Minecraft Could Be 1-A (Definitely, Totally, 100%)

[Jinsye]

So, to preface, this is completely against site rules as of current and is only meant to be my current thoughtpiece on the tiering of the verse. Specifically, the ever forbidden End Poem.

To make this statement completely clear. I am NOT pushing for an upgrade to the verse, and I do not want any discussion on whether this should be applied to the profiles, because the answer is no. We've gone through this extensively already and the wiki has decided that the poem is too metaphorical to be used as an actual piece of evidence for higher cosmology. This is purely a hypothetical in which we accept otherwise. Do not take any of this with any seriousness, this is a funny thoughtpiece based on a guy writing about his delusions probably while high on weed or whatever. If anyone starts to push for this to be applied, then make your own thread about it, I will not be supporting it.

What is the End Poem?
The End Poem is a poem that is found at the end of Minecraft, currently in the public domain after Julian Gough had a dispute with Microsoft and Notch over payment issues or whatever. The backstory is that Notch needed a guy to write an ending to Minecraft, so he posted a recruitment post on Twitter and picked out Julian Gough, who he was on good terms with at the time. As a result, Julian was given total creative freedom on how he wanted the game to end so he could pretty much go as philosophical as he wanted.
Despite it being within the public domain, the End Poem is intrinsically tied to Minecraft as a property. It was in the game's first build and has persisted ever since. Julian stated he spent days upon days playing Minecraft to try and understand what Notch's philosophy was behind the game, until he finally got an idea and began penning it onto paper.
Julian said that writing the End Poem was a transcendent experience. He stated that he truly believed the universe came to him and wrote the poem through his body, and he had no idea what words he actually wrote until he was finished. As a very religious man, Julian believed that he didn't just write a stupid poem about a game for kids, but more that he was a messenger for the universe who wanted to disclose the truths about itself in this short writing. The short explanation pretty much is that, Julian truly believed that everything he wrote in this poem was real. This is not a simple metaphor for life, but a glimpse into the true nature of reality itself.
And we're going to tier it. I love VS Debating.
What Tier is the End Poem?
Dreams
So, lets start from the beginning. The basic framework of the End Poem is simple. You have completed the game and come to interface with a bunch of words on the screen. These words are two godlike entities that call themselves 'The Universe'. They speak on your potential as a Player and how you are lost within the dreams, completing one dream and going into another. This eventually culminates in them telling you a story about the universe, the many iterations of the dreams you've been through, and finally telling you to wake up.

So, the main question is... what tier are these two Entities, or also known as "the Universe".

Well, the lets understand the concept of 'Dreams' so to speak. There are two very major dreams that are brought up within the poem, the "short dream of the game" and the "long dream of life". The former is obviously referring to Minecraft, because you just completed the game and thus 'ending' the short dream. The long dream of life however, refers to the life of the Player. Your monotonous daily life is also a 'long dream' that you wake into after completing the 'short dream' of Minecraft.

To go into specifics on why each dream is seen that way, it's obvious from how each dream is referred to. Beginning with the short dream, the game of Minecraft.

That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a game.
Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the reality behind the screen.
They used to hear voices. Before players could read. Back in the days when those who did not play called the players witches, and warlocks. And players dreamed they flew through the air, on sticks powered by demons.
What did this player dream?
This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter.

The completion of the game is referred to as an "interface", a sort of projection of the true reality that exists beyond the dreams. This is consistent with Julian Gough's belief of this poem being the universe revealing its true nature within itself. The "reality" that the interface is projecting is in truth, far more terrifying than the Player would normally imagine, thus it acts as a way for reality to interact with the dream. This concept of reality and truth is brought up again later in the poem.

The short dream of the game is compared to other stories of the past, even before the Player (humans) could read. Likened to tales of witches and warlocks flying on brooms and powering themselves with demons. But this dream, the dream of Minecraft, is a far simpler dream. Sunlight and trees, fire and water, creation and destruction, hunter and hunted, and shelter. The basic tasks regarding Minecraft in this short dream, this short story that is created for them.

Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite. The sun was a square of white. The days were short; there was much to do; and death was a temporary inconvenience.

It cannot read that thought.
No. It has not yet achieved the highest level. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a game.

Sometimes it believed it was in a universe that was made of energy that was made of offs and ons; zeros and ones; lines of code. Sometimes it believed it was playing a game. Sometimes it believed it was reading words on a screen.

and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream

This also directly refers to the game of Minecraft as a 'dream', with descriptors that only apply to Minecraft. This universe is a world made out of data, where the Player would believe that it's reading words on a screen, in an application programmed with 1s and 0s. One that is short and that has been completed, with the universe speaking to it through words on a screen. The completion of the game is not the highest level that the Player can reach, which must be completed overall in the long game of life.

The long dream of life is also explicitly described as such, multiple times within the poem.

But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes its sad creation for reality.

Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things.

Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas that was three hundred and thirty thousand times more massive than it. They were so far apart that light took eight minutes to cross the gap. The light was information from a star, and it could burn your skin from a hundred and fifty million kilometres away.

These are all directly referring to the "real life" that you currently exist in. The life that Julian Gough wrote this poem from. The life that will live on for far longer than the short dream of the game. This is the dream where you believe yourself as human, experiencing the air and gravity of the world, existing on a planet known as Earth in a solar system with a star. This is directly contrasted from the short dream of the game, where the days were short and the sun was a square.

At times, the long dream is harsh and brutal. As an escape, the Player would sometime write stories, miserable stories. These stories encapsulate its grief and sorrow, and sometimes it believed this cruel world was a reality.

Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story.
Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things, in other places. Sometimes these dreams were disturbing. Sometimes very beautiful indeed. Sometimes the player woke from one dream into another, then woke from that into a third.
Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen.

The Player in their experiences, dreamed many things. Many stories, in-fact. Sometimes they were disturbing, sometimes they were beautiful. Sometimes it got lost in these stories that they forgot what they believed was reality.

In truth, the Player's entire existence was simply one story to be told among many. It was a story just like the short dream, simply a longer story that has yet to be completed.

Let's go back.
The atoms of the player were scattered in the grass, in the rivers, in the air, in the ground. A woman gathered the atoms; she drank and ate and inhaled; and the woman assembled the player, in her body.
And the player awoke, from the warm, dark world of its mother's body, into the long dream.
And the player was a new story, never told before, written in letters of DNA. And the player was a new program, never run before, generated by a sourcecode a billion years old. And the player was a new human, never alive before, made from nothing but milk and love.
You are the player. The story. The program. The human. Made from nothing but milk and love.

This 'long dream', this 'reality', made out of atoms, milk, love, and DNA is simply another story. Just like the short dream of Minecraft. The Player is a beautiful program that progresses through the story of the long dream.

Both of these dreams are directly intertwined.

Let's go further back.
The seven billion billion billion atoms of the player's body were created, long before this game, in the heart of a star. So the player, too, is information from a star. And the player moves through a story, which is a forest of information planted by a man called Julian, on a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus, that exists inside a small, private world created by the player, who inhabits a universe created by...
Shush. Sometimes the player created a small, private world that was soft and warm and simple. Sometimes hard, and cold, and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the universe in its head; flecks of energy, moving through vast empty spaces. Sometimes it called those flecks "electrons" and "protons".
Sometimes it called them "planets" and "stars".

The Player's body exists in the long dream, as a collection of billions of atoms that were originally formed in the creation of a star at the start of the universe. But now, once it is formed, it moves through a story. The short dream of the game, created by a man named Markus (Notch, the creator of Minecraft) and Julian (the writer of the poem). All of this exists as a "small private world" that the Player has made, who inhabits a universe in which is made by a truth that cannot be told to the Player.

It lives in a subjective viewpoint, where the worlds it creates depends on the story it is currently living through. "Protons and electrons" or "planets and stars", representing the world of the short dream or the world of the long dream.

Now that we understand the definition of dreams, lets understand the Entities themselves.

The Entities
The Entities are vague creatures, but they directly describe themselves in the poem.

Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Ancestral spirits, animal spirits. Jinn. Ghosts. The green man. Then gods, demons. Angels. Poltergeists. Aliens, extraterrestrials. Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change.
We are the universe. We are everything you think isn't you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes. And why does the universe touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, player. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story.

It worked, with a million others, to sculpt a true world in a fold of the [scrambled], and created a [scrambled] for [scrambled], in the [scrambled].
It cannot read that thought.
No. It has not yet achieved the highest level. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a game.

They are the universe. They make up reality. People have called them many things across many different languages, but they are always the same thing. They are the universe, everything that you do not believe is you. As a result of this, they exist on a 'higher level' than both the long dream and the short dream. These words are incomprehensible to those who have not completed the long dream of life, as they don't understand what the long dream is.

In fact, the Entities speak on the truth regarding reality many times, before cutting themselves off as seen in the following quotes.

Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely [scrambled] and [scrambled], I wish to tell them that they are [scrambled] in the [scrambled]. They see so little of reality, in their long dream.
And yet they play the game.
But it would be so easy to tell them...
Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
I will not tell the player how to live.
The player is growing restless.
I will tell the player a story.
But not the truth.
No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words. Not the naked truth that can burn over any distance.

The seven billion billion billion atoms of the player's body were created, long before this game, in the heart of a star. So the player, too, is information from a star. And the player moves through a story, which is a forest of information planted by a man called Julian, on a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus, that exists inside a small, private world created by the player, who inhabits a universe created by...
Shush. Sometimes the player created a small, private world that was soft and warm and simple. Sometimes hard, and cold, and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the universe in its head; flecks of energy, moving through vast empty spaces. Sometimes it called those flecks "electrons" and "protons".

From our previous section, we understand that dreams are worlds in which stories our told. Whether it be the short dream of a game called Minecraft, or the long dream of a person's life. Both of these dreams are dreams that the Entities observe the Player over, as they travel through their journey.

However, through their story they drop bits and pieces of the truth, caged within words that allows the Player to understand what their role is in the universe.

Sometimes when they are deep in dreams, I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality. Sometimes I want to tell them of their importance to the universe. Sometimes, when they have not made a true connection in a while, I want to help them to speak the word they fear.

Shush... Sometimes the player read lines of code on a screen. Decoded them into words; decoded words into meaning; decoded meaning into feelings, emotions, theories, ideas, and the player started to breathe faster and deeper and realised it was alive, it was alive, those thousand deaths had not been real, the player was alive
You. You. You are alive.
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the sunlight that came through the shuffling leaves of the summer trees
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the light that fell from the crisp night sky of winter, where a fleck of light in the corner of the player's eye might be a star a million times as massive as the sun, boiling its planets to plasma in order to be visible for a moment to the player, walking home at the far side of the universe, suddenly smelling food, almost at the familiar door, about to dream again
and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream
and the universe said I love you
and the universe said you have played the game well
and the universe said everything you need is within you
and the universe said you are stronger than you know
and the universe said you are the daylight
and the universe said you are the night
and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you
and the universe said the light you seek is within you
and the universe said you are not alone
and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing
and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code
and the universe said I love you because you are love.
And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.
You are the player.
Wake up.

This is the revelation. The Player is the Universe. They are one in the same. The Player is not separate from every other thing, they're simply the universe understanding itself and forming their own reality through these dreams. These dreams that the Player goes through, and keeps on waking up.

They will dream and dream, because the Player is the universe. The dreams they have are worlds in reality, because they are reality. In these dreams, because the Player believes that they are separate from other things, they can think that the universe is separate from every other thing. That the universe can speak to them as if they were a separate entity, but this is not the case. That is the true meaning of the Player and their dreams.

And that bring us to the final part of the poem. "Wake up". In both the short dream of Minecraft, the long dream of life, and the multitude of other dreams that the Player might think of, they haven't truly awoken to the universe. They have not reached the "highest level". They haven't realized that they are not separate from anything else, because if they do then the long dream of life will be over. They will keep dreaming and dreaming, until eventually they understand and complete their existence, and recognize that themselves and the Universe are the same thing.

Okay, but what's the tier though?
The answer is relatively straightforward despite my ramblings. Under our current system, the Universe would likely be Low 1-C to 1-C. Depending on how many layers you believe the Player waking into a Dream into another Dream would be. It is pretty blatant that the game of Minecraft is a "dream", one that is an interface that is fictional to the "long dream" that the Player currently inhabits. As a result, these would constitute for dimensional jumps.
However, if we use the currently accepted Tiering System as outlined here then, we get a much more significant jump in tiers, to 1-A. It's a pretty straightforward example of the tier too. As outlined by the summarization post, seeing something as fiction would be a qualifier for 1-A in terms of R>F interactions. And by that I mean seeing something as completely nonexistent when compared to yourself, which is true. The Universe views the worlds that the Player creates as dreams, which are by definition insubstantial and immaterial.
So, lets ask ourselves the qualifying questions, shall we?

• Does the higher world actually see the lower world as something immaterial, and insubstantial? Is there any continuity between it and the lower world, as there is with higher and lower-dimensional spaces, or even with finite and infinite things? Can there be?

The answer in this case is yes. Everything is viewed as a 'dream' by the Universe. The Universe specifically does not view either the long dream or the short dream as a kind of 'reality'. They outright compare it to stories told via code, which are definitionally not real compared to the people telling them. There is also no direct continuity between the lower world and the higher world, because the "worlds" the Player builds in reality is in truth, the Player understanding its own place in the universe as they progress through the journey of dreams.

The Player in truth sees and understands very little of 'reality', even in the long dream. The only thing they can comprehend are the words on the screen provided by the interface of Minecraft.

• Is this actually being depicted as a matter of power, or, more precisely, something analogous to "size"?

This is also a yes. The world of 'reality' is analogous to both size and power. As stated before, the Player completing the game allowed them to get a glimpse of the 'reality' behind the dreams. It is directly referring to the state of existence, as the 'highest level' is something that the Player has not reached yet. Something completely beyond understanding, as the Player cannot even grasp some of the words of the higher world.

• Can lesser existences unexplainedly interact or potentially interact with the higher existences, on their own, without any external (Or otherwise anomalous) assistance at play?

This one may be confusing to some, but the answer is still yes. This may come as a surprise, because the entire story of the End Poem revolves around the Player reading the mind of the Entities, so that establishes a continuity, correct? However, this is not the case.

As stated before, the Player and the Entities are one in the same in truth. The reason why the Player is capable of "reading their mind" despite being on a lower form of reality, is because they think they are receiving messages from the universe, when in reality they are the universe. The only difference here is what the Player thinks.

The Universe is everything the Player thinks isn't them. Which means, the words on the screen speaking to the Player are simply what the Player believes is being told to them, and not actually them reading the minds of the Universe. They haven't woken up and learned that themselves and the Universe are one in the same, and thus this is their way of comprehending the truth behind their reality. Thus, there is an explanation for this interaction that does not disprove the R>F difference.

As a result, with it qualifying under all of the rules. If taken literally, the Universe in Minecraft should be 1-A. A living, sentient world that holds a Player, which in reality is the world understanding and tasting it's own existence, to eventually wake up and realize the truth of reality.

Why Is This Not Used?
Now, just in case anyone got convinced by me. I'm going to remind you guys why we currently don't use it so I'm not at fault for anyone taking my thinkpiece too seriously. In a 2012 interview with BoingBoing, Julian Gough states the following.

JG: The word "dream" gets used, but it's really a story about the dream of a game, and the dream of life. It's dream as metaphor. I love the strangeness that comes when people get so lost in a game that the game becomes the world. Because you do get lost like that. Especially in something like Minecraft, that's so endless. You're actually startled to come back into your life at the end of it. So I wanted to play with that moment, where you're between two worlds, and for a short little period you're not sure which one is more real.



JG: I wanted a dreamy kind of feeling, like you'd broken through something. When you're playing Minecraft in Survival mode, you're performing a quest that is difficult and takes a long time. I felt that at the end of the quest there should be some moment of enlightenment, some ambiguous wisdom. That you should have something to bring back – and you should feel you've broken through into some other level. That is the feeling I wanted, and I liked the idea of an overheard dialogue to create it.

Now, here's an odd thing. When writers look back over stories, they make up a story about the story and say, oh, I wanted to do this, I wanted to do that. But that's not actually true to how it feels at the time. If I went back and told you what it was like writing it, it was quite odd, because I started trying to write my way into it and thinking, what do I want – but about half way through it, I had an odd feeling that doesn't happen very often, where my hand started moving faster than my thoughts and I was just watching my hand.

What this roughly translates into is that the story is a metaphor for games and reality. Something that is absolutely not meant to be literally referring to the universe of Minecraft, and more simply the distinction of building a story inside the game and the story in reality. It's to enlighten people, at least, to make people think about whether they believe their game are just as real as reality. As taught by the poem, when you are building worlds inside of the game, it's no different from building a world in reality. So live your life, in the way you want it.

Thus, it can't be used for VSBW purposes. It's not referring to the Player as some godlike entity who can create worlds, and the universe is simply the universe in our reality, thus there is no point in indexing it as part of the verse of Minecraft. If you want to argue against these points, I will not be responding because this is not what the thread is about. This thread is just a simple ramble on the ending of a poem written by someone who smokes a lot of weed, please take your business to your own thread.

Conclusion
If we took the End Poem as literally, under the new system currently being implemented by the wiki, it would likely be 1-A. As it qualifies for all of the standards to be a genuine R>F interaction. However, due to our standards regarding the actual literalness of the End Poem, this rating will never come to pass. However, I hope you enjoyed reading this hypothetical, though don't go bothering me on if you want to push for an upgrade or whatever. There's a reason why this is in Fun & Games.

 

[Deidalius]

Too many word, ill read later

 

[James_Plays_4_Games]

The original post seems well thought-out. Interesting analysis.

 

[Deidalius]

Huh, Julien is religious? What's his religion?

I find it funny that Julien claims to have written the End poem due to "The universe writing for him" or something. The End poem is deeper than I thought lol, I thought it was randomly made for fun.

Anyway, I read this whole post and like like this post a lot. Have a like.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Mods, cast Shocking Grasp on her computer

 

[Vzearr]

Didn't read it but I agree with the op.

 

[Jinsye]

Mods, cast Shocking Grasp on her computer

reporting you

 

[Javenplayz253]

Me on my way to put the end poem in my own words:
Minecraft is tier 0 in vs battle wiki and this version of the end poem is totally canon

 

[Livinmeme]

Oh yeah, they didn't "reject it" because it was a analogy, because being an analogy means that it isn't canon. I guess Freezer isn't ******* canon anymore (YES, I AM STILL MAD)

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

@Ultima_Reality

 

[Mr. Bambu]

This is a Fun and Games thread, Lawyer.

 

[Robo432343]

this shouldn't be a fun and games thread
it qualifies for 1-A per our standards and the scans are also valid



fr

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

This is a Fun and Games thread, Lawyer.

I just wanted to see how Ultima likes it.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

this shouldn't be a fun and games thread
it qualifies for 1-A per our standards and the scans are also valid



fr

the "fr" makes me think this is a joke, but just in case it isn't, I would note that it is downright against our rules to pursue upgrades based on the End Poem. Discussion about it has existed for a long time and it is considered concretely denied. I say this to you and anyone else reading this who might consider this a real and valid thread. Verse-specific rulings can be found here.

 

[Livinmeme]

the "fr" makes me think this is a joke, but just in case it isn't, I would note that it is downright against our rules to pursue upgrades based on the End Poem. Discussion about it has existed for a long time and it is considered concretely denied. I say this to you and anyone else reading this who might consider this a real and valid thread. Verse-specific rulings can be found here.

You still can change it, just make a CRT to change the rules

INB4. B-BUT

Ben 10

 

[Mr. Bambu]

You still can change it, just make a CRT to change the rules

Ben 10

This would not appear to be that.

 

[Javenplayz253]

Me when 1-A minecraft can be used on joke battles