Pokémon Go And Advaita

Once we accept that real and virtual worlds might exist with each other and the human mind may not be able to delineate where one ends and the other begins, it’s time to read Adi Sankara.

- Prithwis Mukerjee

POKEMON GO IS a relatively new computer game that has, since July 2016, taken the world by storm. As far as its rules go, it is not really different from computer games that have been around for the last 20 years—the player goes around locating and collecting objects of interest to earn game points. But the real impact is the introduction of an all-new level of technology whose potential is yet to be understood by most of us. Unlike every other computer game that you can play from the comfort of a desk or a couch, Pokémon Go needs you to walk around the neighbourhood with your smartphone and “catch Pokémons”. The catch here is that the game merges the virtual reality of Pokémons with the physical reality of the neighbourhood Google Map. Since the game is aware of your location, you need to walk down actual roads, turn past, or enter, actual buildings and then, and only then, will you “see” the Pokémon in your smartphone. If you turn on the smartphone camera, the game cleverly superimposes the hypothetical Pokémon that you want to catch on the actual image that the camera is showing so that it seems as if the Pokémon is really in the room or on the road. This is augmented reality—where the “virtual” is superimposed on the “real” in a way that makes it difficult to distinguish one from the other.