Midnight Update

Just wanted to let everyone know that I updated my paper today. But with this update, I have good news and bad news. Good news, I finished almost everything I wanted to say about the magic circle. Bad news, it's now up to 2,000 words. The reason this apparent good news is bad relates to the fact that I have only really delved into one mini-section of many on which I wanted to touch. Granted, I knew I would write more than 8-9 pages and I was planning on writing one major paper then condensing that into something for U.Discover, but I did not anticipate the paper to get this big, this quickly. So for this reason, I am currently planning on refocusing my presentation topic to something more like...

Rules of the Magic Circle: Ethical Judgments of Two Worlds.

or

Rules of the Magic Circle: Can We Make Ethical Judgments in a Virtual World?

Just a brainstorm idea for a title. Essentially, I will answer the same question I came in with, "how can cheating be unethical in a virtual world," but I will answer it in a different context. Instead of focusing on the ethical judgment of cheating, whether cheating itself can be ethical or not, I will look towards how a video game can be an "ethical body." (A term I use in my paper. Haven't read it...shame on you). Using the concept of the magic circle as well as the formal and informal rules of a game I will establish that a video game has certain codes which ought to be followed, similar to moral codes which we follow on a day to day basis. Moreover, I will also discuss the relationship of virtual ethics to our real ethics, for instance with cheating.

I know that this new topic does not have much to do with cheating specifically, but from my research and personal opinion, I just feel this is not only a much more pressing matter, giving video games an ethical context, it is also inherent to the ethical judgments of cheating. Before I can embark on evaluating if cheating in a video game is ethical or not, one must establish that playing video games produces an action which can be determined to be ethical or not. The prerequisite premise is too demanding to ignore.

As I stated before, I would still like to finish the paper in its entirety though U.Discover. Which means from I-V in the Outline. I mention this so that no one gets the impression that I am retreating from my original project or taking the easy way out. This is merely a way to present my research in a simple, focused, and understandable manner. It is also fortunate that most of what I am covering in the rules and magic circle sections of the paper tie into how we ethically judge cheating.

Hopefully I not making a bad decision on this one but I am hoping it will work out for the best for everyone,

B. F. Pons