_Liber MUD: MUDs and Western Mysticism_
by Haramullah

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
La ilaha illa 'Llah.  Assalam alaikum, my kin.

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Contents:

0. Introduction
1. Realms and Worlds
2. Multi-User Dimensions (MUDs)
3. The Cyber Realm and the NONcyber Realm
4. Realities and Pre-eminence
5. The Real World, Real Life (RL) and MUDs
6. InterMUD Studies
7. Entrenchment and Abstraction
8. The Science of Artistry
9. Conclusion
Info about Divination Web

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0. Introduction

Some people hold rather tightly to the notion of a 'real world' or 
'real life' (RL), and this is often distinguished from places known 
as 'MUDs' or 'virtual worlds'.

Yet how can people be sure what is 'real' and what is 'virtual', especially 
the better educated of the lot, when philosophers have argued the point 
for ages and countless mystics have suggested that what we take for 
'reality' is a reflection, a mere fragment of the real?

Below is the present form of a model which redefining the term
'MUD' so that we may understand the nature of human experience.
The term 'MUD', therefore, is intentionally used in an unorthodox
way here so as to provide for its application in fields other 
those in which the term originated.

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1. Realms and Worlds

'Realm', 'world' and 'MUD' (Multi-User Dimension, to be defined below), 
are here synonyms.   They describe a bounded sphere of perception.   
A 'virtual world' is a realm which is somehow incomplete - apparent to 
some senses but not to others (whether or not they appear within all 
dimensions of sensation).


2. Multi-User Dimensions (MUD), 

More specifically then, by MUD we refer to a realm of measurement 
(dimension) which makes possible or allows more than one (multi) 
locus of change (user).  Where 'realm' and 'world' are fairly ambiguous,
MUD is a technical term with specific meaning and synonymous 
application within this model.


3. The CyberMUD or Cyber Realm, and the NONcyber Realm

A cyberMUD or 'cyber realm' is one which is reached via
a computer (by whatever definition). It may be contrasted with
a NONcyber realm in two major ways:

A) The cyber realm seems to depend upon the NONcyber realm for
its existence (but this cannot be proven), and

B) The cyber realm is dependent upon some computer for its
ultimate form (whether or not this computer is NONcyber-based).


4. Reality, Virtual Reality and Primary MUDs

The term 'reality' is used as a substitute for 'realm' by the bulk of
people who engage cyberMUD games and the like (telnet, IRC, etc.),
yet within this model a specific meaning is reserved for it.  I am here
assuming that the phrase 'virtual reality' is an oxymoron, and this 
will become more apparent below.

The common assumption is that cyber realms are MUDs and NONcyber 
realms are NOT (i.e. that NONcyber realms are 'reality').
However, within this model, 'ordinary waking consciousness' 
will be considered an experience within a NONcyber realm of subjective 
or objective dimensions. 

Each person has multiple selves, arising from the combined complex
of their social roles, that vie for supremacy within the dimension of 
their personal mindspace.  This is the subject dimension, the 'me-MUD'.
It includes feelings, thoughts and the entire range of subjective
experience.

There appears to be a world of shapes and objects around us.  We
maneuver, physically, through the familiar subrealms of 'height',
'width' and 'depth' and manipulate or interact with entities and
objects within them.  This is the object dimension, the 'space-MUD'.
It is the one which people assume to be more 'real' based upon their
perception that it contains cyberMUDs and gives rise to the me-MUD.

Taking one (NONcyber, space-MUD) as primary based solely on the 
grounds of origin (cyber realms seem to originate from NONcyber 
technologies) is quite common.  

For example, many people assume that NONcyber personalities are 
somehow more 'real' than the cyber counterpart, even if these 
personae (socially-imagined constructs deriving from communication 
styles and appearance) are comparable in all respects save origin.

Another example is a NONcyber truck which plows through a NONcyber
computer room and destroys the operator of a cyberMUD.  The cyberMUD
persona is dependent for its life upon the NONcyber operator.

That they distinguish one as 'real' and the other as 'virtual' or
'imaginary' displays the bias toward the default dimension
(quite reasonably), but tells us nothing about what 'real' means
aside from 'preferred' or 'longer-lasting'.

Future technology may make these distinctions quite arbitrary.
With 'cybersuits' for example, the ability to classify the 
experiences will be based upon how easy it is to recognize that 
one is engaging the cybersuit and, if there is a way to come to
this recognition, how readily we may be able to disengage it.

In short, there is no way to differentiate between 'ordinary'
experience and 'computer-generated' experience when the bulk
of the brain's neurons are fed sufficient sensory information.
The question becomes how can one EVER know that one is not
undergoing some sort of 'virtual reality' produced by 
Descartes' 'Evil Genius'.  

The NONcyber world seems to have a direct and lasting effect 
upon our physical form.  Thus the NONcyber truck  is 'real' because 
it 'kills' if one steps before it while it is moving quickly.
Yet what establishes it as 'more real'?  Can it be shown
that cyberworlds (or other MUDs) have NO effect?  How and 
why do effects justify the evaluation of 'more real'?

There is no way to prove that the cyberMUD vanishes when nobody
is logged on or when the computer which 'creates it' has been turned 
off.  Likewise it is impossible to prove that it IS there whether or not
anybody is experiencing it. It is an epistemological issue which can 
never be resolved absolutely.  

A good example is the 'Internet Relay Channel' (IRC), in which people
connect via some means and then create private 'channels' or 'rooms'
in which to exchange typewritten lines to other cyberspace voyagers.
Without users, no #channels exist, therefore IRC itself ceases to 
exist.  Or does it?  What qualifies as 'proof of existence' for a MUD?  
Who shall decide this when for countless centuries we have been unable 
to decide this about the "real world"??


5. The Real World, Real Life (RL) and MUDs

This model takes for its definition of the 'real world' that 
realm which is a superset of all MUDs.  That superset upon which 
all other dimensions depend is logically the 'real'.  Plato
claimed that the real world is the world of Forms or Ideas, and 
many other philosophers offer their own speculation as to what
constitutes the 'Source Code of Existence'.

'The superset of all MUDs' is not an easy concept to understand.
It transcends both the MUD of subjective experience and
the MUD of 'space' ('time', which connects and/or interweaves 
these two, are left for future speculation).   Any aspect of what 
is here referred to as real life (RL) must be beyond words to some 
extent, especially when attempting to ascertain information about 
'you' or 'me', or indeed any isolated object/subject.

To say 'I went shopping in RL' would seem not only fallacious, 
but completely dishonest.  No separate 'individual' can ever 
'do' anything in 'RL', not when it is defined as this superset, 
this Unity which includes all dimensions of subject and object.
The object-MUD does not comprise 'RL'.  It is simply one dimension 
(with 3 subdimensions of H/L/D).  'You' exist in it.  So do 'I'.  'We' don't 
exist in 'RL' because 'RL' is the world of Unification.  In RL 'you' 
and 'I' are a Unity.  

A note about Unity seems necessary.  When speaking of 'Unity', it
is not meaningful to compare this with 'Diversity'.  The reason for this
is that the unity here implied transcends all lingual expressions.
For the same reason that 'Spirit' cannot be compared with 'Matter'
because in the nondual realm Spirit and Matter are One, so also is
Diversity identical to Unity and vice versa.  The term is only a useful
indicator of the realm or dimension (that superset) to which we refer.

Given this, the real world is a subject/object Unity, toward which 
many religious paths point and about which we shall never
obtain a completely accurate lingual expression (due to the
disunitive nature of language). 

Comments about RL, therefore, are of a MYSTICAL nature, within 
this context, rather than merely practical. They apply, perhaps 
abstractly, to that superset which some Christians call 'Heaven' 
and some Buddhists might call 'Nirvana'.  

The universe is a Giant Cosmic MUD.  The Real World is comprised 
of a universal Monad, so dense in its unity that it includes Infinity, 
and a cosmic Kaos, so diffuse in its diversity that it includes 
Singularity.

RL is mystical experiene, since it occurs in the dimension of
Unified nonduality and it would seem to depend upon the QUALITY of
its manifestation rather than on the location of particular objects 
or subjects.  RL may thus be found within any MUD, since all MUDs are 
contained by the real world and may include Unitive experiences.

A MUD is a world of flux, where the real is in some ways beyond change,
enveloping a 'becoming beingness' that is not usually perceived in 
ordinary states of consciousness.  To encounter RL, therefore, is to 
become unified with the divine, the God of Platonic and Hermetic 
Christians, who is both beyond and within the MUD experience, at once 
transcending and subsuming it.

A MUD is the equivalent of Carse's 'finite game', in which it is assumed
for the purposes of the game that certain rules are unbreakable 
(i.e. the subject/object division) and that the goal is to somehow 'win'.
Carse speculates that the goal of the infinite game (the real world)
is to continue playing, and no foolish notions about 'death' or 
'morality' or 'identity' get in the way of an infinite player.  

Knowledge may certainly be established regarding MUDs.  This sort 
of knowledge,  however, can NEVER be derived regarding the real world 
because it exists beyond the duality of knowledge and nonknowledge; 
beyond even the concept of 'you' or 'me'.


6. InterMUD Studies

The 'real' would seem to be approachable by examining all experiences 
and coming to some determination as to their source.  Modern 
Science's objective examination of the nature of matter is one aspect 
of this search.  Mystical exploration and experimentation in the world 
of the subject is another.

Searches of these types are limited by the techniques used within the
particular MUD.  A purely physical source for experience shall not be 
determined because experience is not entirely objective.  Likewise,
a purely mental source shall not discovered because experience 
is not entirely subjective.

InterMUD studies such as those by Fritjof Capra and Gary Zukav, 
popular  scientific explanations of the comparisons between objective 
and subjective explorations, are quite important.  They point out the 
boundaries and connections between MUDs (not only the subject/object 
MUDs but also those of academic and popular cultures).   

They indicate the paradoxes, the eddies and vortices that arise 
as a result of entering one particular finite game and looking at
another.  They emphasize the similarities between worlds, how one
can be used to understand another, and the ineffability of the real.

This model involves an examination of interMUD studies.  It therefore
itself qualifies as an 'interMUD study'.  Quite interesting logic-loops
arise.  Where does one MUD end and another begin?  The MUD of this 
textfile is different than the MUD which contains it, which is again 
different than the MUD of Usenet which is....    There is a concentricity 
of MUDs implied here which may also be the focus of this paper.  Is this 
paragraph an example of interMUD studies and therefore an example 
of itself?


7. Entrenchment and Abstraction

Those who entrench themselves within one particular MUD
(such as those who argue vehemently for the 'reality' of the object-
MUD, for example) will not understand such interMUD studies, nor will
they acknowledge the meaning and accuracy of terms which apply to
realms outside their entrenchment.  This is to be expected.

When one's 'reality' is comprised solely of objects, of surface tension 
and physical principles, one cannot then see the veracity of descriptions
regarding subjective referents.  'Soul', 'spirit', 'emotion' and even
'mind' are to be described in subjective terms for one to find meaning in them.

Those who speak of objects in 'abstract' terminology as if the objects were
somehow more 'real' will be considered either mistaken or confusing 
due to their 'abstractness'.  'Abstraction' is indeed a relative qualifier 
which describes one's position and relationship with respect to the qualified 
noun.  

If one says that 'mind' is an abstraction, then the MUD of one's 
entrenchment does not contain direct associations with what is being 
called 'mind'.  The term 'mind' does not have an objective application.  
'Mind' is 'abstraction' and this may mean that the term 'mind' relates to 
an object called 'brain' with which it may be associated.  

In the object-MUD, 'directness' relates to an object.  If one says that 
'brain' is instead an abstraction due to the relativity of subjective 
experience, then one finds oneself in an identical position, yet 
entrenched within a different MUD (the subject-MUD).  

Neither position can be said to be in the real world as defined within this
model.  Both MUDs are subsets of that superset, identified as such by 
the PRESENCE of abstraction within them.   'Abstraction', or that quality 
which admits of disunity, is an indication of incompleteness, of a MUD 
which seems not to be the real world.   


8. The Science of Artistry

The challenge, therefore, is to find a way into a 'Concreteness' which
admits of the Concrete not because of arbitrary definition (as might be 
obtained by denying the existence of 'mind' by virtue of its abstraction), 
but because there is no other alternative.  RL is that experience which 
penetrates all known MUDs, that concentration of indescribable 
perfection which is implied but never described by language.

InterMUD studies are therefore the studies of ALL MUDs and their origins,
differences and similarities.  While they may begin in cyber realms, of
necessity they shall permeate noncyber worlds as well, linking the video
MUDs of the picture, movie, television and arcade/pc games; the lingual
realms of the letter, telephone, cb, short-wave and internet; the sporting
gameworlds of dice, boards, words, role-playing, and 'MU*'; the realms 
of personal expression such as lecture, conversation, music, concert,
dance, sports, war, romance and sexuality.

Moreover, interMUD studies may be considered interdisciplinary studies
of Art in general.  The realms in which things are 'done' each have their own
specializations and techniques.  Over time they develop into what are
called 'spiritual disciplines' (those which may be used to reach the real).
In very old and rich spiritual traditions this manifests quite readily.

The Japanese 'tea ceremony' is an artform which has been developed into
spiritual practice.  So are Chinese and Arabic calligraphy.  Martial arts
in the East and West have grown along similar lines, and, while the martial
arts of the East have seen greater popularity (being of the body), those of
the West (called 'ceremonial magick') have integrated both Western
and Eastern esoteric concepts as elements of their foundation.

These particulars are less important than what they imply in general:
Art is a process of coming to the real and Science in its most
relevant form is the study of Art and that Source toward which we may
return.  The science of Artistry, in its broadest sense, is what such
interMUD studies comprise.  

The real world that such a science seeks to reveal is beyond its 
capacity to describe in language, yet well within its power to make 
available by direct experience.  With this in mind, the metaphor of the 
MUD and its application to the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, 
religion and mysticism are monumental and breath-taking in scope.


9. Conclusion

Drawing on the concepts of the 'worldview' and 'paradigm', the MUD
both exemplifies (in its cyber forms) and symbolizes (within the
mystical model herein portrayed) ordinary experience and its relation
to the real.  May we each use it to move closer to our source and 
begin to live what can truly be called Real Lives.

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Books proving inspirational to this essay included:

Games Theory
_Finite and Infinite Games_, by James P. Carse, Ballantine, 1986

Platonism
_A History of Philosophy: Vol. 1, Part 1, Greece and Rome_,
   by F. Copleston, S. J., Image Books, 1962

Modern Scientific Views of Mysticism
_The Tao of Physics_, by Fritjof Capra, Bantam, 1980

_The Dancing Wu Li Masters_, by Gary Zukav, Bantam, 1980.

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Haramullah rasulu 'Llah.  Alaikum assalam, my kin.
Love is the law, love under will.

Haramullah
Tyagi Nagasiva
(c) 1993  
Tyagi@HousEofKAos.Abyss.com (THE KA'AB)
House of KAos
871 Ironwood Drive
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