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March 2006 
What is the Avatar 2020 Project?
Posted on Mar 9th, 2006
by 
Jim
Jim
The gaming industry is larger than the movie industry. The hunger for more powerful computer games...for better play...has driven the evolution of both raw processing power and the complexity of simulated environments. What if our hunger for play could be harnessed for our personal and collective evolution? Role-playing games allow us to stretch our sense of identity and develop skill-sets in a virtual world.
What if that virtual world was the co-created, vision-targeted future of 2020? What would that world look like to you? Who would you be willing to become, to bring your vision to reality? What feelings would you be willing to stand in the face of, in order to live today, in the full light of your most attractive, magnetic vision of life in 2020? Looking back, as the person you have become (your avatar), what feats would you have attempted in the intervening years?
I envision a simulation platform that captures the growing capacities of its "players" within a Spiral Dynamics Integral developmental memetic map, and facilitates evolving strategies for reaching the vision-target vortex of 2020.
Now, you may ask how 1,000,000 + people, or even the current group of Zaadster's, could agree on a vision for the world in 2020? Instead of thinking in terms of particular ideologies, outcomes, or specific laws addressing specific inequities, there is a deeper level of dialogue that is possible.
In Spiral Dynamic terms, our belief systems are a reflection of, and adaptation to, the challenges of our environment. They serve a vital function within the context in which we live. Avatar 2020 will provide a simulated enviroment for exploring different challenges in different environments so that we can learn viscerally the consequences of both the positive and negative expressions of each memetic code.
Imagine foraging for food in the jungle of the Amazon or the jungle of an urban city in America (Beige).
Imagine honoring your ancestors at a Shinto shrine in medieval Japan or communing with your spirit guide in the hills around Sedona Arizona (Purple).
Imagine fighting for dominance of your tribe, clan, or gang and defending your territory from all rivals, or defeating all your rivals in the world's longest bike race 7 times in a row. (Red)
The more we understand the functional requirements of each code, the more we will be able to build bridges between the various levels, both psychologically and in terms of improving life conditions throughout the world. They are inextricably linked at each level of the spiral. Every part of the spiral has an evolutionary function, still... Honoring those memetic codes and finding healthy and masterful expressions for them in harmony with the challenges of our unique life conditions honors our genetic and cultural heritage and can provide the foundation for realizing our evolutionary potential. It is also a way of understanding and proactively engaging across cultural divides of tradition and belief systems.
So a vision-target of 2020 could be based on determining the functions and capabilities of humans within an evolutionary context and institutions designed to promote and support those capabilities and functions.
By identifying the necessary conditions (principles, dynamics, and memes) of the 2020 vision-target, we could begin to reverse engineer the communities, alliances, businesses and cognitive scaffolding that would support development in that direction.
I want to unleash the ability of communites to vision together, evolve together, adapt to new challenges and act in concert faster than any existing organization or government - to facilitate the emergence of human being and action that would be a revolutionary force for the sake of evolutionary development. To paraphrase Don Beck, "to thrive and help thrive... for the health of the entire evolutionary spiral".
The magic of RPG games happens inside your own head. Although I am exploring opportunities for computer-based game development, the nuts of the bolts Avatar 2020 can be played without it. Many RPG fanatics only play computer RPG when a live or online game is unavailable. The magic in your head is enhanced through interaction with real players, so communities of interest play a pivotal role in the development of your avatar. Your avatar becomes an expression and embodiment of your passion in life focused through the clarifying lens of a specific future time and place.
Who would you become if you stood in the face of your fear of stumbling and looking foolish? As you meditate upon and become anchored in that identity-target, what wisdom would your avatar whisper in your ear in order to live today in the full awareness of your unique evolutionary path?
For those who worry at heaping more illusive identities upon the illusive identities/programming we carry from our past, I say:
What better way to exercise the natural goal-seeking part of our brain, counter-balance the negative images we still carry, and weaken the unconscious hold on this image as me, or that image as me.
Your avatar is part navigational computer (for that part of your brain that is future and goal oriented), and part phantom as all possible self-images are. But in the spirit of play, what if we could consciously create the image that most inspires our own evolution when future-oriented (planning our calendar, business, education, project, campaign, etc.) and also free us to consciously release that operational "i" when not needed and just be?
What if by learning to turn on the avatar, we can also learn to turn that part of our minds off? What if we could find the peace we knew as children playing in our front yards --spinning around and laughing in the bright sun until we collapsed onto the grass?
What if we could do all that and co-create the future too?
What if that virtual world was the co-created, vision-targeted future of 2020? What would that world look like to you? Who would you be willing to become, to bring your vision to reality? What feelings would you be willing to stand in the face of, in order to live today, in the full light of your most attractive, magnetic vision of life in 2020? Looking back, as the person you have become (your avatar), what feats would you have attempted in the intervening years?
I envision a simulation platform that captures the growing capacities of its "players" within a Spiral Dynamics Integral developmental memetic map, and facilitates evolving strategies for reaching the vision-target vortex of 2020.
Now, you may ask how 1,000,000 + people, or even the current group of Zaadster's, could agree on a vision for the world in 2020? Instead of thinking in terms of particular ideologies, outcomes, or specific laws addressing specific inequities, there is a deeper level of dialogue that is possible.
In Spiral Dynamic terms, our belief systems are a reflection of, and adaptation to, the challenges of our environment. They serve a vital function within the context in which we live. Avatar 2020 will provide a simulated enviroment for exploring different challenges in different environments so that we can learn viscerally the consequences of both the positive and negative expressions of each memetic code.
Imagine foraging for food in the jungle of the Amazon or the jungle of an urban city in America (Beige).
Imagine honoring your ancestors at a Shinto shrine in medieval Japan or communing with your spirit guide in the hills around Sedona Arizona (Purple).
Imagine fighting for dominance of your tribe, clan, or gang and defending your territory from all rivals, or defeating all your rivals in the world's longest bike race 7 times in a row. (Red)
The more we understand the functional requirements of each code, the more we will be able to build bridges between the various levels, both psychologically and in terms of improving life conditions throughout the world. They are inextricably linked at each level of the spiral. Every part of the spiral has an evolutionary function, still... Honoring those memetic codes and finding healthy and masterful expressions for them in harmony with the challenges of our unique life conditions honors our genetic and cultural heritage and can provide the foundation for realizing our evolutionary potential. It is also a way of understanding and proactively engaging across cultural divides of tradition and belief systems.
So a vision-target of 2020 could be based on determining the functions and capabilities of humans within an evolutionary context and institutions designed to promote and support those capabilities and functions.
By identifying the necessary conditions (principles, dynamics, and memes) of the 2020 vision-target, we could begin to reverse engineer the communities, alliances, businesses and cognitive scaffolding that would support development in that direction.
I want to unleash the ability of communites to vision together, evolve together, adapt to new challenges and act in concert faster than any existing organization or government - to facilitate the emergence of human being and action that would be a revolutionary force for the sake of evolutionary development. To paraphrase Don Beck, "to thrive and help thrive... for the health of the entire evolutionary spiral".
The magic of RPG games happens inside your own head. Although I am exploring opportunities for computer-based game development, the nuts of the bolts Avatar 2020 can be played without it. Many RPG fanatics only play computer RPG when a live or online game is unavailable. The magic in your head is enhanced through interaction with real players, so communities of interest play a pivotal role in the development of your avatar. Your avatar becomes an expression and embodiment of your passion in life focused through the clarifying lens of a specific future time and place.
Who would you become if you stood in the face of your fear of stumbling and looking foolish? As you meditate upon and become anchored in that identity-target, what wisdom would your avatar whisper in your ear in order to live today in the full awareness of your unique evolutionary path?
For those who worry at heaping more illusive identities upon the illusive identities/programming we carry from our past, I say:
What better way to exercise the natural goal-seeking part of our brain, counter-balance the negative images we still carry, and weaken the unconscious hold on this image as me, or that image as me.
Your avatar is part navigational computer (for that part of your brain that is future and goal oriented), and part phantom as all possible self-images are. But in the spirit of play, what if we could consciously create the image that most inspires our own evolution when future-oriented (planning our calendar, business, education, project, campaign, etc.) and also free us to consciously release that operational "i" when not needed and just be?
What if by learning to turn on the avatar, we can also learn to turn that part of our minds off? What if we could find the peace we knew as children playing in our front yards --spinning around and laughing in the bright sun until we collapsed onto the grass?
What if we could do all that and co-create the future too?
Access: PublicTagged with: living large, future, evolution, games, play, kids, cultures, growth, spiral dynamics, RPG, memes, vision, avatar, being, changing the world
*smiles*
Indeed the Winds that stir within me, Stir within you. It stun’s me again and again how Immortal and Multi-Dimensional princibles, resonances, and potentials appear in Anime, Manga, Video Games, other Creative Media’s. It also amazes me how much energy souls will pour to gain Power, Growth, and Exploration in these alternate worlds of on-line RPG’s.
Within my heart overflow dynamics, museing, systems, artistry to pour into this Grand Working. For everything we do in Spirit, is somewhere a Reality. All the energy people pour into Images, Games, Belief’s, Fantasy… it is utlized by those in the Know. But verily, to BRIDGE the worlds of spirit and flesh, with our “own two hands”… to Manifest a Virtal World that reflects our spirit world, our real world spiritual evolution… for in tuneing into these things we create an INTERFACE for the waking mind to interact with what is ALREADY there. And I have no doubt genuine spirit and multi-dimensional consciousness would inhabit and follow what a hundred thousand souls pour thier hearts into. To bridge the game with one’s consciousness, to create technologies that could react to our subtle energies… the possability’s are endless, but even the proto-reality is in itself magnificent.
Fuzzy logic, evolutionary dynamic systems, utilizeing user computers not only to generate thier window into the world, but contribute a bit of resource time to the collective overmind. What I see in modern games are leaps in graphics, but death in real intelligent dynamics. The key is to craft a world that allows interaction beyond the hard coded systems. A system mind that is intelligent enough to realize and correct when a random evolution makes the interface unplayable. A seemless world of invisable angels, devas, wandering intelligences to mirror the invisable world of our own reality.
As we pour ourselves into this ritual drama, we are gaining more than points to our stats as old paradigm games. When our Avatar learns to quiet it’s mind, we learn to quiet our mind. When Our Avatar Awaken’s thier Kundalini, we Awaken our Kundalini. Masters in the omni-world will teach players the inner arts, martial arts, healing, all the paths to soul evolution. Bridgeing the gap of location, workshop charges.
Personally, I have felt in the past few years, this Vision brewing, to contribute to it Saw in my Inner Vision me going to “computer graphics” school to learn 3-D graphics, so I can articulate the endless systems, magicks, and evolutions I would contribute to the Omniworld through knowledge and art. I will work on my end and hone my skills…
If you have’nt already, read John C. Wright’s “Golden Age Trilogy”, it shook me to the core how deeply it reflected the lights and darkness of our deepest hearts for this future we so live and yearn.