Original text：http://japan.cnet.com/interview/20379112/3/
SimCity, The Sims and even Spore seem to revolve around the idea of “playing god.” Is that something that fascinates you?
I think “god’ is kind of a loaded term there. Really what they’re playing with is reality. And because of the fact that we’re giving players high levels of controls to play with reality, we tend to call them “god” games.
But these are games in which you’re kind of an incompetent god because the system doesn’t do what you expect it to do. You don’t have omnipotence. And the fact that the world is unpredictable and a little bit out of your control keeps the game interesting.
So I think “god” is more of a game term and a bit of a misnomer from the role the player is actually in.
You also mentioned during the press briefing that if there was a God, it would have to recognize a level of physics in which you believe humans are actually capable of creating our own colonies. Can you elaborate on that?
According to some physics theories, there are similarities in our universe like black holes and equivalent to our Big Bang. So, there might be micro-universe underneath us, and we can pretty much perceive a point where humans can engineer black holes and create them. In which case, that in fact represents an underlying universe underneath us, so then from that definition, we would be gods. Therefore, I can easily imagine that there was some other intelligence that created our Big Bang.
But that doesn’t mean that that God can actually interact with the universe underneath it. It’s not a god that can actually look at you, and want you to do certain things, or even have any information go between you. So it’s kind of a blind god.
Because we aren’t actually aware that we may have created a colony?
Well, our definition of the word “universe” is an impermeable thing. If it’s something that can interact with us, it’s part of our universe. If it’s outside our universe, it’s forever unknowable. And I think for a lot of people, that’s where they draw the line between science and religion. If it’s unknowable, from a scientist’s point of view, then it’s religion. So I think a lot of arguments is going to have to do with where that boundary lies.
But from a purely physics point of view, I can imagine humanity having the power one day to create entire universes. We’ll just never be able to see them or interact with them.
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