Chapter 03: the Beginnings

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. The book was taken up and read by someone who was thinking along similar lines. Eventually the person who had been the young student met the person who had been the reader and this began a long collaboration and a number of initiatives before Play as Being. The young student was Steven Tainer and the reader was Piet Hut. The book was Tarthang Tulku, Time, Space & Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality. The phrase "play as being" came from the book.

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 allows one to set meeting rooms and quickly import presentation materials. It would allow anything on a computer screen, including movies, to be projected on to the wall. Blackboards also were available. At the 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.

See Virtual Laboratories and Virtual Worlds by Piet Hut (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...712.1655v1.pdf)

see Exploring Reality in Virtual Worlds...an Interview with Piet Hut
http://www.ugotrade.com/2008/01/15/e...with-piet-hut/

 see Ways of Knowing Website (http://wok.kira.org/)

 Pema and Stim discuss the prehistory in the following sessions:

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/..._Pema_and_Stim 

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/..._Pema_and_Stim

How it all started:

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/...it_All_Started