Chapter 11: Kira and Play as Being
Table of contents
No headersI chatted with Piet Hut over lunch in mid March 2009 at the Institute for advanced Study. He talked at length about the current state of the entities and to an extent his visions of what Kira and PaB are and will become.
On Kira:
At first Kira was an external entity. The ideals of Kira and PaB were alike. Kira, as an official non-profit and
tax-exempt organization, gave us an opportunity to apply for grants to
fund PaB. If Kira was providing the money, it would be natural
for the virtual PaB land to include a corner for Kira.. But quickly we
realized that Kira was the more broadly based organization, including a
focus on science and "science in context", interactions between science
and other ways of knowing. Therefore, it would be more reasonable to
let Kira pay for all the land in the virtual world, and to let PaB use
part of that land for PaB purposes. In other words, Kira quickly
become the umbrella organization for PaB and many other activities..
The growth of the activities in the Kira Cafe followed a natural,
organic growth. With relatively little prior planning, new activities
were added one by one as demand for them grew. For example, after a
debate about phenomenology, which drew quite a crowd, it seemed natural
to start a weekly phenomenology workshop. When new creative and
energetic individuals started to frequent the Kira Cafe, we asked some
of them to lead new workshops in areas of their expertise that
overlapped with the Kira mission. Kira was built from the bottom upward
rather than top down. That allowed for more organic growth.
Kira is a virtual university. The walls are lower, i.e. there is less
of a barrier. Anyone can attend and participate in events. It is a
laboratory experiment in building a new university but may be more than
that...it may become a university.
Phenomenology Workshop and Play as Being:
The Phenomenology Workshop does not deal directly with Being. Being expresses itself through phenomena but it is the phenomena which is studied. The experiments may be the same in both the the Pheno Workshop and PaB. But Play as being goes beyond phenomena.Being allows phenomena to appear, and we can know more about Being by really going into phenomena. So the Phenomenology workshop studies phenomena qua phenomena, as phenomena. And PaB tries to see how Being shows Itself through phenomena. The approach to explorations may be similar, but the vision of PaB is far wider than that of phenomenology.
The phenemology approach can be readily defended as a philosophical approach. It is not so easy to defend Play as Being in that framework.Play as Being
Play as being is the most radical way to explain reality. For most people coming to Kira, the Play as being approach is not what they feel or should feel. It is one of those activities one does at a virtual university. It takes place in a remote area. Play as being is not run by Kira; decisions are made within the group, by the guardians. PaB is not diminished in any way by Kira.
PaB is the only place where Being is discussed in any real way. It
starts at the end, i.e. that there is nothing that needs to be done.
"Being" that points to what IS, as beyond all opposites, beyond all
dualities, all dichotomies.
Timlessness gets closest to Being . Timelessness is not a phenomena. Phenemena can point to timelessness.
As one becomes more aware of Being, the distinction beween oneself and others becomes less a distinction.