A Buddhist Game, Ahhb
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2013 1st Buddhist Youth Forum: Happiness and Peace A Buddhist Game, AhhB Ng Xin Zhao Buddhism is perceived as not trending by general population, at least in Singapore where the census showed a decrease from 56.3% to 43% Buddhist1. What is being trendy in today’s world are gaming and superheroes. A simple search in Google trends shows that the word “Zen” is becoming less popular than the word “Gaming” since 2011. Add in the word “Pokemon” and “Buddha” in it and you’ll see “Pokemon” is consistently more popular than “Zen” and “Gaming” and “Buddha” is consistently less popular. And the word “Happy” is up there fighting popularity with “Pokemon”. It’s obvious the world wants to be happy. In this day and age, we have the Avengers, Pokemon, and many other instant sensual pleasures to keep us happy, however temporarily, people would willingly spend money on it. Whereas we practising Buddhists has long since known, for free the secret to eternal happiness. Or at least we have a track record that the happiest man alive is a monk! Yes, he is none other than Matthieu Ricard2. In general, meditation has been shown to increase a person’s happiness by various researchers including Richard Davidson3, 4. Having known these, it is natural for Buddhists to want to spread this secret to happiness with everyone. Today’s world is a ripe time to do it. In the spirit of skillful means in Mahayana Buddhism, it is about time we incorporate gaming and superheroes as part of the skillful means in spreading the Dhamma as art, music, statues, paintings had done their part in the 2500 plus years of Buddhism. With the advent of smartphone technology and rapid neuroscience progress, it is possible to create a device that can incorporate these trending games and superheroes to attract youths, and help to spread the secret of happiness. What’s more, a search in the same google trend shows “Samsung” and “iPhone” are much more (at least twice) popular compared to “Pokemon” and “Happiness”. So if the device can be made to be the replacement of smartphones, it can reach out to the general audience of city folks regardless of age. Let’s call this device, QuMind, short for quantum mind. Now’s the time to present my idea: I propose QuMind, the device and its operating system to be used as a platform reborn to house an inbuilt game called Ahhb, short for “a happy human being”, to help people to be happier with the teachings of morality, meditation and wisdom, in 1 (2013). Download - Statistics Singapore. Retrieved September 24, 2013, from http://www.singstat.gov. sg/publications/publications_and_papers/cop2010/census_2010_release1/findings.pdf. 2 (2012). Buddhist monk is the world’s happiest man - India Nydailynews. Retrieved September 24, 2013, from http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle/7b470adb0a9b6c32e19e16a08df13f3d/buddhist- monk-is-the-worlds-happiest-man. 3 (2010). Meditation linked to happiness and positive behavior - Natural News. Retrieved September 24, 2013, from http://www.naturalnews.com/030442_meditation_happiness.html. 4 Brewer, J. (2011). Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode ... Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3250176/. 137 2013 1st Buddhist Youth Forum: Happiness and Peace particular taking the advantage of the trends of gaming and superheroes to attract youths. What makes this paper fall under the topic of futurology is that I’m considering also the extrapolation of current cutting edge technology and intend to apply it to help spread Buddhism. This paper is indeed like a an extended proposal instead of a well done research, but I believe it is what a paper on predicting/ anticipating/ imagining the future should be. The rest of the paper explains QuMind, Ahhb, and the advantage and challenges to overcome for the game to come true. QuMind QuMind combines the technologies of smartphones, hand-held gaming consoles, google glass, brainwave reading machines, portable MRI, and immersive 3D gameplay amongst others. So it might look like a google glass (wearing a glass) with a headband, or a hatlike feature that includes the portable MRI and brainwave reading capabilities and it’s going to have quantum cryptographic security levels to avoid people hacking into these hardwares. It needs to have a long battery life, so that it is portable for the whole day for the user to move it around like a handheld gaming system and also to enable the users to use QuMind on the road for example where it can help in monitoring traffic, and warning the user if there is an incoming vehicle whose trajectory is going to collide with the user’s vehicle. That’s a possible usage for QuMind, an accident reduction device while on the road. The next feature of QuMind is that it needs good cameras or video capturing abilities, on par with the Kinect two of Xbox One5. Preferably at least two cameras on the front and possibly on the sides too to have the ability to be an accident reduction device. The two cameras can capture 3D images and estimate distances to objects accurately. In one possible game mode, the video is turned on all the time the user is wearing the device, except with an automatic switch off button in the toilet and during private activities. Users who are concerned with privacy can be rest assured that the videos are only stored inside the device itself and will not be sent outside of the device unless the with the user’s consent. As there is a limited memory on the device, there will be a time limit of the amount of video stored before it is automatically deleted. Ideally it can be a week. QuMind should also have a great microphone system to capture sounds. Technology perfected with the Xbox One where the device can sense the users’ voice command even in an environment of gaming noise can be implemented into QuMind6. With the video and audio input that is greatly enhanced, QuMind can be a crime detractor, for it can phone the local police as 5 “Kinect for Xbox One in action - YouTube.” 2013. 26 Sep. 2013 <http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=j7GBUeHv_Ts> 6 “Kinect 2.0 Voice Hear Demo - YouTube.” 2013. 26 Sep. 2013 <http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rYF9kpZ5xqs> 138 2013 1st Buddhist Youth Forum: Happiness and Peace soon as it senses a robbery taking place, murder, rape attempt, or a handgun. Of course fine-tuning has to be implemented to distinguish between a toy gun and the real one and TV shows with Augmented Reality. The user can also call off the call within 3 seconds if it was a false alarm. QuMind has the combined ability to scan brainwaves and MRI activities of the brain. There are maps of emotions with MRI scans7 and brainwaves can be used to help quantify meditation experiences8. Together these features allows for various applications9 to be developed for QuMind other than what is intended by Ahhb. An example from the cited source is gaming and manipulation of devices for the disabled, and it might be possible to communicate even with comatose patient with this too! Immersive gameplay abilities like that of oculus rift10 will attract hardcore gamers and users new to gaming for the novel experience of really being in the gaming world. It means total coverage of the eyes, and that the screen will turn along with the user’s neck in real time and is almost 180 degrees wide, with a possible 3D inclusion. Augmented reality means that the user can see reality as it is and go online or have digital interfaces alongside it at the same time. This is the core idea of google glass11. Both features will be in QuMind, allowing users to play Ahhb the way they like it. The internet function of QuMind is essential for it to be a replacement for smartphones and other devices like tablet and even a chromebook12! Anything you can do online, you can do it on QuMind too. With video graphic cards and processors made for high end gaming and storage media of SSD (Solid State Devices) made for storing hours of videos, QuMind certainly has what it takes to be a portable hat computer too if needed. Other than the obvious wifi connectivity and phone accessibility, QuMind will also feature bluetooth and streetpass13 like the Nintendo 3DS. The streetpass feature can exchange smiles and well meaning messages across to complete strangers, breaking the unfriendly barrier in society due to fear of criminals. Toxic behaviour (foul languages etc) can be fixed by allowing only well behaved users to access and broadcast their streetpass messages and other exchanges in the game. Also a tribunal system like how League of Legends did with their system can be implemented and experimented upon to help reduce toxic behaviour and promote a beautiful, healthy society 7 “INSIDE STORY: MRI Scans.” 2006. 26 Sep. 2013 <http://www.insidestory.iop.org/mri.html> 8 Williams, Bryan. “A Glimpse into the Meditating Brain.” 9 “Surveyor Connect | Facebook.” 2013. 27 Sep. 2013 <https://www.facebook.com/SurveyorConnect/ posts/472627552796648> 10 “Oculus Rift - Virtual Reality Headset for 3D Gaming | Oculus VR.” 2012. 27 Sep. 2013 <http://www. oculusvr.com/> 11 “Google Glass - What It Does.” 2013. 27 Sep. 2013 <http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-it-does/> 12 “Introducing the new Chromebook - Google.” 2010. 27 Sep. 2013 <http://www.google.com/chromeos> 13 “StreetPass - The Nintendo Wiki - Wikia.” 2011. 27 Sep. 2013 <http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/ StreetPass> 139 2013 1st Buddhist Youth Forum: Happiness and Peace for the users of QuMind14.