| Personifying Video Game Characters | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 14 2012, 04:29 PM (71 Views) | |
| Kai | Jun 14 2012, 04:29 PM Post #1 |
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Characters in video games are very important. They give the game a sense of depth, drive the plot or are just there for target practice. In games there are a huge variety of characters. From the protagonist (who is usually played by the player), to the antagonist (the evil villain who plans to blow up everything and take over the world), characters are one of the main reasons games are lots of fun. The idea that we play with other people and interact with others makes it more appealing to us. Every one of them has a certain set of characteristics and seems to be able to function like that of a regular person, were they living in this world. Generally, the bad guys are the top dogs who are almighty, powerful, and have many minions everywhere to attempt to stop the protagonist from completing his mission. Any character not played by the player is known as an NPC, which stands for Non-Player Character. These NPCs can either be independent, and function on their own, or do what the player asks them to through whatever interface the game presents. The choices they make, or the way they do what they tell you to, and the emotions they convey are all neatly woven into the society of their universe. They do their duty to carry out of the needs relevant to the plot or the game play, giving it that realistic feel and allowing the player to feel immersed in the world where everything is different, yet similar. Edited by Josh, Jun 15 2012, 10:53 PM.
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| Josh | Jun 15 2012, 11:11 AM Post #2 |
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Even though these characters seem so realistic, so complex, are they really as complex and emotional as a real person? Can we consider them as persons? That's a question that many philosophers ask about things such as computers. Rene Descartes, a famous philosopher, said a very well known quote: "I think therefore I am." What he was implying was that a person is defined as one who is capable of complex thought. Although video game characters seem to be capable of complex thought, in reality, they are simply programmed to follow their scripts. The CPU (Central Processing Unit) gathers and interprets data about the game, then tells the program to execute certain instructions according to the data collected. The instructions are carefully programmed by skilled professionals to be able to account for every possibility possible in the game, so that the decisions and emotions are always appropriate for however the player chooses to play the game. The computer has no idea what exactly what these emotions mean to the player, let alone what an emotion is in the first place. It merely places the polygons and pixels into a certain formation which the instructions have told it to, and they form an image of what we interpret as a thought or feeling. |
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| Kai | Jun 15 2012, 11:14 AM Post #3 |
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John Searle, another famous philosopher, had an experiment as to whether a computer truly understands the emotions it appears to convey. The Chinese Room experiment consisted of a person in a room with a bunch of books to help interpret Chinese. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of books stacked up all around the room. There were two slits in one wall of the room. Ordinary Chinese people would write a question on a piece of paper, in Chinese. They would put their paper in the first slot, and the person inside would take it. Then they would answer the question in Chinese, and put the piece of paper with an answer on it through the second slot, and back to the Chinese person who submitted it. However, the person inside the room doesn't know the meaning of a single character of Chinese. With no knowledge of the Chinese language at all, the person has to look through the books until they find a set of instructions that fits the characters they are presented with. Using the books, they have access to the instructions necessary for all possible combinations of Chinese characters. Edited by Josh, Jun 15 2012, 10:48 PM.
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| Josh | Jun 15 2012, 09:57 PM Post #4 |
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The key thing here is the person in the room's lack of knowledge of the Chinese language. When he takes a paper in, he recognizes the characters and finds that particular combination in one of the many books. He then copies from the book the appropriate response. To the Chinese-speakers outside of the room, their questions are getting answered by a wise and intelligent Chinese-speaker. They can read and fully understand the response (assuming there were no errors in following the instructions in the books), and it is as coherent as their own writing. This experiment is depicting exactly what computers do. They read and interpret our input, then based on programmed instructions, they output the correct response to our input. If we shoot a character in a game, the computer reads that character X has been killed, and displays a death animation. If character Y is talking to us, and we select dialogue option number 5 as a response, the computer will choose a sound file and animation to be played according to our choice. The computer, the game, and the characters don't have the faintest idea what they're doing; they're only doing what the programmer persons have told them to. One of the requirements for being a person is self-awareness. Game characters are clearly not self-aware. To know oneself one needs to be able to think. Characters cannot think, they do what they're made and told to do. Since self-awareness is required for being a person, and since game characters aren't self-aware, game characters aren't persons. |
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