It all started, and is continuing, with an article in Second Life Creativity named: Augmentation vs. Immersion. It is usually quoted and linked when one needs definitions of immersion and augmentation. That is the one that defines the tribes that usually misunderstands and confronts each other. Wrong!
This article, and a lot of residents after it, defines immersion as:
Your SL and RL identity are two different sides of you that should not mix.
And often, you'll see residents that identifies themselves as immersionists, as avatars who more or less ignore humans behind them, or state the complete difference. Nice, but that is the wrong use of the term. If we check Wikipedia, it says:
Immersion is the state where you cease to be aware of your physical self. It is frequently accompanied by intense focus, distorted sense of time and effortless action.
Which actually means that one is diving deeply into the world and feeling it to its potential. Just like enjoying a good movie or a book. Nothing says that you are supposed to hide your human under the table like you are ashamed of something. On the other hand, augmentation, according to SL creativity article is
that we have to stop thinking about SL and RL as different spaces. Such realizations are at the core of this philosophy.
According to the dictionaries, augmentation is about "an extension", human's extension into the virtual environment. Usually,"augmentationists" will state that there is no difference between their humans and avatars and that avatar is just a representation of oneself in the virtual world.
Last time we spoke about these, we got to the conclusion there is nobody on one of the extremes. We all fall somewhere in a spectrum between those two extremes. But that was because of wrong definitions we started with. Those two are not the extremes of the same spectrum. One, immersionism, is about how good one communicates with the depicted environment. And it largely depends on your imagination and concentration. It doesn't depend much on whether your avatar is looking like your human does. You can be fully immersed with the augmentative avatar. You can immerse with squid avatar too. Or you can do crap job and feel like a human in front of the monitor looking at crappy 3D graphics, no matter if your avatar is a digital representation of you or anything else. It is, after all, your world – your imagination.
But, please, don't bend the meaning of the terms. It just adds to confusion and makes problems where we don't need them. Thank you.
Good post, looks like we both got some benefit from our last conversation. ^_^ I think both terms are being used and abused a lot lately, which is why I think we should focus more on smaller, more easily definable goals and beliefs that we hold regarding SL. Big definitions just aren’t that helpful.
This is a good and useful contribution to the discussion! Yesterday, Gwyn linked to that article, and I think it got us badly sidetracked (and got me snarked at by Grace, but I’m *so* over that now! :P )
Something I’m curious about is whether the difference is just a matter of how one scores on S/N axis of the Myers Briggs Type Inventory: I have a sneaking feeling that people who regard SL as just a telephone with cartoons are high S’s, and those who take the world on its own terms are high N’s.
One thing that Tom Bukowski said yesterday, that Argent reiterated in her post – there’s no “ought” in this debate, and no existential claims. Nobody can say “SL is this and not that” – we’re only disagreeing about the nature of our own subjective experiences. As Argent put it, nobody can say “No, you don’t really like the taste of Coke.”
Before Soph snapped at me (ahem, clearly we need counseling now) I was trying to make a larger point about the “definitions” and that is this: they should serve only as a framework about which we can start to understand the richness of possibilities that immersive spaces provide, not to box people or ideas in,and certainly not to be absolute in any way. The definitions in and of themselves are distinctions without merit, however they do provide a lens by which we can focus and attain a deeper appreciation for what it might be to be “wholly separate”, or what the implications are of not being such. These are important lessons, a stringent definition exercise is time and energy that could be better spent embracing the innovative ideas that might emerge if we are able to hold these seemingly juxtaposed (although not entirely so) concepts in balance.
Very poignant post, Dande! It’s issues like this which I feel have best kept me from being a ‘digital person’ or otherwise, though I must say that I much prefer that tender definition to ‘immersionist’. Again, my perspective is as puppet and puppeteer both. The distinction lays in the fact that all you will ever see of me is the puppet, and whileit may be creepy to know there is a big invisible hand that guides me about, this is a truth I cannot escape. The difference, perhaps, lies in what plane this puppeteer exists on. If you were to direct the core sense of ‘me’, you would not be addressing the doll, immersed in this world, not the human, augmenting some sort of will into the digital world via this avatar of sorts. I think you’d be addressing someone somewhere inbetween.
Argent, each and every conversation with you was beneficial to me :) Yes, we should focus on smaller terms and goals… like each of us realizing where he or she stands. That would be hell of a start.
Soph and Grace, I agree we all talking about our own personal experiences. But, beside realizing those are personal, thus not obligatory for the rest of the community, I thought it could be helpful to break that bad karma of misinterpreted terms. I don’t want to put ppl in boxes nor to stick labels on them, but having clear terms could be useful lighthouses in the dark.
Vids… yes, there is a person in between, some kind of Plato’s third man. I actually met mine in a weird situation I wrote about months ago. lately, I let my human sneak into the grid and even to tell a word or two. I should rethink the third person situation.
Actually, even before Henrik, who actually didn’t spend a whole lot of time really immersed in SL ( so I don’t think he ever “got it,”) came up with his famous definition, there was discussion on the old SL forums. And at some point, Aimee Weber came up with a rather snarky Macmillan Matrix sort of chart with Platform Party and World Party as the diametrically-opposed politics explaining the world. The platformists were people like herself, who had content businesses, had been in beta or were FIC in some other way, who used SL as they use PSP, who socialized and lived and even had partners, but kept a kind of meta attitude toward it, using it as artists, let’s say. They very much viewed SL not as a world or place or country, but as merely new media, a fun visualizing software that their friends the Lindens made for them to play with and where they could feel special. They sequed right from SL and blogs and new media into mainstream media which then reinforced their new media selves and hypertrophied their position.
Aimee, as a Platformist, looked down on the Worlders, including me, whom she disliked, in the World party, as I matter-of-factly took SL as a world. And I do that with a profound realism, in fact, and view Aimee’s ostensible augmentationalist use as the fantasy, removing her from a kind of tethering to the real world that I think many young people have lost today.
I don’t see why you can’t treat Second Life as one of those former Soviet countries ending in “stan,” that is making the slow but necessary transition to parliamentary democracy and a mixed economy. You live there, you have friends, you have a business, you repatriate your cash home — it’s a remittance economy or a venture capitalists’ economy until it becomes more robust. But you don’t keep pinching yourself and saying “it’s a game” and “what happens in Second Life stays in SL” as if it were Vegas. You do real stuff in it, you take it seriously, it has all kinds of realities. It has real consequences. But you don’t minimalize it and reduce it dismissively, as they do on Terra Nova, as just a place for people to go to stripper joints because “they have no lives”.
Now, who has no life? The snotty IT dude, the code monkey who comes out of his cubicle where he has sat for 9 hours, drives to Taco Bell for take-out, comes home, jerks off to somebody’s webcam live porn or video porn, stacks up some more cheese nachos in the microwave, and sits down and plays WoW?
Is HIS life real, because he scorns Second Life and knows games are really games, and doesn’t play house and isn’t an immersionist???
But a disabled artist who spends 10 hours a day in SL making a living and having relationships she couldn’t have in RL somehow “unreal”?
Modern life has removed the reality of real life, so that it’s easy to take on a second life.
I have to say, however, when I read Sophostyne’s emo notes about immersion, something was all wrong for me. I think it’s because I basically view people who make airtight avatars with sealant all over them against their real lives as somewhere in deep illusion — and that place of deep illusion isn’t in SL, where I believe it’s good for them to have illusion, but in their own hearts.
I used to think it would be great if there were a segregated place that was completely parallel and separate, like the mind and the spirit, from real life in the world, so to speak, but in time I was to see in TSO and in SL that this was a basic fraud. I found more and more people behaving abusively from behind their avatar selves. Lately, for example, my eyes have really been forced wide open to how many vicious manginas there are in SL, how hateful they are of women, how fake they are, how deceptive, and how unsuccessful their acts are. And for so long, I could maintain the disbelief and truly, honestly never wonder “Is she in fact he?” Really, the most profound form of violence that can be perpetrated on another human being in virtual worlds is to con them into thinking you are the opposite sex than what they imagine you to be — if you are in some kind of intimate relationship to them. It’s wrong.
In fact, I believe to play another gender isn’t a play, isn’t a fraud, isn’t a deception or a role-play for some people, that is, I know for myself it’s a form of expression, not subterfuge. I assumed for the longest time it was like that for others, and then the mask began slipping on some of them. Ugh. That’s actually made the whole virtuality thing seem pretty frayed at the edges these days for me, when it didn’t used to be. (Example: Pixeleen at the Herald.)
I think some people just don’t avatarize well. I can remember Benjamin Duranske telling me haughtily that his avatar was merely an email attachment. He didn’t seem to feel anything special or intrinsic about it, any more than I might feel about the avatar I happened to chose out of the deck at Yahoo email.
Will Wright said that people invest their consciousness into a toy when they have avatars. In a strange way, however, I think these avatars are separate beings, somehow. If you buy the theory of the “many Is,” perhaps they are an unconscious I or group of Is, but sometimes they seem to have a mind of their own, especially in clothing and faces.
The fact is, loads of less-educated people have absolutely no problem or dithering about coming in and immersing, and using SL as augmentation to some other thing they are doing like an office meeting is what will feel awkward or stupid. SL is like Mardi Gras for them, or one of those Slavic pagan holidays where all the young men and women in the village drink vodka and then run off into the forest naked, some separate autonomous zone where they think anything goes.
That fuck-you hedonistic spirit has taken on such an ugly edge in SL that I almost can’t bear to see some of it these days. The ad farm aggression and cynicism was particularly evocative of that spirit.
What I particularly hate is the knowing condescention that someone who has put the sealant on shows to everyone else. It’s very controlling and manipulative and must be seen as such. If you don’t tell a thing about your real life to even a close partner in SL, what the hell is wrong with you? You can pretend that you have this rich emotive digital life but you’ve performed some sort of lobotomy at some level. It’s one thing to avoid telling people in general your real life name and location — that’s just common good-sense Internet safety. It’s another thing to construct such an elaborate Second Life scarecrow of your avatar that you discourage genuine intimacy.
This conversation to me doesn’t seem to really be about immersion or augmentation at all, but about some people’s determination to hide and manipulate others, fearing vulnerability, fearing over-exposure.
And then the only thing that is worse than that is when packs of junkyard dogs mob them and tear their pants off to see what gender they are and Google witch-hunt them to find out their real life information to try to store up to lob at them on forums when they say something they don’t like.
Thanks for the comment.
I am fine with SLstan in the process of the transition. And, I have no illusions that that process is easy and painless. Actually, our comprehension of some of the basic terms here, and our stance will determine how that process will go and how successful it will be. At last, we know that this is not only a world or only a platform. Well, lot of us do. So, we made one step. As time passes things will change, and our stance will determine the destiny for each of us. As I commented on Soph’s blog, some already lost this game, i.e. had to leave because they were rigid and tried to impose their views upon the developing world.
You hit the point that some people just don’t avatarize well. That is fine with me as well, though I don’t understand what is point of using SL, with all the bugs, lag and processors burning when you can have a browser, Skype and a nice 3D prerendered wallpaper.
I personally talk about my human with a very very limited group of people. I came here to live my avatars, which I feel like an extension no matter how much they might look different from my meat body. And, for that reason, I don’t find it much interesting to get back to my human which already uses browser, skype and a nice 3D wallpaper. Beside that, I am not in the mood to ruin anybody’s immersion, my own included.
Though, my avatars origins in my human so some things are common… there is a fine line between security, privacy and playing/living an avatar.
Great comments.
A question: if some people “don’t avatarize well” and are therefore unable to immerse and are consequently “augmentationists”, does the converse also hold?
You mean is there problem in communication? That’s the tricky one. Then it is going back to Skype with some nice graphics. Sure that people can do a very good conversation in Skype, Question is only if they use the full potential. But we rarely use the full potentials of our tools.
I really wish I had gone to the debate. I’m sure that Soph defended immersion very well. I can’t help but disagree with Prokofy, though.
“What I particularly hate is the knowing condescention that someone who has put the sealant on shows to everyone else. It’s very controlling and manipulative and must be seen as such. If you don’t tell a thing about your real life to even a close partner in SL, what the hell is wrong with you? You can pretend that you have this rich emotive digital life but you’ve performed some sort of lobotomy at some level. It’s one thing to avoid telling people in general your real life name and location — that’s just common good-sense Internet safety. It’s another thing to construct such an elaborate Second Life scarecrow of your avatar that you discourage genuine intimacy.”
I’m wondering who exactly you are to tell people how to be intimate. Last time I checked intimacy is a very personal thing which is all about how two people interact and is not something that can or should be objectively analyzed.
You speak of condescention here, but then, in the next breath you engage in it yourself. I’m not meaning to engage in Ad-Hominem, but what you are doing here is an example of the condescention that immersionists endure from augmentationists all of the time. So, before you start accusing people of being condescending, I suggest you take a long hard introspective look at yourself.
No one here is being condescending to you. All they’re asking is for the right to be left alone to live their own lives in SL as they see fit. Like different cultures in meatspace, their way of life may not be yours and you have no right to force on them, nor they on you.
“This conversation to me doesn’t seem to really be about immersion or augmentation at all, but about some people’s determination to hide and manipulate others, fearing vulnerability, fearing over-exposure. ”
People have the right to be whatever they wish here. If some people want to, erroneously call it “hiding” or “manipulation” or whatever… then that is certainly their right. I don’t consider it hiding, I consider it a matter of expression. Immersionists are expressing a very deep and true part of themselves.
If they didn’t have that right, then why not tie all of the aspects of the avatar to the attributes of the human behind the avatar? Why not, indeed, use their real name and a body scan to generate the mesh to prevent them from exaggerating things (if you know what I mean *winks*)?
The fact is, they didn’t… and shouldn’t do that. Because the Lindens understood the need of people to discover their inner selves.. their other selves and no one has any right to dispute that or take it away.
Sincerely,
Anony Mouse
“Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” – Albert Einstein
[...] had been there. I think I would really have liked to have seen it. :) Please find the links here, and [...]
I’m sorry, but it’s not condescending to tell people named Anony Mouse that most of their ranks, if not them themselves, are manipulative arrogant asses in Second Life. Because they are. The sense of superiority that any human being will feel in disguise, that anyone on “stealth mission” can sense as power over others, is inevitable, is real. It would take a very special type of individual not to be abusive in this setting. And most aren’t special. They are commonplace, and they are predictable in their manipulations.
Not tell people how to be intimiate?! Oh, stop it, it’s not about that. It’s about defining what intimacy is. It isn’t intimacy if you don’t have a single thing to say from real life. Nothing. Not even a glimmer. I have real experience of this, so I know what I’m talking about. It’s not “condescension” but a report. Somebody who has created an avatar with a rich life that he claims has no relationship to his real life store of experience has performed a lobotomy — and an unnecessary lobotomy.
I very much defend the right of people to be anonymous, to have avatars of other genders, to be completely sealed if they like. That’s all well and good. It’s supposed to be second life. But when it comes to an intimate partner relationship, I think you cannot morally justify it if you are not telling the other person that you are the opposite gender, or that you have a partner in real life. You must take them into your confidence, and rely on them not to break the seal.
If this was morally justifiable, there wouldn’t be so many people hurt in Second Life — and justifiably hurt — by having this happen to them.
Try to make the distinction between the right — and need for some — to make an anonymous, private, RL avatar — and the inability to make the exception at least for that one special avatar. Between the right to seal and make firewalls — but NOT the right to use that status to harm another human being who doesn’t see behind the firewalls.
If five years ago I might have thought that two firewalled beings could legitimately engage in a genuinely moral and genuinely intimate relationship, today I don’t think that anymore. It’s because I have accumulated a vast collection of stories and experiences showing the exact opposite to be true. The truth about this has to be told. Those who keep zealously defending their right to deceive even very intimate partners are suspect.
This argument isn’t very interesting, however, as there will never be agreement on it. Those who manipulate and deceive are manipulative and deceptive, and will go to any lengths to keep their cover and keep their right to screw others under that cover. Nothing can be done about it except self-defense.
The more interesting debate is what is really accomplished with the sealed immersive avatar, outside the moral debate about intimate relationships. That’s really the crux of the issue, since the avatar’s life isn’t all about his or her partner but many more things.
People make all kinds of claims about their avatars, that they have helped them express things they couldn’t express in real life, that they do things that they can’t even physically do in real life, it’s as if the avatar has to endure this terrible burden of being a kind of guardian angel of the perfect self.
People have the right to be whatever they wish. I’m an immersive myself. I’m the opposite gender of my real life self. I don’t put my real life name on my profile. It’s not my wish to have my two names connected — that was violently taken away from me on the forums by the FIC, and with help from the Lindens, because they didn’t agree with what I say. I don’t think that not agreeing with someone’s speech is grounds for removing their anonymity. So I know a great deal more about this than you imagine.
But I don’t think your right to be your inner self or another created self then extends to the right to deceive others and manipulate them. The average avatar who encounters you as a completely different self isn’t manipulated and is operating with you on the plane of immersion that seems legitimate and necessary for a second life.
An intimate partner, however, has been deceived. They’ve bought the line, and have no clue. That’s manipulation, and that’s when your moral rectitude for genuine self-expression ceases, as it harms another.
Good comment on the definitions – Very important context on the road to understanding ‘both’ sides.
Prokofys fails to recognise the illusion in immersed, intimate relations is mutual, a choice of both parts aware of the environment and the kind of relation they’ve engaged in. If you are unaware of this but want to be, its your responsibility to find out thus breaking the immersion – and treating second life as that phone line between 2 physical bodies – the augmentist experience.
Immersion up to the point of a ‘virtual loving relationship’ does not only require the ability to “cease to be aware of your physical self” its also being able to the very same thing of your virtual partner.
If you’ve experienced this differently, you were well aware of your, and your ’significant others’ physical presence and thus not part of the mutual, immersive experience Anony Mouse is talking about. That’s okay of course, but you advocate a ‘one size fits all’ – which is obviously simply not the case in an immersive experience.
I’ve posted my notes on this interesting debate over here
“I’m sorry, but it’s not condescending to tell people named Anony Mouse that most of their ranks, if not them themselves, are manipulative arrogant asses in Second Life. Because they are. The sense of superiority that any human being will feel in disguise, that anyone on “stealth mission” can sense as power over others, is inevitable, is real. It would take a very special type of individual not to be abusive in this setting. And most aren’t special. They are commonplace, and they are predictable in their manipulations.”
Yes, it is condescending of you. I’m not being condescending to you at all… I respect your right to have your opinion, I’m just pointing out to you your own arrogance. I don’t feel a sense of superiority to anyone. I use the Anony Mouse “disguise” to protect myself and those I love from potential harassment by people who don’t agree with me. I, however, never let it affect how I treat people.
“Not tell people how to be intimiate?! Oh, stop it, it’s not about that. It’s about defining what intimacy is. It isn’t intimacy if you don’t have a single thing to say from real life. Nothing. Not even a glimmer. I have real experience of this, so I know what I’m talking about. It’s not “condescension” but a report. Somebody who has created an avatar with a rich life that he claims has no relationship to his real life store of experience has performed a lobotomy — and an unnecessary lobotomy.”
But you *are* trying to tell people how to be intimate by “defining it.” You are judging other people for their choices and you have no right to demand that they conform to your world view. I’m not being arrogant or condescending here, Prok, I’m only stating a fact.
“I very much defend the right of people to be anonymous, to have avatars of other genders, to be completely sealed if they like. That’s all well and good. It’s supposed to be second life. But when it comes to an intimate partner relationship, I think you cannot morally justify it if you are not telling the other person that you are the opposite gender, or that you have a partner in real life. You must take them into your confidence, and rely on them not to break the seal.”
I agree with the first part of this, but the second is up to the people involved in a given relationship. You’re certainly welcome to your opinion.
In the first paragraph you say that you think that I’m a “manipulative and arrogant ass” and “feel a sense of superiority” because I’m “in disguise” and, yet, here you’re saying you defend people’s right to be anonymous. Which is it? You’re confusing me, because you’ve just very directly contradicted your own previous statement.
“This argument isn’t very interesting, however, as there will never be agreement on it. Those who manipulate and deceive are manipulative and deceptive, and will go to any lengths to keep their cover and keep their right to screw others under that cover. Nothing can be done about it except self-defense.”
Yes… you found it so “uninteresting” you posted two replies to my comment. :) I stand by my above statements and I completely agree with Digado’s position (as stated in the comment here) as it accurately reflects my own.
Prok, feel free to have relationships in SL in the way you wish, but please do everyone a favor and don’t ask everyone to be the same as you. How we relate to each other in this world is up to each of us as individuals, couples and groups.
Sincerely,
Anony Mouse
“To protect and serve.” ;)
Prok,
“People have the right to be whatever they wish. I’m an immersive myself. I’m the opposite gender of my real life self. I don’t put my real life name on my profile. It’s not my wish to have my two names connected — that was violently taken away from me on the forums by the FIC, and with help from the Lindens, because they didn’t agree with what I say. I don’t think that not agreeing with someone’s speech is grounds for removing their anonymity. So I know a great deal more about this than you imagine.”
I remember hearing about this, and you have my deepest sympathy for what happened to you. I remember being appalled that this could happen. This shouldn’t have been forced on you and what happened to you is a travesty.
From this perspective, however, I think you understand why I use “Anony Mouse.” I’m sure if I used my in-world name that, since I’ve been a very outspoken critic of the Lindens, someone among them would have tried to accidentally “leak” my information somewhere as well.
I use the pseudonym not only to protect myself, but to protect those that I care about from harm so that I can do what needs to be done to make SL a better place for everyone and protecting the rights of the individual here is one of those things.
As for the rest of your message… you already know my feelings on that. :)
Sincerely yours,
Anony Mouse
Another side to the story:
http://slreview.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/if-you-get-to-know-me-then-youll-know-me/
[...] Living in the Metaverse has a couple of well written posts on the subjects of immersion and augmentation. The links provided in the mentioned posts are well followed reading, as are the comments. I want to pick up the thread, and then run my own line with it, but my own thoughts on the subject ramble. The same blog presented some interesting questions about real life meeting Second Life. I’m going to expound anyway, so consider yourself warned if you read further. [...]
Ah, all excellent points, dandellion. I felt inspired to write another article on the subject… thanks for keeping the debate alive!
Immersionism and Augmentationism Revisited…
Thanks to Jade Lily, there was an event on “Immersionism vs. Augmentism” on SL’s Orange Island, moderated by Tom Bukowski, our “resident anthropologist”. The discussion was lively — even if necessarily “shortR…
Oh, thank you. Sooner we place things on their places sooner we’ll have better world for all of us. Yesterday, I saw anony quoting that “immersion” is bad for business. Only thing that is bad for the biz is making all those false assumptions based on foggy terms.
I wasn’t saying it was bad for business. I was refuting that it was using Proximity London’s paper!
Immersion is NOT bad for business. :)
Sincerely, Anony
Sorry, I put that bad. I know what you meant, just bad phrased it.
What is so *stupid* about these critiques of what I’ve said is that people think I’m *imposing* my notion of a relationship on them, and that they are therefore “not allowed” to do what I want, or I am somehow advocating some “rout” of their type of relationship.
I’m doing something different. I’m saying such relationships, where you mislead another person about your real-life gender, are *immoral*. That is my stance. I think it’s the right stance to have.
People always imagine that they are endlessly liberal and tolerant and “it doesn’t matter”. Then, when it happens to them, they are very hurt and angered, even enraged. So observing these cases, I can only repeat: it is immoral to deceive another; it’s wrong.
That is my right to do it; the right to decide what one’s morality is ought to be sacred to all these secular humanists and extropians gathered around here.
You may decide then that a) we don’t care if it’s immoral, we’ll do it anyway or b) we don’t believe it’s immoral. But don’t be stupid, and claim I “don’t understand” something about it. It’s quite clear that some people *think* that they can engage in a mutually-supported fiction, a deliberate screening out of the facts as part of the whole “what happens in Second Life, stays in Second Life” mystique. Who could stop them? But, given the numerous people who actually get hurt with these kinds of scenarios, I chose to declare it immoral.
Mutually-consenting supported fictions break down all the time.
>but please do everyone a favor and don’t ask everyone to be the same as you. How we relate to each other in this world is up to each of us as individuals, couples and groups.
And you’re the one who needs to a) stop this assanine notion that I’m somehow “urging everyone to be the same as me” just because I chose to express a moral stand and b) stop trying to force me to be like you. You confuse any expression of dissent with your tribal conformism as some kind of imperative — of the kind *you* issue.
Really interesting post! After reading that page by Bennetsen (I mean the first one he wrote about this) I needed to comment it in my blog.
The definition of both concepts won’t change our personal philosophy of our second lifes, but you are right, there is no need of confrontation becuase each and everyone can live as each prefers, following his own needs and feelings.
For what it’s worth, I have never perceived immersion and augmentation to be separate states of being. When I’m in Second Life, I’m totally immersed but the person in second life is an extension of who I am in other environments – I may explore other aspects of myself… but I’m still the same core being. Therefore, I’m sticking with the the idea that I can be both at the same time :)
Feels the need to offer Prok a chill pill. Through out the history of people, we’ve come up with ways to be something other than ourselves – we were blessed with imagination and many of us like to use it. This has been demonstrated through out time through song; dance; story; performance; the use of pseudonym’s by authors, stage names by actors, musicians and others (often they play a role too – is this immoral?)… and in the modern context through online persona’s. I personally feel there isn’t anything immoral about it. My approach is to take each person/entity in Second Life as they come – there’s no need for me to know about their real life in this environment. However, the act of trying to squish people in boxes because of their gender, religion, social background, cultural background, sexuality, etc is immoral – don’t you think that in a virtual environment people might find it a relief to escape labels and tags based on such things?
But then, so many people insist on that dichotomy. I cannot find out why.
dandellion, Sophrosyne, everyone :)
Just stumbled upon this discussion and thought you’ll like to see this video.
true, it not entirely related and I guess some of you have already seen it, but I think it’s worth a shot, just in case
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODgZtriNYoc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2i-W9ncV_0
Sophrosyne,
If you want you can contact me by email about the Myers-Briggs test, I’m no expert, just curious too :)
enviteardrop@yahoo.com
Yes, that’s a great experiment. Though, what is usually called augmented reality is mixed reality. When will I have those toys to play around?
hey d. :)
The technology is here now but it’s still too expensive for everyone to have at home in order to create a timming metaverse.
we are still at the stone age.
Talking about immersions! sitting in front of a screen and watching prims requires a very good imagination.
you think SL babes are hot? check out this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkvC-blS9Y8
yeah, and you can forget about pose balls and animations :)
She’s not that hot as much as she is well rendered. Reflections and specularity of the eye is something that cost a lot (in the currency of rendering power) and that’s the only thing that makes her so great. It makes her look more alive than you or me, whose eyes are just dead bitmaps.
But no matter how fast and capable our graphics cards are, there is one step that requires a human to make all the pixel Frankensteins alive.
Of course. I mean having this rendering in real time.