Date: Sat, 14 Aug 93 19:03:43 PDT

_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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