Yes.

I've always thought that simulators might not train you to become a professional, but they do enlarge your understanding. Now days for example flight simulators are quite awesome and have the real physics modeled quite well. What they don't have is of course the actual feel of flying in a wobbly plane. For example when an aircraft starts to stall, you typically feel sluggishness first in the controls, then your butt feeling tells you that the plane is stalling. If it has nice or sinister spin characteristics, you'll notice quickly if you are in a spin. Now if you just have trained on a simulator, you have no idea how that downward roller coaster ride actually feels like. But you do know how to start an airplane, how the indicators work, what basically happens. And many various simulators give some kind of understanding. For example, after playing Kerbal Space Program, I understand how men went to the moon and what an apoapsis and a periapsis is.





There's even a thread about Philosophy in Games -the Talos Principle in this forum. So Philosophy and video games can go hand in hand. Check it out!

There is science in video games and I can't wait to see what other unexpected applciations human kind is goign to find of them. I am a bit concerned about 3D games though, as they resemble reality a lot and may cause reality avoidance, but as a simulator they are extermely powerful!

I'm not sure what you mean by that, and don't find that the more 'serious' or 'competitive' games are simply about wanting to 'go out of the world' or whatever it is you are saying; I find them mentally stimulating, akin to a "serious" competitive or mental game such as chess. Obviously this varies by the game itself, it's design, and so on (such as if it was ever a game intended to be played in some kind of organized tournament or competition, versus a more "casual" game with an emphasis on instant gratification rather than strategy and reasoning).

Yes, think of it like a tesseract. Your heart can get lost in the game. However, it's not as good as the outside, often referred to as the real game.

An illusion in your mind may say it's so.

Gaming is better than the world, but what's really going on is is worldly reaction - and the world is made for it.

You can do better, or can you? If you cannot use the outside, you may feel better off the alternate way of life. This to some degree is legal.

Just lost a lot of money but learned a few things playing online poker.

Such as 'play the bad side of luck', betting style and more.

What's even more imperative than gaming is a natural mind version, a mind phenomenon which can play games and connect.

Playing poker today makes me think rhythm of bet and style of bet let us in on what the player is thinking.

There is a way of reading, and there is the flow of understanding at the time of the event. This is where I would begin.

You can literally trap someone into a state where all they make is errors.

Imagine the first game ever... why would people developed it? I'm jsut asking for yor opinion as I believe that there are 2 general types of games based on their purpose.
So what do you think...

1) Was the first game based on betting, where people would have some suggestions about some happening and would risk in order to win more. (like if ancient people would bet on fights etc.)

2) Or was the first game only based on entertainment (like ancient sumerian backgammon)

What would you bet on? :)

For more "serious" gamers or people interested in game design, there's a free ebook by David Sirlin called "playing to win" which discusses the design and philosophy behind video games (as a well as how this relates to other strategic games such as chess).