The Game of Life

[Doreen Peri]

http://www.ethicsofchoice.com/WelP.html

[Doreen Peri]

does anybody get this? i've been trying to figure out how to play and win for years!

[mtmynd]

"In Go East Young Man, William Douglas tells the story of his father, a minister in rural Pennsylvania who, for his first church service, had one person attend. "Maybe we ought to skip this," said the minister, "after all, you're the only one here." "Well, Pastor, I'm just a cowboy but if I went out in the pasture with forty bales of hay and found just one horse, I don't think I'd let it starve." So the minister gave his entire sermon, his first sermon, the one he had worked on for months, and when he was done he asked, "How did I do?" "Well, Pastor, I'm just a cowboy but if I went out in the pasture with forty bales of hay and found just one horse, I don't think I'd give it all forty bales!"

That's good advice, don't you think?

[Doreen Peri]

I donno. I guess so. But I don't get it. Is it?

II. The first move (i.e., NO MIND) is given, a gift by virtue of birth; each successive move, however, must be taken increasingly on your own.

III. Each move, when accomplished, incorporates and implies the advantages, insights and capabilities obtained in previous moves (i.e., nothing of true value is lost as you proceed).

IV. To play is to work on the next move (i.e., to "do what is right, now" as Gandhi put it) and so, to play is also to win (greater freedom, for example); to make all five moves is to win very big indeed.

V. Finally, it is possible to stop playing at any time, and equally possible--it is important to remember--to begin playing again even though you have not played for a long time.

[Doreen Peri]

Here's the game board.

http://www.ethicsofchoice.com/GamP.html

[stilltrucking]

Looks hard. But it looks interesting too.

Is this any help?

How do you measure progress?
Opinions vary; R. A. Wilson argues that you are progressing if, in general, things seem to be getting funnier.

[Doreen Peri]

LOL!! ... i love that!

I donno what happened to me today but I didn't get much accomplished other than to find myself at these very strange places.

First I found this one

Index of Creative Transformation

And I was really getting into reading it but it was so long, I couldn't continue because my eyes started hurting looking at the screen. So I went to Amazon.com and bought it in print... used... $10.

Somehow googling the author John David Garcia, I ended up at the Game of Life link.

The internet can be so much fun! It totally ate up my day with nothing at all to show for it except these interesting but bizarre links.

Maybe it's a religion? I don't know. I'm intrigued. From the "Creative Transformation" pages...

Creative transformation begins with four essential steps. Each step helps us become more creative and leads eventually to the creation of the Ethical State. We can take some of the steps by ourselves, but the process can only be completed in a group of four men and four women. For the reasons given before, four men and four women are the optimal number for beginning autopoiesis at the super-metazoan level. However, we can make progress toward creative transformation in smaller or larger groups.

Couples are usually too small a group. They find it easy to accept common delusions. Still, we are better off in a couple than we are alone. Groups larger than eight soon begin to create a hierarchy whose members find it difficult to treat each other with equal respect and to communicate on a personal level, soul to soul. It becomes almost impossible for groups larger than fifteen. Larger groups should be broken down into smaller groups, preferably of eight each. Therefore, if the process is to be optimized, it should involve four men and four women who freely choose each other and agree to work together to become creatively transformed. Persons who have difficulty creating their own groups of eight may expect help in forming groups of eight from those who have already begun the process.

The four steps are as follows:

1. Deliberately choose to live by the evolutionary ethic and make every decision on the basis of what will maximize creativity for ourselves and others; make a commitment to play the Game of Life. This facilitates our making commitments to others.

2. Do our best to love others, including our enemies, by interacting with them on the basis of what, in our best judgment, will help maximize their creativity, and by opening our soul to them, while respecting their freedom of will; make an unconditional commitment of love to others, focusing on those groups of eight to which we belong. We choose to love rather than to fear.

3. Learn the nature of fear and how it manifests itself in everyone's destructive behavior, including our own. Then focus on how wecan learn to overcome fear through taking our identity from our soul instead of our ego, and by doing our best to maximize creativity, without any other considerations; we choose to reject fear as a motivator of our actions. Only humans can do this.

4. Engage in autopoiesis as best we can. This feeds back to the previous three steps and helps us better achieve them; those steps in turn further enhance the autopoiesis, which is an ongoing process.

Creative transformation is therefore a self-catalyzing process based on ethical love; its spirit is communicated in these four steps, but its practice transcends any given technique. Still, there is a technique that has been experimentally developed to help persons get started. Each group of eight can then modify the technique to suit its own particular needs and innovative inclinations.

Garcia refers to the Game of Life. From the link I hit, I thought it was his creation... the "Game of Life" pages but someone else's name is on there. So, I'm trying to make connections.

AND ... things seem to be getting funnier and funnier.....

[mtmynd]

dang, dor'... that quote you put up drove me to discomfort... i was wiggling in my chair and shuffling my feet... i had to quit. it was too tedious for me. good luck with it. don't forget to laugh.

[Doreen Peri]

hmmm... surprising

i thought this type of thing would be right up your alley, Cecil

same kinda stuff you write about, isn't it?

[mtmynd]

gad! i hope not!! that's scary stuff to be playing games with...

[Doreen Peri]

Well, I meant it in a positive good way....

It's about creativity.... "no mindedness" (like empty mind) .... love ... unity .... evolution ....

It's philosophy.... and with similar topics you philosophize about.

Sorry, didn't mean any offense! I'm buying the book. I think it's very interesting! When I was reading it, I thought of you because you explore similar topics, that's all.

The "Game" is a metaphor.

[mtmynd]

i understand dor'... i was just playing with you. but i did find the words tedious. not your problem of course... mine.

[Barry]

I tripped out on this one night back in November, 1992. Spent about an hour or more just thinking (dissociating) about it. Never came up with a sufficiently reasonable answer.

"When I ask myself, 'Who am I?'
Who is the 'I' that answers?
Who is the 'I' that asks?"

I asked my friend Tom about it. He said, "That's because you're a holy man." I cringed.

Peace,
Barry

[Doreen Peri]

We are all holy. I believe that.

Life is holy. Somehow sacred. The mystery of it is beautiful.

I think the philosophy expressed here is about the importance of creativity.

To be creative is the objective, not "happiness."

And to go about life ethically.

With creativity and ethics as our focus, we can't help but be happy.

And unity ... recognizing the likeness of ourselves in others. We all are experiencing the same thing. Life. To honor the life in others.

So, ..... creativity, ethics, likeness/unity/honor .... these things are of the highest order.

[mtmynd]

"in the beginning god created..."

these first five words may well be the most significant of all the words in the bible...

we eventually need something to answer where 'all this' came from. and even we create from the inspiration 'all this' gives us... creativity doesn't ever end but continually changes in a mystical and magical metamorphosis that simply gives without want... this is what makes us wholly... our completeness drawn from that fount of eternal creation.