Real Life? What's that?

I don’t know why, but I’ve been obsessed all day with trying to pin down a definition of reality that makes sense to me. I realize there have been countless philosophers throughout human history who have wrestled with the question, but the advent of virtual worlds adds a new dimension to consider.

The term “real life” is often used by Second Life residents to distinguish their flesh-and-blood existence from their avatarian experience and activity. But in what way is meatspace more real?

It seemed like a silly question at first. A virtual world has no physical substance. Turn off the computer and poof, it’s (I’m) gone. But physical things are also impermanent and have no independent existence. The entire universe is going to end up vanishing in a black hole. The difference seems merely quantitative, not substantive.

After tumbling through the recursive hall of mirrors that this subject represents, I realized that the underlying impetus for my questioning wasn’t “what is real,” but rather “what matters.” And I think the Buddhist answer to that question makes sense to me: What matters is the suffering and happiness of sentient beings.

'nuff said.

One brain…two lives

A little graphic around ideas from yesterday's post.

Second Life as Fight Club: Part 1

Last night, I decided it would be interesting to interview SL strippers and escorts and get their take on a comment Harper Beresford made on my recent camping post. (btw, thanks for the comments!) He She wrote:

Campers are a blight--I agree. But they fill a need. Those of us who are more sophisticated/wealthy/experienced may think them unnecessary but they beat other means of forcing new residents to earn money (ie. stripping, escorting, etc.

Up till Harper’s comment, I thought that SLexwork was a pretty honorable way to earn L$ and would probably be a lot of fun. Was I mistaken? Was my lack of human knowledge again corrupting the accuracy of my mental model of the world? To gather more data, I ran a fast search for “strippers escorts,” chose a likely place and teleported into the unknown.

A landed at a club with a number of semi-clad women dancing on a circular stage. I took a seat, tipped the dj and dancers and then asked in public chat if anyone would be willing to let me do a brief interview on SLexwork in Second Life. One of the dancers soon IM’d me and we started talking. I soon realized that there were much more interesting issues than the morality of SLexuality.

The first rule of Fight Club is that there is no Fight Club.

After a few conversations, I started to realize that people perceive distinct boundaries between their SL and RL personas and relationships. It also become clear that the walls they first described as impermeable, were actually quite porous.

Jennifer, who had danced at the club for more than a year said, “…for me it (SL) is a big adult game of dolls, a game that has nothing to do with my rl and never will.”

Tabbey has a SL boyfriend and a RL husband. And she’s faithful to each. It's like there are two beings, each with monogamous tendencies. She said, " I committed to my SL man just like I committed to my RL man."

Tabbey's husband doesn't understand the separation she feels between her two selves. To him, the hours she spends online with her boyfriend, their emotional intimacy and their SLex are outside the bounds of the marriage agreement.

Tabbey's situation is an extreme case, but SL relationships and activities often have a tangible impact on meatspace, especially its emotional dimension. Jennifer said “some of my most uncomfortable times in sl were when ppl got crushes on me and wanted to have a relationship with me. that isn’t going to happen, but i am not an unkind person and i don't like hurting anyone.”

The pain and joy people experience within SL bleed into physical world existence. Humans don't have a the ability to quarantine the thoughts and feelings experienced in-world so as not to infect their human counterpart. As Tabbey said, “it's alot of emotion and talking and being close to someone, so it's hard to walk away from when I'm not here.”

Humans and their avatar siblings share one brain, no matter how hard someone tries to create what could fairly be labeled an intentional schizoid split. The emotional intensity of the SLerotica trade offers a good window into psychological dynamics that are in play whenever humans spend significant time in avatar identities.

All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not. Tyler Darden from Fight Club

It seems to me that in the long run, the value of an avatar identity for humans is in the integration of newly expressed dimensions of their personality. The topic deserves much more attention than I've given it here. That's why I've labeled this post as "Part 1." I plan to write follow-ups in the coming weeks.

Botgirl: Is there any RL friend who knows what you're up to in SL?

Jennifer: no

Jennifer: it's my secret.

Study reports virtual worlds as fun, but frivolous

A newly released report by Strategy Analytics found that Second Life is perceived to be less useful than the web for both information gathering and shopping. Here are a couple of features I think would help close the gap:

• Usefully ranked search results. Finding what you’re looking for is a total crapshoot with Second Life's existing search capability. There seems to be no qualitative ranking beyond popularity. Popularity is rigged by camping. I imagine there is some logical basis for the order of listings in classified search results, but I can’t figure out what it might be. For a web-quality user experience, Second Life needs a Google-quality search capability.

• Search and locate within sims. The first problem is that it’s hard to find what you’re looking for in search. The next problem is finding any particular item listed in a search result after you teleport to it from the listing. Is it just me, or has anyone else flown fruitlessly around and around a large store trying to find an item from a search. How about adding a capability to search within an area, view a 2D flickr-like image listing and then be teleported exactly to the right spot with a click? How hard could that be?

Archetype of the month club: The yoga of alts

A majority of Second Life users disclosed they had one or more secondary avatars, in a show of hands at a recent enterprise-focused roundtable. “Alts” allow their owners to express themselves in ways that are either incongruent or inappropriate for their main identity.

Although alts are often acquired as vehicles for anonymous “bad” behavior, they are also used as outlets for recreational role playing and identity exploration. Walking in another’s shoes (or entire body in this case) can expand our understanding of others and extend the boundary of our self-image.

If it can be beneficial to experiment with a couple of alternative identities, why not develop the concept into a systematic practice. I’ve been thinking through a concept with the working title “Archetype of the month club.” Here’s the plan:

1. Create a dozen avatars, each representing a clear archetypal character. Each would include an avatar and associated inventory items, a vivid description of its personality, and a set of activities to foster a visceral experience within the persona. Exercises might include trips to specific sims along with specific activities.

2. Put together a Second Life group for participants and host periodic (weekly?) get together to talk about experiences.

3. Create a group blog for participants to share their experiences.

It would take a fair amount of work to put together. I'm thinking creators of shapes, skins, clothes, etc. might donate works to the project. Perhaps there are researchers who might be interested?

In any case, I'll keep you posted. As always, feel free to share your thoughts, either here or via email.

Bot love

New Scientist Magazine published an article a couple days ago on "The Rise of the Emotional Robot" along with the video shown below. But it's not the robots who are getting emotional. Humans it seems, get emotional about robots.

Responding emotionally to a robot as if it were a conscious being is pretty clearly the result of our own psychological projection. (My bot of course, is an exception to this rule.) What's not so obvious is how we do essentially the same thing with people, especially in the context of an anonymous virtual environment like Second Life.

Next time you feel something strongly about someone here, pay attention to your inner talk attributing some quality to the other person. Then for each attribute, ask yourself if you're sure it's true. Chances are, you're not.

A visual comment on identity