You Can Go No Further — On Video Games, Reality and the Edge of Everything

Breath of the Wild on the Switch is the first open world game I’ve ever played. I’ve spent weeks now meandering, sometimes purposely, sometimes not, through the big, wide world the game designers created. I’ve battled monsters, tamed wild horses, even became a home owner. During my travels, I’ve spent time pondering reality. This is not surprising as reality is one of my favorite topics to spin my mind on. The <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tangled-up-in-spacetime/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">most current science</a> is pointing to reality as a two dimensional boundary experienced as three dimensions, such as a hologram or those lenticular postcards you can buy at Disney World for $6. Yes, this model has a way to go before it usurps the Standard Model, but it’s on its way. Here, in Breath of the Wild, is a landscape that is so perfectly designed, so vast it feels endless. Each footstep I take, the world unfolds in front of me. A philosophical side of my mind points out how this could perhaps be how reality unfolds. Do we ever truly know something is not there if we do not see it? Common sense says yes, but with no measurements (<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">because measurements disrupt a system</a>) can we ever say? So I ran through the world, climbing every mountain, fording every stream…until, late last night, I hit a wall. Everything about this wall was ordinary. There was no difference between this particular cliff face and any other I’d climbed throughout the game. But less than 10 feet up the wall, Link was suddenly returned to the ground and the words You Can Go No Further appear in the middle of my screen. <a href="https://medium.com/@ellatschopik/you-can-go-no-further-on-video-games-reality-and-the-edge-of-everything-60061043c51e">Visit Now</a>