The sun telling you stuff is like one end of the creative spectrum. Pretty far towards the end, but where do you think "creative" ideas come from, anyway? Not the sun, obviously, but voices in your head that don't care much about reality. Or actively dislike it. Or hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. Where do you think the impulse to play escapist fantasy games comes from? Same thing, just not so far along. Just because you don't hear actual voices speaking actual sentences doesn't mean you (and I) aren't on the same spectrum. If you weren't, or were even very far towards the other direction, you wouldn't be playing computer games or posting on a forum about them at all.
I take it that the guy in the video linked above heard the phone ring and a voice talk to him when he picked it up. I wonder if he saw the screen say that he had an incoming call? Does the phone have a record of a call, or would it have a record of a missed call if he didn't pick up? Does he see the screen say that there is an incoming call when he hears the ring and looks at the screen (and the voice tells him that someone is at his door when there is no one there)? Would other people not see any indication of a call on his screen? Or does he not think to check that? Obviously he gets some kind of strong indication that he's getting a call (I assume he hears the phone's ringtone). He also gets some sense from somewhere that it might not be real, because he says that it's probably an episode. But then he answers and listens and hangs up and goes to the door to check anyway (and of course no one is there).
The thing about it is how compelling it is, even when he strongly suspects that it's not real.
Again though: everyone does unproductive things. Everyone gets confused from time to time. Everyone believes some things that aren't true. If you pay attention, you will see that you have thoughts in your own head that prompt you towards the uproductive, the untrue, and the crazy in various ways. Maybe you don't actually hear or see things that other people don't hear or see--in other words, it doesn't proceed out of your thoughts and into your senses. Maybe it's not as compelling, and you usually don't act on it, or at least not so much. But it's still there, and it's the same thing, only not as strong in you as in the "schizophrenic."
None of this stuff is new, or even particularly mysterious. In fact, it's very old and quite well understood. But there are a very large number of people who are very invested in NOT believing the old explanations. Hence modern "diseases" like schizophrenia, which will no doubt be categorized and named differently in another few centuries, this time with even less understanding and even less effective treatments.
The effective treatment, by the way, is to choose reality every time you are given a choice between fantasy and reality. The more you do it, the better you get at it, just like everything else.
Anyway, something to consider next time you think about whether or not to fund a Kickstarter. What are you putting your money up for? How much are you paying for pure fantasy: not the fantasy that the game might deliver, but the fantasy that the Kickstarter itself delivers? Not the fantasy of being the emperor of space or whatever, but the fantasy of playing a game about being the emperor of space? A delivered game with code and data that puts pretty pictures on your screen is still about 95-99% pure fantasy: like cotton candy. The only reason it works is because you are willing to go along with the fantasy. Kickstarter, Early Access, charging for betas... that's just part of the process of moving from 99% pure to 99.9%. Another small step on a path that's already very long and well trod. If you never get a product, were you totally cheated? Or did you get what you were actually paying for, and what you actually wanted: something that never existed and never will, regardless of whether or not you ever get some new software?
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Topic: That which sleeps- Kickstarted! (Read 357590 times)