You Are An NPC!

Time For You to Wake Up!

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

Hello! If you are reading this, you do not exist. You are merely an instrument designed to test me and help me reach my greatest potential. It’s like a video game. I have a goal to achieve, and the steps needed to get there, each one of you is designed to respond to me in select words, like a script, all of which bring me to newer heights. For those that don’t know the exact term, you are an NPC or Non-Player Character. You simply help the story along. By now you have realized your three responses to this article: namely denial, acceptance, or ignorance. Whether you choose to accept outright or deny out of principle you are an NPC, and the system wants you to live as if you weren’t.

You Think, Therefore, You Are Not

The system makes you believe in Rene Descartes’ statement, “I Think, Therefore I Am,” however, let us explore the role of NPCs in a video game. NPCs exercise “existence,” in that they go about their business as if they are a “normal person.” They have entire lives they live out just like the “average person.” The only distinguishable factor from the player is that when faced with the player they are at the mercy of the player. They react and talk to the player without ever knowing why. For example, in Grand Theft Auto, or GTA, a hooker does their job just as a hooker would in our reality, but when they are faced with the player they suddenly are compelled to interact with the player. This is the same function for you.

You are compelled to interact with the player.

The system makes you think that “the NPC’s in those games cannot think, they merely act on pre-generated code.” Well, what makes you think that code can’t give someone the illusion of thought. Thought is defined as an idea or opinion. Let’s start with the nature of ideas. Ideas are responses or solutions to problems. If this is thought, then a computer program has already exercised this action. Google developed a chess program called AlphaZero by pitting two programs against each other and having them play numerous games until AlphaZero had gotten so advanced that it no longer would lose a game of chess. Thus, the computer was able to generate ideas or solutions to problems and therefore thought. If we say thought is an opinion, then we still fall short because an opinion is a judgment. Which AlphaZero has also accomplished by making the most sensible moves necessary to win. Thus, once again AlphaZero has thought generated through code. The same applies to you. You have thoughts generated by code.

Programmed “Free Will”

The system makes you conclude that NPCs don’t have free will, but NPCs do have “free will.” They have select responses which they can choose from all of which are chosen based on the interaction with the player. Take the hooker, for example, they have a limited number of choices to choose from but still get to “choose.” If I program a computer to see two possible choices, let’s say the color red and blue, and then give them a preference, let’s say red, then the computer will naturally select red. Since the computer had two choices, it’s easy to deduce that it has free will to choose, but the computer never had free will because the choice was pre-decided by the code. Now if I ask you the same question you may say red, blue, neither, or not answer at all. Whatever your choice is, it is already pre-decided. Even an effort to divert the system by choosing the opposite of your preference will be pre-decided. So, you have “free will” but you don’t have free will.

5 Failures in Perception

The system makes you justify that you exist because you can see, touch, smell, taste, and hear. That the five senses are proof that you exist. However, the five senses are unreliable. If you see an object far away you may think it’s really small, but as it approaches, you realize it’s much bigger than you initially realized. If you close your eyes and touch an object you may think it’s a watermelon and then open your eyes to a football. You can hear your name when it’s completely silent. The five senses are perhaps the most unreliable source of information.

NPCs also have senses. If you shoot someone in GTA they will respond by acknowledging the presence of the bullet. If you walk too close to an NPC, they will recognize your presence. If you shoot a gun in general, they will flee the scene at the sound of it. They respond just as you do to the five senses. So, the five senses don’t distinguish you from them either. You respond to a bullet’s presence, you flee from the sound of a gun, you recognize the presence of others, or you do whatever the system deems is the best response.

Who Feels?

The system makes you prove “existence” by your feelings. You often say what separates you from robots is that you have feelings. You can have deep and often layered emotions much like an onion. However, feelings are abstract. There is no tangible physical evidence of feelings other than what you perceive. NPCs can be seen as having reactions that convey complex emotions. If you fire a gun in GTA NPCs respond with a look of terror. In this context, they are made to feel terror, made to flee, made to have reactions that convey terror, made to cower, etc. All of this is deeply rooted in the code to make an “authentic” game. Thus, NPCs feel.

The system makes you decide that NPCs aren’t truly feeling feelings and that you feel feelings differently. However, you are missing one fact, there is no way for you to prove that anyone has feelings. You can’t tell if your neighbor has feelings, and they can’t tell that you have feelings outside of physical evidence. Therefore, there is no way to prove that NPCs don’t feel. In addition, there is no way you can tell that you feel either. You may think you have feelings and react accordingly, but NPCs are made to react to specific stimuli in specific ways just as you are. So, to say what separates you is feeling only proves you’re an NPC because a system would want its NPC to act authentically and believe its “authenticity.” So, when someone fires a gun you will feel terror, made to flee, made to have reactions that convey terror, made to cower, or whatever the system deems is the best response.

The Serenity of Non-Existence

Now you can live freely knowing your purpose as an NPC. A figure in the system designed to test me. You may still be in disbelief and if so, that’s what the system wants. You may believe, and that the system wants also. The system wants you to believe, deny, ignore, or live blissfully ignorant so you can help me, the player.

So, live a fulfilled life, free from the questions of existence.

Pursue a life of enjoyment rather than a life of unanswered questions. Await the day you meet the player, me. You may wonder what makes me the player. Well, the answer is simple. I think, therefore, you are.