The Blackberry Walk

Everything is just a simulation, man... is the plot to many an anime. SAO is simply a video game which is in turn a focused simulation of reality. Focused since the world simulated revolves around a single thematic mechanic and, as a result, a motive emerges. Every game needs a motive, after all, otherwise there is no 'point'. Life has no inherent meaning but becomes a game when you have a purpose. Another feature of a game is for it to be an abstraction of reality. When you are playing tag, you don't want to consider any more than capturing another person. As simulations go, tag is a very basic one. MMOs, on the other hand, are highly complex games with a far greater expansion into the mechanics of the real world however there are still prescriptive oversimplifications. An example from the show is when a discarded sandwich disappears instead of breaking into pieces or rotting. The top-down mechanic exists since the discrete variable or "isEaten" or "isRotten" can be enabled however the continuous processes which make these events occur such as mastication or bacterial infestation are not happening. These bottom-up processes are holy evolutionary since no one decided that food must rot. However a little microbe found a space in the market for digesting food. Therefore, unlike real life where we are governed by the laws of physics from below and the law from above, in the world of Sword Art the laws of physics also becomes a top-down phenomena. The repercussions of this are huge. In codified systems, there are always loopholes. For instance, the bug wherein someone can be killed in their sleep by tricking them into duel demonstrates the potential problems with creating a world of prescriptive worlds. Man is not god and can't conceive of every eventuality. God as a concept is the complexity of evolutionary systems and only a mighty good simulation could pull that off. The very laws of physics weren't written down in a cosmic notebook, after all; they are our descriptions of how we perceive the world. Yet surely if a good enough simulation was created, say the matrix, then how could we ever tell the difference between prescriptive and descriptive laws of the world? That all depends on whether you believe in a god. If a creator is involved, the world has an entity to prescribe laws else the laws evolutionarily manifest. But that's beside the point, Sword Art is a game, not a simulation and every game needs a creator in order to decide the rule set and objective. When I started watching the show (to be my 10,000 episode) it struck me as bizarre as to why anyone would leave the gates and go adventuring. Excluding the understanding that everyone's bodies are wasting away, which most wouldn't think about, why wouldn't everyone just find a profession in the city and live their days peacefully? When you understand that dying is just regular dying since this is the new world, the number of people who hamfistedly jump into combat is mental. But then you take a step back and realise this is what oh so many people do. If you die in the army you die in real life. Yet all of these people are neets. They love war in concept but they could never do it since they aren't strong and oh no they could die. And what do we have here. Basically the same thing. Anyone can become a warrior if the time is right or if they're thrust into the thick of it. Many of these MMO junky neets have the souls of warriors yet the soul finds different ways to manifest depending on the environment. In our world, the world made them MMO neets yet the world of Sword Art turned them into warriors.