What drives people do to anything?

What motivates people?

I got through High School. My goal was to get into college. And I had to get into a prestigious college. Now I don't know where this motivation came from. Did I really want to go to a college? My parents are very open and really only want what is best for me. As my career in High School began to end my grades dropped. I got senoritus. No I wasn't going to parties and I wasn't doing drugs. My life was the same thing as it had ever been, but I didn't care about school anymore. I got into a college I thought was adequate, and I knew I only had to keep Cs to get in. I really didn't care for my GPA past me getting into college. My parents want me to go to college but what they want is the best for me. To do well in the business world you need a good education.

But why do I care? Am I motivated to get a job solely because it is necessary to survive?

I would like to find something that fascinates me. I am able to intently focus on certain things, when they engage me. I could work on airsoft, video games, golf, or video projects for school with a vicious intensity. But wow, these are all hobbies and things to do in my free time. So does this mean I can get a job just to bring in money and then my free time is the only time I am happy in my life?

I think if I could get through school, most nearly anything would interest me, if I had the knowledge behind it. I am only looking with my limited field of vision into these topics and what I see doesn't engage me.

Other people that I see are intently motivated. I must find out what drives them. I don't understand. The thought of doing work I hate to get a job does not motivate me. And so far, all I have found is work I hate. If I can't get through college, I don't get the job.

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In addition, life is full of choices. Lots of guys around here, and even the girls, have lives that either revolve around alcohol, parties, sex, or video games. Mostly immoral for the most part. Then they go back to shitty lives doing boring school work. I know its not boring for everyone, but most people at this point in time are sick of their freshman classes, and from what i have seen It doesn't get much better.

I am constantly given the opportunity to go hang out and drink with people on a weekly basis. Some people are addicted to its social aspects. Are people so vain as to feel that the only way that they can really get to know other people is by getting so wasted that their true emotions come out? Do people like losing that control? I don't understand. And all through the week they just talk about how to get wasted on the weekend. I could care less for the legal aspect, if I wanted to drink, I would, and I feel the law that makes drinking only legal for 21+ only creates an underground market for those drinkers in an unsafe environment.

I think college for the most part pushes people towards immoral ends.

I stopped going to church since I've been in college. I have religious, moral, and scientific conflicts and the rigidity of the church makes me angry. Having an individual tell me, believe what i say, or go to Hell, is hard to believe, true or not.

I have not been really motivated. I was looking for something better in college. And I have yet to find it.

Ontology is a study of conceptions of reality and the nature of being. In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek ὤν, genitive ὄντος: of being (part. of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία: science, study, theory) is the study of being or existence and forms the basic subject matter of metaphysics. It seeks to describe or posit the basic categories and relationships of being or existence to define entities and types of entities within its framework.

Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology>

I just got back from a presentation by Professor Lynch on Ontology. It is really pretty interesting.

Ontology is aimed more at social games because it tends to deal with models that are less of games and more of toys. Games like the Sims or Civilization or other games that can be classified more as toys. It is particularly exciting to see this as a new emerging social interaction between people. The internet is changing. Exchanging of information is becoming faster, more readily available, and more user friendly in some senses. The opportunities are expanding.

Building AI for games has been and continues to be a challenge. Since AI are generally only seen for 8 to 12 seconds, they can reasonably be faked. Games are progressing at an amazing rate towards being highly photo realistic. Our minds see the pixels of a fridge, and it is a fridge. We see people, and we connect them to real human beings. The brain is very complicated and is able to intake huge amounts of information with facial emotion alone. So while playing games, we now see players that are photorealisitic, but don't act like humans. Something is wrong. Ontology is looking for ways to make NPCs (Non Playing Characters) seem intelligent, even if they aren't. One way to do this is to build up libraries of interactions, if this then with trees flowing out of possible options. The problem with stories is that stories are linear and games that run on stories are linear, which makes them run on rails. Games full of interesting characters with detailed lives and stories but no direct plot (because the plot is supposed to emerge from the character's personalities) generally fail because they have no plot. The player just bumps around some interesting characters, but nothing happens.

I am quite interested in total immersion. I think it would be absolutely fascinating to be able to live in a virtual world. I am looking at something more like what was presented in the Matrix, where you are completely and totally immersed. While there is ongoing research on virtual reality, it will be many more years before we are able to achieve something remotely close to that. We can however create worlds that are not as entirely immersive.

The Sims was a major breakthrough in new a new type of genre. The player interaction makes the game more of a toy than anything else. Look at how the internet is evolving today. People enjoy sites such as facebook and myspace and blogging because it is a convenient way to network with all of their friends. What if that could all be done in 3D? What if the internet was in 3D? What if you could visit worlds where you projected yourself into there and you could chat and express ideas in a way merging 3D with the flat 2D text of the internet?

Virtual and Movement oriented games and computer interaction is going to be the human computer interaction of the future. Maybe some of the stuff may look nerdy, geeky, and useless now, but one has only to look at the popularity of the Wii, DDR, and Guitar Hero to see that these new methods of player interaction work well. People want to immerse themselves, escape from the world, relax, concentrate on the game. Adding the movement allows them to dive in far easier. In addition, it makes playing games with friends more fun.

What if you had to navigate the web with a 3 dimensional mouse? A joystick? Are these ideas so far off? Are we so narrow minded to think that with the discovery and invention of the keyboard and mouse that we have discovered the best and most efficient way to transfer information, thoughts, and ideas?