So evidently I posted the article I was supposed to write about last week instead of writing about the IF article. So I know this isn’t relevant to the topic of Community but after re-reading the IF section after our discussion I had some thoughts.
The parser as a God figure struck me as an interesting parallel, especially when Eve discusses how liberal a parser may interept the PC’s actions and it made me think of Judaism. Precisely I mean that a conservative parser, like a conservative/Orthodox conception of God requires that everything be done correctly in the correct order piece by piece. God isn’t going to generously assume that you meant to do right thing, you have to actually do it. On the other hand more liberal conceptions of God think that the little nitty-gritty of the Law aren’t terribly important and so instead of, in IF parlance typing “keep kosher” followed by “rest on Shabbos” and then “Love God” would be the more conservative, Orthodox way while just typing “Love God” and the parser inserting the others would be the more liberal interpretation.
And then the question of what IF has to say about free will is terribly interesting. I feel like it does create a sort of Western-theist view of free will in the sense that yes, you have it, you are allowed to try and do whatever you want. What makes it Western-theist though is that there is pretty much only ONE way to get it right, and to do that you have to negotiate the right path with the parser(God) until you reach the end. Ending up muddled, confused, and lost without any idea as where to go next could be compared to a crisis of faith and just quitting is like giving up on religion and you never get to see the glorious end. It’s an idea.
Also, there was a fire-alarm when I was writing the Reading-post for Monday so I’ll quickly finish that thought.
Communitas reminds me of internet communities. The author was saying that Communitas is needed for healthy societies and I thought that maybe when organized religions allow the more chaotic flow of internet chatrooms or discussion boards to enter more thoroughly into their structure that maybe it will revitalize some really sagging, heavily hierarchical religions like Catholicism.
