When I was five years old, I saw a Filipino man split his thumb in half lengthwise and move the tip back and forth. This was my first experience with Magic. Later, I would repeat the trick with my index finger, only there would be blood spraying and children screaming. As for the Filipino, he didn't actually cut his finger in half. Even at five years old I understood that there was some kind of trick here. He did it again, obviously pleased with himself for being able to so easily delight the child he was babysitting. Do it again, I asked. Once again, he brought his two hands together, split his right thumb using his left index finger, and separated the two parts. He shook his bisected thumb slightly, clearly indicating that his finger still functioned as it should, despite the obvious gap between the pieces. He brought his thumb together and reassembled it, then showed me another magic trick. He correctly guessed, every time, which card I had drawn from a deck of playing cards, without him seeing which one I had taken. Over and over, he repeated the trick for me until I couldn't stand it anymore and begged him to show me how it was done. And the thumb thing, I had to know how it worked. Later that year, my father took me to a magic show. Oh boy, a REAL wizard! It was a great thing - getting dressed up, walking around town, buying tickets and going into the theater - groups of children were running up and down the isles between the seats, echoing my own excitement. Except I wasn't running around and screaming like kids do at that age, it just wasn't right. Pushing down on the spring-loaded seat that rose up if left alone, I sat and waited. My father was sitting next to me. I had fun with various things... middle of paper... I get it. The personal relationship between the words on a page and the person reading it, for example. The way you lose track of time when you're engrossed, really engaged, in a game or a comic or a movie. The word "qualia" is used to describe the "subjective quality" of conscious experience. The taste of your favorite food, the beauty of a pleasant color combination. What you find you find in a video game. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for something that couldn't be more familiar to each of us: the way things appear to us." With something as immediate and immersive as a video game, the magic is quite personal. And as unique as the person playing. Every time I see the scar on my left index finger, running from the tip of my finger, through my fingerprint, to my palm, I wonder if I should have said no to that Filipino man.