My poem last Friday was about the existence of things.  That is, how things continue to exist without human, much less personal, observation.  In the last couple of days, I started thinking about that in a virtual way.

 

There is a zone in EverQuest call The Deep which once was feared by many.  It was a challenge to survive.  In addition to the usual collection of mobs, there was a weird bridge problem:  The gap between two sides of the zone had a visible bridge which did not exist and an invisible one which did.  Now, however, very few visit the zone.  Those who do go there for the same reason I did:  To obtain something which drops off of a semi-rare mob which is used to shrink one’s character.  I think there’s something else which drops there for an epic quest or two, but other than that there’s little purpose for it anymore.  I suppose some folks might go there with their upper (but not high) level characters for the experience, but the area is a bit out of the way for that.

 

Anyway, most of the time the zone is empty.  Even when somebody goes there, they go to a specific place and ignore most of the mobs.  A lot of the zone’s residents, then, could go completely unobserved from one server downtime to the next.  Did those mobs really exist without anybody to see them?  Does a tree make a sound when it falls in a forest if nobody hears it?

 

I would answer both of these questions with “yes.”  In the virtual world, there is, technically, constant observation.  Even if no player went to The Deep or to a particular spot in it to see some of its less-visited residents, the servers housing that virtual world would record their existence.  So the question becomes, perhaps, more philosophical, along with many other questions of existence.  The deeper question (no pun intended) might ask the meaning of such existences.  In the virtual world of EverQuest, after all, the purpose of these mobs is to challenge players’ characters, to kill or be killed.  If nobody shows up to accept that challenge, does the mob’s virtual existence have meaning?

 

Taking this back to the real world, what is the meaning of other unobserved existences?  The south pole ice cap often has snowstorms, sometimes in places no man or beast will see.  The snow may fall and then evaporate without being observed, not even by a satellite.  Is there meaning to this occurrence?  Or of similar phenomena on other worlds, which are even less observed?

 

I know, I know.  It’s a human thing to try and find meaning in everything.  People attach significance to astronomical events which have nothing to do with reality.  But to these folks, it’s important, it helps them go about their daily lives.  There is no real basis for astrology, but people have a need for answers and astrology and similar new age practices give them that.  The position of the moon and planets and stars now have a special, human significance where there was none before.  I don’t know if there is significance to the sound trees make (or don’t make) falling unobserved in a forest, or in the neglect of virtual creatures, but it’s interesting to question anyway.

 

My little blog here is unlikely to be read by anyone other than I, the writer, and the automated bots which crawl around the web making (or trying to make) advertisements in the comments of blogs like this.  If nobody ever reads one of my posts–including this one–did it really exist?  Does it have meaning?  I think I will, for now, pretend that it does.  See you tomorrow.