'Basically, what if we already lived in a virtual environment? Or more pop culture wise, 'what if we lived in the Matrix?'
That's a paradigm that fits rather nicely with the mechanics of Mage, and has the benefit of allowing the VAs to 'Hack Reality' in the same way other Mages do.
And it would have the interesting side effect of giving the VAs common ground with the more gnostic-leaning Hermetics and Choristers'.
As this blog's author, Professional Computer Programmer & a (Certified, but still early in training) Hacker sees:
The Reality's Parts can be modelled, defined/described, and interacted with using the Code and Modelling Tools as Unified Modelling Language (UML) or Shael-Mellor's. Different models for different purposes, different granularities & detail levels as well.
Beings' Mind(s), Spiritual Energies, and Physical Bodies can be modelled, and connected/linked (using the Correspondence Magick) with real beings.
Same with Phenomena, except that - by Buddhist Definition - Beings have Mind, and Phenomena do not.
Then states of such objects can be altered, and new objects can be 'injected' into certain contexts, that are parts of the Reality. Objects can also be 'erased', perhaps by the 'Cosmic Garbage Collector'.
What is 'State?'
In object-oriented programming (OOP), the state of an object is the combination of its current data values. It represents the object's condition or characteristics at a specific point in time and can be affected by its behaviors (methods).
For a 'Car' object, for example, its state might include attributes like:
- Color,
- Speed,
- FuelLevel.
Methods/Behaviors that can affect state changes might include:
- Accelerate,
- Refuel.
--
What is 'Context?'
Speaking abstractly and precisely, context is 'external state', is combined state of what surrounds the object, what is within certain distance from the considered object (we include objects' identities as a part of combined state here).
... and distance can be measured in many ways - not only in meters in straight line on map. It can be, for example, number of bus stops on the way to target. Or average time to reach 'Point B' from 'Point A'. Or number of nodes passed in graph, with weighted or unweighted edges.
