You Might Be Made Of Legos
A design becomes unique according to the way it organizes common parts. Think about Legos. They’re modular: fixed shapes that easily snap together.
The scientific way of thinking about the world is a lot like Legos. Elements form the modular foundations of chemical compounds in the same way that terra-cotta bricks are the building blocks that make up a wall.
Cells are the building blocks of a bio-organic cellular world. And electrons, neutrons, protons, and quarks are the structural modules of an atomic perspective.
Similarly, Legos are the monads of a Lego universe. This explains why there are Lego superheroes and Lego Jedis.
You might be made of Legos too—if that’s the way you choose to imagine the world.
Your experience of the world is like your experience of the game: you choose the perspective that works for you.
We are living in a time that scholars call “postmodern.” We are acutely aware of how subjective everything can be. We understand that all is relative: that good becomes bad depending on your lens. We know how quickly right morphs into wrong because the lines are fuzzy and evidence is ambivalent. Statistics lie and “objective” studies are fallible.
How, then, do we evaluate the strength of a framework? We know that there is no ultimate truth. Is the world made of Legos, or atoms, or quarks? Do forces such as gravity and genetic code mandate our experience? Or are we at the whims of Olympian gods?
In the video game world, code is fixed according to both algorithmic logic and also the programmers’ fancy. When a player meets the game, only then does the digital landscape come to life. Meaning arises—things become meaningful—where the code of the game and the humanity of the player meet one another.
The makers of the game think in terms of C++. Or they’re preoccupied with categories such as physics engines, artificial intelligence, scripts, and user interfaces.
Yet the player does not experience the game within the structural framework of C++. The gamer sees aliens and robots and enemies and rewards. The gamer sees weapons and forces of evil. The gamer sees reasons to move left and to click “A.”
Neither perspective is more or less “true” than the other.
Different criteria are useful for different circumstances. None are complete. None can possibly express the infinitely chaotic experience of being-in-the-world.
But each viewpoint is useful in its own way.
What kind of experiences do you desire? Choose the framework that’s most useful for seeing the world the way you want to.
And don’t be afraid to change on a whim.
This piece originally appeared in the book FREEPLAY: A Video Game Guide to Maximum Euphoric Bliss. For more information on author Jordan Shapiro CLICK HERE.
