Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

[Off Topic] Spore

Patrick
March 2, 2006
Intelligent Design, Off Topic
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=spore

If you ever felt the need to play the role of the Intelligent Designer here is the game for you!

I think Spore could be more aptly titled “Intelligent Design: The Game”. After all, notice in the presentation that evolution is always via design by the player and not a mechanism like the modern synthesis. Of course, that game would take forever and would likely go nowhere. 😉

Now let’s just hope our own Intelligent Designer isn’t like Will Wright and decides to take his UFO and nuke our planet. 🙂

Comments

Michaels7, the game developers you are talking about are involved in what are now termed "Serious Games":

http://www.seriousgames.org/

http://www.socialimpactgames.com/

Oh, and you might find these guys interesting: http://www.cgdc.org/Patrick
March 2, 2006
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OMG This looks awesome. Amazing what capablities we as humans do have. What tools we have been given, what brainpower. I am definately gonna look into Spore since I love to play God! Hey and it even gives answer to Pan-Spermia via suck and drop LOL! I loved how this critters head popped just because there was no atmosphere :). Awsome And blowing up other planets with the "Swiz Army Knife" seems like a lot of fun!tb
March 2, 2006
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Patrick, thanks. It was funny to hear the word evolution used when intelligently selecting body parts and adding them without the actual knowledge of the amount of information required for such novel forms. The complexity is untold and assumptions are enforced to the player. Discovery channel would be proud. 'Appears like design, but is only an illusion'. Uhuh. Nose jobs, face lifts, organ transplants. Not intelligent modifications, only illusions which will one day lead to broader illusions. I love gamecoders ability to represent graphic and intuitive learning mechanisms. They are significant and can transfer easily to a classroom. Universities that can incorporate such game-like mechanisms especially of shared interaction amongst students/teachers will be on the forefront of new breakthroughs. Interplay, competitive game theory, interaction, building, rewards, levels of skillsets, etc., all condusive to learning. To me, thats the important lesson. The game is a teaching mechanism for its own purpose. To transfer that into learning for science is a key which I think learning institutions should pick up on. Game-Science 101-501. Kids today write script-code and produce graphics like I write this sentence. Just as fast. Graphical Interface Systems Development is speeding along all research areas and should improve learning ratios from rote reading skills to experiential immersions of interactive feedback loops. As a kid, I grew bored quickly with repetitive rote memorization. With the possible alternatives of interactive learning and game play simulation, hopefully they'll stop putting millions of kids on drugs - to keep them quiet. An active imagination needs interactive input that stretches it, not embalms it. Game-Science has a wonderful future hopefully in higher scientific learning institutions as well. The crude scientific software systems I've seen so far online pale in comparision to game systems in the intuitive ability to learn, progress and proceed to different levels. I expect this is changing however as I write this comment. Collaborative efforts of games, the interaction, the skillset and learning progression should not be lost on science and universities for the ability to provide a new mechanism at advancing creative people's naturally driven instincts of creativity. Currently, compared to gamejocks, they seem behind the pack. Here's an interesting link which includes interviews from leading scientist, clues, problems, solutions in interactive teaching: http://www.dnai.org/index.htm Now, if they could merge this together with Spore-like games in DNA-Worlds, cool! Maybe there's something like it out there?Michaels7
March 2, 2006
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