knots

There's a lot of that going around.

Incidentally, simulations can be considered games - when the military simulates a hypothetical military campaign it's called "wargaming" even though it's done for literally life-and-death reasons of strategic planning.

Wargames ARE games. They are done for the reason you stated but they are games. And they are not simulations.

Why not? Don't they simulate a battle?

They are models - like lead soldiers

Why isn't a model a simulation? Doesn't it simulate something else?

We've established that the word "play" is used for many actions, including actions that are extremely similar to the act of interacting with Second Life.

We have established that the word 'play' is used for a number of actions, and also similar things to SL, such as WoW (because it's a game).

Why would the word "play"

not

be used?

Because it's not a game. It's also not a musical instrument, a film/video, a record (music), etc. etc. Having said that, you can use whatever verb you like, but don't be surprised if/when people correct you on it

Right now, the only one still arguing that is you.

---

You really are arguing just for the sake of, aren't you?

Any idiot knows that.

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[Pamela Galli]

Oh, there is an abundance of evidence in the creation alone, but as I said, the most important for believers in Yahweh is the Paraclete.  All easily dismissed by the non-religious, as I well know, since I was an atheist existentialist before I became a Christian existentialist. 

[Nalytha]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

Oh, there is an abundance of evidence in the creation alone, but as I said, the most important for believers in Yahweh is the Paraclete.  All easily dismissed by the non-religious, as I well know, since I was an atheist existentialist before I became a Christian existentialist. 

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Gaahhh... I can't help myself. I must ask. How do you reconcile your Atheist past with the Christian concept of the Unforgivable Sin?

[Pamela Galli]

Well I never blasphemed the HS if that's what you mean.

[Nalytha]

How can you claim to have been an Atheist at one point but not admit to have denied the existance of the Holy Spirit during that time? I mean, sure. Atheist simply means a lack of belief of a diety or dieties. I suppose you could believe in the Christian Holy Spirit, if you do not qualify that as a god? But having run an Atheist group for several years now, I have never heard of such a phenomenon. I am extremely intrigued by the idea. 

Or do you not believe that the denial of existance qualifies as blaspheme? 

What about this then: 

 

• Hebrews 6:4-8: "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.