Chapter 03: the Beginnings
Table of contents
No headersThe following is a very brief summation of the highlights related to the founding of Play as Being, and a few sources for more information. Once one starts following links, one finds there is a tremendous amount of material. I think one could spend days reading, watching YouTube videos and looking at photos. That, of course, is most interesting, rewarding and engenders great globs of awe and admiration. Once one becomes deeply involved in Play as being, however, one finds there is already much to read and so I chose to keep this part simple.
A Tibetan monk came to the United States and took on a young student. The teacher, Tarthang Tulku, was interested in adapting the tradtional teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to modern culture. The young student wrote a book for the teacher toward that goal. The book was taken up and read by a young astrophysicist who was thinking along similar lines. Eventually, the young student, Steven Tainer, met the reader, Piet Hut, and began a long collaboration. They are a formidable team. Piet Hut is a visionary with a tremendous energy while Steven Tainer is more measured, carefully choosing words. There were a number of initiatives before Play as Being.
The book was Tarthang Tulku, Time, Space & Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality. The phrase "play as being" came from the book.
Piet Hut has manged to mix an interest in virtual words, astronomy, interdisciplinary studies and Being, finding common ground in exploring communication among scholars, academicians, students and lay people. One of the means to do this is the Kira Institute which began with summer "camp" for students and scientists and now is the umbrella organization for all the initiatives.
Pema's first venture in virtual worlds was Videoranch although he had written on the subject of virtual reality long before. Piet was to begin parallel groups in each of the next two worlds: MICA (Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics) and an what he termed an "interdisciplary group".
Before Play as Being was "Ways of Knowing" or "WoK" that was in QWAQ, a very different kind of virtual world. QWAQ (http://qwaq.com) is a company that provides a ready-made environment for groups to meet in the virtual world. It is wast to import presentation materials. QWAQ allows anything on a participant's computer screen, including movies, to be projected on to the wall. Blackboards also are available. For a time, the avatars were rectangles with squares for heads above and voice was the main venue of communication although chat was used to ask questions that could be answered when the speaker was ready.
Most importantlly QWAQ was a laboratory in which the basic ideas for Play as Being where worked out. The main differences were the medium and one major idea, stopping every fifteen minutes for nine seconds.
Most of this story is told in a document by Piet Hut, an interview and three PaB sessions in which Pema (Piet) and Stim (Steven) discussed their thinking as these events unfolded.
Second Life
Pema Pera came into Second Life about ten months before he had time, toward the end of 2007, to explore the medium. Not surprisingly, one of his first ventures was to found a liason group called Qwaq-SL Liaision with Kat Limeaux, a Director and Founder of The International Space Museum in Second Life. This group grew rapidly and had three meetings a week as well as field trips.
The date was March 12, 2007. Pema had attended zazen at the Zen Retreat and fell into conversation with Dakini Rhode who just happened to be looking for a group to meet in the teahouse she had built on the site. Pema explained his new idea of stopping every 15 minutes for nine seconds. Dakini had just started her zazen group and told Pema that she would be three three times a day if she could afford the time. Pema explained his idea of meeting every six hours three times a day (depending which time zone he was in) and that he could afford to take ten minutes off from his work to attend! He planned to start April 1 (April Fool's Day). The Dakini asked Pema if he had a place for this and generously offered the Zen Retreat. And so Pema and Dakini struck a deal that day to begin the grand adventure of Play as Being in the cozy, little teahouse at the Zen Retreat.
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For Background Before Second Life:
See Virtual Laboratories and Virtual Worlds by Piet Hut http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0712/0712.1655v1.pdf
see Ways of Knowing Website http://wok.kira.org/
Pema and Stim discuss the Prehistory in the following three sessions:
Prehistory of PaB Dialogues #1: Pema and Stim:
Prehistory of PaB Dialogues #2: Pema and Stim:
Prehistory of PaB Dialogues #3: Pema and Stim:
Piet Talks about his Entry into Second Life and other Virtual World Experiences and Entry into Second Life leading up to Play as Being. The interiew includes the authors own expereinces with QWAQ.
Exploring Reality in Virtual Worlds...an Interview with Piet Hut by Tara5 (Tish Shute) on UgoTrade
http://www.ugotrade.com/2008/01/15/exploring-reality-in-virtual-worlds-with-piet-hut/
How PaB started:
http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2008/04/2008.04.27_19%3a00_-_How_it_All_Started