Should we or shouldn’t we?
- Let’s help!
- Let’s talk about it.
- BAN them now before it’s too late!
- Uh, can I get back to you on that later?
Dear Ben and I-Love-Philosophy members, 
Surely it’s best to be candid about any ulterior motives one is aware of at the very start of a philosophical essay, thus providing both a token of honest intent and a context within which to develop an argument, which having a ready-made devil’s advocate built in may be balanced to razor-edged nicety, that cuts to the heart of one’s philosophical obsession to clarify issues and reveal truth. For is it not one primary purpose of philosophy to clarify that we may better understand? 
What we are obsessed with has a history many pieces of which are now publicly available on our two web logs. The first, based more in the wife’s passion, as it was our initial attempt at blogging, began presenting the story of our discontent with emotional incoherence and gradually gained focus and acumen at blog space communication. Here’s its current form: Let’s use PG LOVE role play only to protect kids from cyber abuse (http://pearllong.blogspot.com/). The second, much more recent attempt by the husband at stepping back and taking a more dispassionate look at the problem, reveals that freedom from those righteous emotions may sill be quite some ways beyond us. Just a few posts, to which this current essay will also be added, show our own philosophical heroine characterized in: Hypatia Theon’s Philosophical Investigations (http://hypatiatheon.blogspot.com/). So far Hypatia Theon has been more successful at alienating potential allies by her advocacy of involvement in our crusade than at engaging other discussants in extended platonic dialogs. Perhaps Hypatia Theon must first transcend our desire for real engagement in political activism to change an evil, as we consider a policy that we believe fosters cyber exploitation by mature adults of innocent children, and indicate an ideal of abstract discussion free of urgency for philosophical activism? (Furthermore, is this term “philosophical activism” itself an oxymoronic betrayal of confusion between our intuition and our logic? I.e, our intuition already sees reason to act while our logic requires prior collection of facts then careful analyzes of those followed by strategic and tactical considerations before moving on.) 
Summarizing the key points for those lacking time or patience to investigate links, as well as to confirm estimations of our viewpoint by intrepid investigators who did take the time to look and contemplate:
We are currently barred, though it may be possible to change that soon with a better understanding of internet technicalities and resources, by both IP ban (of our local net?) and CD key ban of two out of three sets we now own of NWN (Neverwinter Nights currently game version 1.65.8066 English with Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of Underdark installed) from the internet world of Amia, both the forums at AmiaWorld.net (http://amiaworld.net/) and the game site itself at IP:204.11.47.24:5121 last time we could check it, though that information must be readily available to anyone not banned from the forum, so we could simply check from a computer in another building, and have done so recently confirming no changes yet other than the removal of that Team-America porno link that we credit to our feeble efforts at casting light on the situation as described on the first blog, which was just one small step in our campaign to make Amia world a safer place for children to play and a more relaxed atmosphere for adults to enjoy their role play in as well. Now as advocates of action we seek to engage others in our quest to make the world a better place to live and play in. 
Why should all of this be of any interest at all to philosophers, when in fact it’s quite easy to see chronicled in our blogs that our first investigators of choice (http://pearllong.blogspot.com/2005/05/another-creative-attempt-to-solve-this_24.html) were, quiet logically IOHO, journalists or public officials such as police in the town of Plano, Texas, where the company hosting the Amia is located? 
Well indeed answering that question of philosophical relevance would be the purpose of this current thread and any others this ESSHOC, a new incarnation of ~E, who has lost his disputational venue, might start. Amia world, an emergent reality within this reality, referring to whatever is taken by one to be the real world in which we dwell, is an excellent model, at least, or an actual reality of its own, at best, within which to investigate many philosophical questions in those traditional academic arenas of Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics, not to forget those popular here at I-Love-Philosophy, the social sciences, natural sciences, psychology and religion. In brief: 
- Metaphysically there is the problem already alluded to above of the reality of these worlds within worlds like Amia. Are they merely created by the intelligent design of human programmers, or does the participation of many minds and “The One” (if one is a believer) result in the emergence of a higher level of existence?
- Epistemologically there arises the question of self knowledge by the ubermind within which another mind arises. Here this may be the relationship between game player and character. Is this a mere literary knowledge like that of an author for a character in a story, or does the active engagement in in a game beyond even the unconscious creative sphere of any one human mind engender transcendent awareness or perhaps invoke the involvement of a “real” muse?
- Ethically there are many obvious questions involving potential exploitation of children and one’s duty when one becomes aware of these problems, so I’ll merely point out that deeper meta-ethical questions might be posed as well.
- In the social sciences, we’ve pointed out the dual economic basis of character motivation, which is loot and experience points for the hunters versus dream coins awarded for exemplary role play, leading to interesting political disputes among both characters in the game and players on the forums.
- As for the natural sciences, we must defer to computer “geeks” (Here intended in the positive sense of mavens.) who can enlighten us about the various physical limitations or augmentations, but we have a rudimentary knowledge of those scientific issues and so may attempt to at least frame some questions.
- Psychologically, we have submitted that our characters are not mere circumscribed manifestations of D&D rules in particular acts of literary creation, but that we are actually a multiple personality, not in a disordered sense but as a many-minds creative commune.
- Religiously, we embody in ourselves some interesting living contradictions, that have proved very difficult for other philosophers even to accept, of being simultaneously Christian and Buddhist in that the husband is a born-again Christian and ordained minister currently earning his salary by performing Christian weddings in a country that’s 98% non-Christian, as are therefore the couples he joins in marriage. Yet his spirituality has extended by engagement in zen and yoga with years spent in both meditation and more active pursuits such as giving away all his money and walking barefoot through the Himalayan Mountains clad in the orange robes of an Indian sadu carrying only a sleeping mat and begging bowl. Husband and wife are both now certified members of Nichirenshu though the wife was raised in Zenhhu as a samurai boy as occasionally still happens in traditional families with first-born daughters. Her father said, “Well I’d hoped for a son, but it can’t be helped, so I’ll just raise her like one,” and entered on her honseki (national registration) the samurai nickname Saemonnojo, The Guardian of the Left Gate, a famous samurai hero; however, in addition to this intensive training in martial arts technique and philosophy, the wife was also taught both English and Christian doctrine from her pre-school years by two neighbors who were, respectively, head of the English department and headmaster at a college spun off decades earlier from the English school of the Nagasaki Y.M.C.A. Surely, there are one or two spiritual questions worthy of philosophical investigation with which we are intimate?
Well, that should be enough food for thought to either get us started on the road towards philosophical insight, or banned from this forum as too hot to handle. You please be the judges because we’re obviously too subjective, ne? 
Regards, ESSHOC 
