Reality versus Virtual Reality. The great battle or the great evolution? This possibility has been lurking in my mind ever since I heard of Second Life. You see, Second Life fascinates me. I am something of a Luddite when it comes to technology and it physically hurts to try and comprehend the concept of Second Life. I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine a moment ago. Realityman came round to visit and I promptly mind-raped him with discussions on individual free will versus the expectations of society while all the time he was dying to go to the toilet.
A part of me knew that he was in pain, a part of me which giggled as he continually crossed and re-crossed his legs out of politeness.
Anyway, moving on from my sadism, we eventually started talking about Second Life. The reason this particular area interests me is that I am increasingly of the opinion that this is an equally valid universe, as real as this one.
I don't participate in Second Life or Metaplace or any virtual world, so my assertion may seem strange. However, during my discussion with Realityman over why people log in and live online, I asked him what people on there actually do. He informed me that there are people who actually discuss their first life and others who resolutely refuse to allow their first life to interfere with their Second Life (or is that the other way round?).
This made me curious. I always thought that Second Life was a way of escaping, like a holiday from your real life, so why take it with you? Then it occurred to me that, even when you go on holiday, you take yourself with you: your neuroses, experiences and unfortunate reactions to spicy foods are all there as you bask in the sun of a far-off land. The same could be said of Second Life - we cannot change ourselves completely.
So, what about those who do live a different life online? The ones who pretend to be dragons or elves? Runescape's 130 million users shows that there are a lot more of these people out there than you'd expect. The appeal may be primarily that it is a game, but the chance to immerse yourself in a world so completely different from this one can't be dismissed as its selling point, either. I realised that underneath the scales and giant ears, these people must have the same personality traits. I have never understood the phrase "act out of character" - if it was outside of your character, how could you do it? What people really mean is "exhibited behaviour not commonly shown by that person". Virtual worlds, for the online pixies and lapdancers, are a means of acting out this side of themselves (I'm sure there's a part of everyone which just wants to swing round a stripper's pole, by the way).
What I was debating with Realityman was why Second Life couldn't be thought of as a real life, to define "real". He argued that reality for him was being able to interact with real people, for the five senses to be stimulated. Try as you like on Second Life, a virtual stripper isn't going to be quite the same as a real one - if porn is a poor substitute for sex, imagine how an awkwardly gyrating lapdancer compares.
I tried the Socratic method and asked him why this made Second Life less real (it might be noted that the Socratic method is to constantly question in order to create debate and expose nonsensical thinking. It should also be noted that Socrates was not a popular man and was eventually sentenced to death by his own hand. Well, if you had a small child constantly asking, "Yeah, but why?...Why?...Why?", you see how long it takes you to get annoyed. And Socrates was a full grown man doing this to important politicians. My point is, I expect my use of his methods to make me unpopular). Because I very much believe there is an argument for Second Life to be considered "real" life.
The idea that Second Life is not real because you can't taste or touch is a valid point. We learn by crashing through the world and recording it all through our senses. My argument is that Second Life is just a different kind of real. We experience things in this life through our bodies - in Second Life, we experience things through our computers. Both are instruments controlled by our brains, minds shut off from the environment around us. We just register the information in a different way.
At this moment you're probably thinking, "How am I shut off from my surroundings? Look, I can pick up this pen. See the pen, going up and down? Up and downy, up and downy... There you go then." But we are cut off from our environment. The person you are in your head is very rarely exactly the person who walks and talks and orders take-aways from the Spice Of Life. Thank Christ, frankly - if I said precisely what I thought all the time I'd have been hung by mobs some time ago. Well, I'd at least have been excluded from certain social gatherings. Oh yes, tea parties are my bitch.
My point is that the only thing making Second Life a fake world is our belief that it isn't real. This isn't the point where I ask you to clap to resurrect a zombie Tinkerbell. Realityman said that you could have a fully fledged existence in Second Life, but only if you could become two different people, keeping the two worlds separated so that each experience in each world was segregated from the other. That way you keep separate identities. But don't we already do that? I have many different parts to play, but only feel "real" when with my friends and family. So, is the me at work a complete fiction? Do those I teach have a fake education because that's not really "me"? I might add that, with the amount of students I have who continue to need support despite (or because of ?) my teaching, this may not be a bad argument.
So, why can't the me in a virtual world be just as real? All I'm doing is interacting in a different way. Hell, if I choose to be Shemale, queen/king of the androgynous Malipi elf clan (it could happen), why isn't that real? I'm not talking online game worlds - there's already an acceptance that those are just for leisure, for fun. I'm talking about the people who choose to live as a character online. Because it wouldn't just be in my own head - there would be people out there participating in the same world, showing an acceptance of this life. Very sexually confused elf people.
We decided that this life, the one you wake up in, go to work in, argue with the wife in is real because this is the one in which we feel love and pain, but mostly because of the latter. We measure reality by how crappy it is - it if hurts, it's real. In Second Life, there is no disease or war (perhaps there will be one day - we take who we are with us, after all) , thus it cannot be real. Or maybe this is just a reality where terrible things don't have to exist, at least for now.
Perhaps virtual worlds don't demand as much emotionally, but this could be because we haven't learned to do that yet; we're badly judging things by standing the worlds side by side. Compare the pain of a papercut to the pain of breaking your leg - well, sure, the former is going to seem insignificant compared to the latter. Doesn't make it any less real, though, does it? Maybe that's the same for virtal worlds; perhaps they are poor versions when compared to this life, but that doesn't mean they are less real. For some, it may be the case that they only feel alive when in the virtual worlds.
Eventually, perhaps some people will choose the virtual worlds as their only reality. After all, reality is what you make of it. But then where would you escape to - Real Life? Holiday from your perfect existence by pretending to be an accountant working in a shitty cubicle for an unsympathetic boss. WorldOfShit.com - there's potential there, you know.
6 comments:
I am, as you know, a sad SL addict. Worse than Realitygay is. He can log off without twitching.
I signed up to SL for one reason: to make myself into a hottie. And I did, I am so hot in SL that just looking at my avatar makes me sad that I will never be as hot in RL. That's real life, by the way.
But then you discover the people and the emotions, you realise that the only reason SL exists is so that you can do things and speak to people that you'd never have the opportunity to do in RL. For example, some of my best friends in SL are as follows: An ex-managing director from Boston, a call centre worker from Arizona, a police detective from South Carolina, a network manager from Ohio, an English student from Surrey... etc
I found people so lovely they make my heart ache. I never planned to tell anyone who I *really* was but after about a year of knowing them, and of them knowing me and all my flaws and weirdnesses, there seemed little point in hiding the fact that my real name was Katey too and I worked for a telecoms company. I mean, what difference does it make?
You are the person you are, and if you're trying to play a character then great but if you were that amazing an actor you'd be making a career out of it. And the people you meet are as real as the pen you're waving around to prove a point, they're just in a different package.
If you sat in a white room, by yourself, completely unstimulated, would your world be a real world?
It's a real as you let it be, as real as you make it. It exists, you can experience it, it's just not in a conventional format.
Ms Fake, I think you should get an avatar just to experience it :)
I am tempted to wander through it. However, I get the feeling I would just visit the same places after a while,. much like most people only really visit 6 favourite websites in a day.
I've just had a thought (just the one) - perhaps the beauty of Virtual Worlds is that they offer a freedom from your history. Online, no one knows you drew all over a friend while he was asleep and poured water over his crotch to make him think he wet himself (ahem) or that you passed wind very loudly in a church when you were a kid (I was only 6, gimme a break). You've got the opportunity to be judged purely for your personality and how your present that is up to you.
i was on second life for a half hour. I went to a strip club, a sex club and a gay beach.When it dawned on me that i was watching pixellated characters twirl around i lost interest
If it doesn't feel real, then what's the point? I suppose, like Kate said, it depends on why you go on there in the first place.
That was the mistake you made, Ms Pixie... you did things you can do in the real world. If you can do something for real, why don't you? SL is enjoyable when you do things you can't/don't want to do in the real world. That's why I've never had SL sex (what's the point? could it disappoint me any more than rl sex?) but I do DJ, which I wouldn't want to do in my real life
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