The Mystery of Creation: Chapter 5: The Unseen Kingdom of God: Intelligent Game Engines

Chapter 5: The Unseen Kingdom of God

Intelligent Game Engines

                In order to fully solve for this mystery we must first discuss what God would have created first; before creating all of the very complex things that we see in our universe.  I mean, a perfect God would not do all the work Himself, am I right? 

                A computer programmer, when he is about to create a video game, will ensure that he has all of the software tools that he will need.  He doesn’t just write all of the video game’s code line by line himself.  He has software to help him.  The proper software streamlines the process, making everything faster and less tedious. 

                For example - and note that I am over-simplifying this for the purposes of this discussion - with the right software program, all a video game programmer might have to do is take an image of a wall template and plop it into place on the screen.  He can see what it is going to look like as he is putting the walls into place, one next to another.  He doesn’t have to write the code and then run the program to see how the wall is going to look on the screen.  He has a program that helps him build 3D video game landscapes. 

                Could the programmer actually build the entire game via typing computer code after computer code to build it all from scratch?  Well…some could if they are knowledgeable enough, but that would take an enormous amount of time.

                So why would God create massive numbers of worlds and solar systems and nebula and black holes and such all from scratch if He could first create things that would help Him build these things faster and put them in place as He has designed them?  That just doesn’t make any sense.  A perfect and super intelligent God would perfectly streamline the entire process so that He could make everything as quickly as possible.  Therefore, He would first lay the foundation of all things by developing tools and templates. 

                Now don’t get me wrong.  Some will argue that God is so powerful that He could quickly and easily build all things.  After all, He is ALL powerful.  We established that.  That means that even the most challenging things can be done, for Him, in a matter of moments.  Even designing entire solar systems could be done, by God, in the twinkle of an eye, because we are talking about an infinitely powerful being.  Nothing is impossible for God.

                However, the point I am trying to make is that it makes more sense, even though this is the case, that God would first create tools to help Him create all things faster and more efficiently.  If He is perfect then He would take the perfectly streamlined approach to doing all things.  If He can get it done faster and more effectively, He is going to get it done faster and more effectively. That is the perfect way of doing things.

                So what would be the most likely approach to building these tools and templates? 

                When a computer programmer is going to build a video game he powers up a software program, called a game engine, that already has templates for him to use in order to create his game faster.  Wikipedia tells us, “A game engine is a software framework designed for the creation and development of video games.  Developers use them to create games for consoles, mobile devices and personal computers.  The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, scene graph, and may include video support for cinematics.  The process of game development is often economized, in large part, by reusing/adapting the same game engine to create different games, or to make it easier to port games to multiple platforms.” 

                That’s a mouthful.  Let’s put this in layman’s terms.  Basically, game designers take something they’ve already built and they use it as a template to build other things.  They first copy the template and then they modify it to make something new. 

                It would be just like an artist who first creates a stencil.  They then copy that design onto many pieces of paper.  Then, on each piece of paper, they use the same design, but they modify it to create totally different works of art on each page.  No two pages have the same exact design in the end even though they all used the same original, stenciled, design as their base.

                Well, doesn’t it make sense that God would do the same thing when He decided to create the universe as we know it?  Wouldn’t it make sense that He’d first create a “game engine” or many “game engines” to help Him craft a gazillion worlds and stars and such?  Wouldn’t it make sense that He would first craft the foundations and the building blocks and then build the complex worlds out of these things? 

                The evidence in our universe certainly supports this.  After all, there are many stars, but the stars are not identical.  Each star is different even though they share many of the same properties.  The same is true for all things; planets, meteors, black holes, supernovas...you name it.

                Well, either these tools that God created to help Him are intelligent or they aren’t.  They can’t be both.  What do you think would be the most streamlined approach?  Which is faster for a programmer, to have an unintelligent game engine that does nothing unless the programmer tells it to do something or an intelligent game engine that creates things without the programmer having to tell it what to do every step of the way?

                The most streamlined approach is to first create intelligent game engines and then give these game engines the ability to create and mold and draft and build worlds all by themselves.  Each game engine, then, could create massive numbers of worlds, by themselves, and then submit them to the programmer for final review and approval.  Instead of having the game programmer sit down and tediously craft and build one world after another all by himself, he could multiply the number of worlds exponentially by creating intelligent game engines to do the work for him.  Then all he’d have to do is give these intelligent game engines the parameters of what he is looking for and let the intelligent game engines do the rest.

                Now, in reality, at video game companies all over the world, they do not have intelligent game engines.  However, they typically have lots and lots of game designers and programmers.  They don’t just have one person creating everything.  However, each company has a lead programmer who directs the entire project as a whole.  By having lots and lots of game creators, the game is produced much quicker.  The concept is basically the same.  To streamline a game’s production, the more intelligent minds you have working on it the faster it gets done.

                Now, as we discussed earlier, intelligence is the ability to gather knowledge and to manipulate things based on that knowledge.  So doesn’t it make sense that these “game engines” would have to be intelligent?  If they are going to help God craft an entire universe, and maintain it, these “game engines” would need to be able to fix issues and reason things out for themselves.  Otherwise, what good would they be to Him?

                To illustrate, let me use the standard PC, IBM compatible computer, as an example.  When they first rolled out for home use, users had no Windows operating system.  They had to learn how to type in commands into the DOS environment.  In order to run a video game, they’d have to type something like, “Run Archangels.exe” and hit enter.  It was a very basic environment that was created.  In order to create video games, an individual would have to type line upon line of commands like this:

                                10 Print “Archangels, The Video Game”

                                20 Print “By K. Adam Robinson”

30 Print “It was a cold night.  Storm clouds filled the skies, blanketing the world in darkness.  You are Damien Caz, a tough, young trucker who has just stopped at a diner with your rig to get a final meal before heading home.  You frequent this diner every time you return home from one of your hauls.  As you step through the door, you see a friend of yours named Sasha Knightly.  She looks very upset.  What do you do?  Do you approach Sasha or do you head to the counter to order food first?”

                                40 Print “Approach Sasha”

                                50 Print “Approach Counter”

                                60 If “Approach Sasha” then goto 80

                                70 If “Approach Counter” then goto 90

                When running this game, then, a person would instantly see on the screen:

Archangels, The Video Game

                                By K. Adam Robinson

It was a cold night.  Storm clouds filled the skies, blanketing the world in darkness.  You are Damien Caz, a tough, young trucker who has just stopped at a diner with your rig to get a final meal before heading home.  You frequent this diner every time you return home from one of your hauls.  As you step through the door, you see a friend of yours named Sasha Knightly.  She looks very upset.  What do you do?  Do you approach Sasha or do you head to the counter to order food first?

                                Approach Sasha

                                Approach Counter

                Then, if you typed in “Approach Sasha” it would move on to whatever the system was told to Print on line 80.  If you typed “Approach Counter” it would move on to whatever the system was told to Print on line 90.  If you typed anything but “Approach Sasha” or “Approach Counter” the game would yell at you and say, “Command not recognized” or something of that nature.

                Programmers realized that creating games like this was tedious and they had very little artwork involved.  Therefore, they created the Windows operating system and various game design software programs to help them.  Suddenly, to run a game, all a person had to do was move a pointer icon on the screen up to a program icon and click the mouse button twice.  This was a much more streamlined approach to start up a video game.  Now, the environment was more efficient and much more enjoyable.

                Windows has now evolved to the point where individuals can even just touch the icon on the screen and games start.  Instead of text-based games, entirely, beautifully rendered 3D environments are built. 

                Why am I mentioning this?  The point is that if video game designers back in the late 80s, and even afterward, had the foreknowledge to build the incredible video game engines of today, do you think they would choose to use the video game engines of today or do you think they’d have stuck with their slow, clunky, DOS system of that era?  They would have chosen to make their games with the complex software of today because it is far more efficient and superior in every way.

                In the same way, just because God COULD have constructed all things by Himself, why would He if He could first create incredible, complex, awesome beings with incredible intelligence to help Him build all things?  Like a computer game designer, it makes more sense that God would first build the software programs that He could use, these intelligent beings, and then He would work with these beings to make all things.