This somewhat philosophical thought occurred to me not-so-recently, and I’ve finally felt like writing about it. Have you ever thought that, even though people have the same physical processes for sensing and perceiving things, people may perceive things differently on an extraphysical level? That is, although someone may perceive black or white as different colors with their own attributes which others could similarly apply, maybe black and white look different on the level of consciousness for different people. In this case, the black I see may be the white another sees, although our eyes and physical minds may process the information similarly, and both of us would still describe black as “the darkest color” or white as “the lightest color,” and so on.

I suggested this to a friend who implied that maybe this could apply to all of the senses, including hearing, something which I had previously never thought of. This concept can indeed be interestingly applied to all of the senses. Let’s take music as an example. However, music with lyrics that affect whether or not one likes the piece of music must be excluded, since the rhythms and shades of words in languages are agreed upon to mean certain things and are not really open to interpretation in an extraphysical sense. So then, taking a Chopin piece, two people could theoretically hear it completely differently, even to the extent of the second person hearing that piece as the first would hear a Schubert piece of “comparable” complexity.

The friend also suggested that maybe if something like the previous example were true, then it would be possible that two people (or more— or even all people, by extension) to have the same taste on that extraphysical level, yet prefer completely different types of music, which would be what we normally use to distinguish taste (on the physical level). Who has similar or contrasting taste with anyone else becomes, perhaps, impossible to determine.

However, I’d like to add with some emphasis that I have no reason to believe that this concept of perception is true. Although it’s interesting to think about (for me, at least), and it has many interesting corollaries, I see no way to either prove or disprove this. It does assume, however, that there is something beyond the biological, physical processes of the human brain, which is also empirically impossible to prove. Thus, I’ve shelved this concept away, but I’ve decided to write about it because it’s something to think about.

Today, my economics teacher dismissingly said in class, “Nintendo’s got its hold on the market, but it’s obviously going to be all about Microsoft and Sony.” I don’t hold anything against him or anything of that sort, but I was immediately struck by the erroneousness of that statement.

Nintendo is going to win the seventh generation.

And it’s not going to just deserve to win this generation; it will. I’ve been somewhat keeping up with the gaming world recently since I began subscribing to the Kotaku RSS feed a month or less ago, and it’s been clear to me that a lot of people like the Wii. One might think I make this prediction because I seem to like Nintendo a lot. I suppose that’s somewhat of a valid argument, because of these previous articles on my blog: Not as Bad as Wii Think, Red Steel, and Waiting for the Revolution. However, the GameCube was never my cup of tea, although I liked the Nintendo 64. The Dreamcast was my cup of tea.

But in any case, that just goes to show that I’m not a Nintendo fanboy. I may still think that the Wii will succeed simply because I like it. I admit this may be true, but I like it for reasons that I think also apply to the question of its success. Here are my five main points:

1. The Wii is by far the cheapest console of the generation. When manufacturers want to please its teenage student gaming audience, one of the easiest ways to do so is to make it affordable. I simply can’t imagine people my age dishing out the money for an Xbox 360 easily, and even less so for a PS3. (I recommend taking the money to be used for a PS3 and instead using it to buy a Wii and around six games.) In addition, HDTV support is still not really necessary, although it is a nice luxury. A student in high school might have access to his family’s high-def TV for gaming, but a student in college will most likely not.

2. In a way, the Wii solves the greatest problem with all console first person shooters. No longer does the seasoned PC gamer have to wrestle with the abnormal, sluggish controls of analog sticks controlled by the thumbs. The PC gamer always feels at home using his whole hand to control his line of sight, and this is directly paralleled and perhaps even advanced by the Wii’s remote (”wiimote”). Thus, the Wii automatically appeals to PC gamers like me.

3. The Wii has great multiplayer capabilities. Think of the endless stream of possibilities that the Wii controller enables. Think of an arcade and all the various types of controls– except the Wii enables more than that. The Wii controller has infinite flexibility in terms of usage, especially since the Wii’s hardware is most likely better than that of an arcade machine. Also, I’m sure many people are like me in terms of how they view console gaming; I see its main strengths in “party” multiplayer gaming.

4. The Wii will succeed at appealing to everyone, not just little kids or people who love multiplayer gaming with friends. It’s making a big effort to appeal to older gamers this time around. Among the launch titles are sequels to already-released popular FPS games, Far Cry: Vengeance and Call of Duty 3. No, the graphics won’t be as pretty as they will be on the PS3 or the Xbox 360, but video games already look really good, and I don’t mind sacrificing the most “cutting edge” graphics for much better gameplay or controls. I’d also like to quote a Forbes article to show its appeal to people who are usually not considered “gamers”:

   After the hard-core gamers got their turns [to play the Wii], less videogame-savvy editors took a shot, too. And it was here where the intuitive motion control system really proved its worth. There’s no sequence of arcane button combinations required to throw a baseball: You just wind up and mime an actual throw. Suddenly, videogames are fun for everyone–old or young, male or female, regardless of prior gaming experience. I lost count of how many times I heard non-gamers say, “Wow, I want to get this.”

5. The Wii looks cool, and it’s small. Is it just me, or can we award the PS3 the “hueg liek xbox” award for its generation? (Please see the Kotaku comparison of a cat and the three seventh generation consoles.) Anyway, Nintendo wants to be seen as the cool guy, and Sony and Microsoft think they’re already there. As an obvious example, Sony is creating a severe artificial supply shortage (encourages fanboyism), while Nintendo is pumping out a generous supply that might be able to meet the great demand expected (thus satisfying those who wish to be satisfied). See VG Cats comic #214.

I think it’s obvious the Wii will succeed in this round of the console wars. There is a slight possibility I’m wrong, but otherwise I’m thoroughly convinced.

So, watch out, Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo is launching their most expensive advertising campaign ever on television tonight. (Edit: You can now see the commercial on YouTube!)

Allow me to display a couple uncommon “proofs” (actually, simply arguments) for the existence of God here as just some food for thought. I can’t say that they are comprehensive and 100% bulletproof, because they are not. I believe it’s impossible to prove God definitively for everyone, since there are always assumptions somewhere that don’t stem from a simple “I think; therefore, I am.” However, I believe that it’s also impossible to truly disprove God for the same reason, and there’s also the human intuition of the world’s various cultures that there must be something greater than everything we can easily perceive out there. (Yes, I obviously believe in the existence of God.)

This one is something I wrote pretty quickly on a theology test early this semester, and so it’s not written well nor organized too well. It’s based on the first chapter of Christianity Among Other Religions: Apologetics in a Contemporary Context, written by my theology teacher, Fr. Roch.

Every day we contrast what we observe and experience with perfect standards. For example, we contrast imperfect human love with some higher ultimate standard. We know that human love is lower than something else. Thus we presuppose intuitively and subconsciously that this higher standard of love exists somewhere– that there is an ultimate Love which transcends anything which we can fully experience and know as humans– or else “perfect” love might as well be more realistic. But there is always a more perfect Love, and thus there is one ultimate Love that exists.

Likewise we as humans dynamically love to seek total truth (unless we suppress this natural desire). However, we never obtain that full truth. And even though this is the case, we continue to seek complete Truth anyway. Again, seeking complete truth and knowing we can always progress towards it presupposes that there is a complete Truth by which we can compare and contrast. And so this perfect Love and total Truth exists by our intuition and by our natural search for these things.

God, perfection by definition, is the embodiment of perfect qualities such as perfect Truth and perfect Love. Therefore, God exists.

The next argument was written by a classmate of mine on his new blog.

First of all, what is math? Painting in rather broad strokes, math is truth. Well, math is a type of truth. It isn’t math to say “that couch is red”. It isn’t even math to say “there is one couch”. But it is math to say “1+1=2″, or “infinity is not a number”. So, math means universal truths, not particular truths. Math means truths that God himself cannot change. God cannot make 1+1=3. He can, though, make the couch not red, because couches do not HAVE to be red.

…

Could one say “God does not exist”? i.e., is the existence of God a universal truth? Let us assume that it is not. Then you would have nothing - no God, no universe, no rational beings. But, I hold, there would still be math. Even if nothing existed, math would still exist. Of course, so would all other universal truths (whatever you hold those to be).

But, God is defined as the most perfect being. How can it be that his existence is not universal, while math’s is? So the existence of God must be a universal truth.

This seems to put God in the same category as math, and his existence as a truth on the same level as math. But, God is not by definition, equal to anything - he is superior to anything. So, to reconcile these two, you must say that math is, in a sense, a part of God. Just as Truth is a part of God.

Remember, this is not, strictly speaking, a proof, and my hope here is not to convince you rationally that God >= math (because I don’t think this argument does that, in its present form), it is merely to give you some concepts to think about, some of which may lead you, but a not strictly logical process, to that belief.

Interesting, no? I’d meant to write some other stuff earlier, but this is much faster, and I feel somewhat obligated to write something up. Now I need to go work on a paper, but please share your thoughts!