Philosophy 101 Unit 1

There is nothing like the highly philosophical room of requirement example. Given to the general public by the source of all things good and magical, Harry Potter, through the words of the wise and deep modern day philosopher, JK Rowling.

Seriously though, Harry Potter is good stuff. Any philosophy teacher shouldn’t be able to call him or herself a philosophy teacher unless he/she has read and meditated over it.

Now onto the real post…

When thinking of the room of requirement and technology, I remember the matrix. Outside of the matrix, on the ship in the real world, they had simulators that they used. These simulations would be used for practice (before going into the matrix), and other things. The simulations could take the person to whatever time, location, and supply whatever materials they needed. This simulation is basically a room of requirement, simply replacing magic with technology (another example where magic and technology can (with the help of imagination) serve the same purpose!) we hope to have in the future.

I recall the image where they would be in the certain room that was just a vast, open, white expanse (This wall-less white room was also popular in lots of commercials and stuff). Before entering the matrix they would need weapons, so all these racks of weapons would just come flying from nowhere. Then they could load up, and be prepared to enter the actual matrix.

This makes it seem like a virtual room of requirement is plausible with the proper technology. If we have technology good enough to trick our minds, then we find ourselves with a “room of requirement.” In such a room people would be able to be in whatever situation they wanted, including flying around, being 10 years younger, making love to someone, or whatever you could think to do.

We already have things like flight simulators, videogames with ever-better graphics, and other equipment that might fit into a virtual room of requirement.

The problem with this room (because it is virtual and ultimately not real) is that many people might prefer it to reality. Think about it, if you have a mediocre life, but then you get the opportunities to use a simulator to give you whatever experience you wanted, a room of requirement, you’d probably prefer the exciting virtual world to your own life. We would be removing ourselves even further from the real world. We already somewhat remove ourselves from contact with other humans with the help of iPods, television, videogames, and other things (yes, I’m sure that are cases where these specific example don’t exactly apply, like watching tv with a friend or multiplayer games. But for the most part, they are a way for individuals to isolate themselves). So for the trade-off of getting a simulation of any experience you want, we might end up losing all love for real life.

That sounds kinda like a bummer. Lets talk about something more fun… oh! I’ve got it. What does everyone think about the weather lately? Crazy huh? Yeah I know. Warm is beautiful. Everyone loves talking about the weather!

(if you’re reading this a while after it was posted, then it might be cold again, but it was warm when it was written)