Saturday, September 27, 2008

Avatars want to be free

7 comments:

  1. Avatars don't "want" anything - they don't have a mind, they don't have desires... they don't have wants. They are just puppets. A puppet master may say "My puppet wants popcorn" but that want never came from within the puppet; it was projected from the puppet master.

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  2. In the literal sense I agree with you; however, from a figurative perspective, avatars want to be free in the same way that data wants to be free.

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  3. Even for the human being behind the virtual form, it still comes down to the question of which is more important: the meat, or the mind behind it.

    In the hands of the most creative among us, an avatar may actually take on a life of its own; since it lives in a world with fewer limitations, it may even open up avenues of expression unknown to its inhabitant.

    No wonder avatars want to be free. There's a whole new world out to discover out there, and time's a wastin'.

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  4. The way I use the words, avatars are soulless puppets to exactly the same degree that bodies in the atomic world are soulless puppets. No significant difference between the two. :)

    People want to be free. To be free both in their SL avatars and their RL bodies.

    And did you notice how her eyes follow the cursor around? Woot! :)

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  5. chrome and dale: For sure! Our bodies, both physical and virtual are vehicles for the person...for the mind.

    People WANT to be free in both bodies. In atomic form, mind can change, but the body is fairly fixed. As avatars, the form is almost infinitely changeable and can take our minds places it could not otherwise conceive of or experience.

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  6. All the world over, so easy to see
    People everywhere just wanna be free....

    Hey, Bot, check out this new development in the area of avatar rights on:
    http://mojozone.mikimojo.com

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  7. Perhaps our avatars are intelligence set free? In the virtual world we meet each other as pure intelligence decorated in metaphors? Avatars can potentially become our free selves, whilst simultaneously liberating themselves from us?

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A beautiful thought experiment personified through the imagined perspective of a self-aware avatar. My creator's site can is at http://fourworlds.tumblr.com