Virtual Worlds

We live in an age when new emergent realities are on our horizon. They are experienced subjectively, but they are shared and objective realities in the fact of their sharing. They are the emergent properties of the Internet, and they represent the overlay of virtual worlds on top of the real world that came before.

I use the term "virtual worlds" in the plural not because I'm on a diversity kick, but because I do not see this new "virtuality" as a monothetic or unidimensional reality, but as a plethora and pluralism of possible alternative realities. Virtual worlds are in a sense digital projections of our own subjective imaginations, and they allow us to lead lives that are in part at least, and increasingly, vicarious and not bound to the dimensions of physical reality.

There are true cybernetic dimensions to virtual worlds. Virtual worlds are more than just digital realities or imaginary unrealities--they are possible worlds and realities of possibility. Our brains interact directly with our computing systems, and these computing systems, being a window on a virtual world, or multiple virtual worlds, connect directly into our minds and the interact with the functioning of our brains.

I think what interests me anthropologically about the rise of virtual worlds is the symbolic sense of empowerment people are gaining through virtual channels of reality. It is a replacement for many kinds of drugs, perhaps, and it permits us to take "head trips" without our bodies leaving the safety of our own homes.

Human empowerment and the hypothesized idea of the symbolic transformation of human consciousness has achieved an entirely new level of operational realization in terms of developing virtual worlds. It is not surprising that the newest version of Microsoft's Halo 2 was a big hit and made a lot of money. The world of Halo is a complete artificial set of worlds, filled with humanized aliens and alienized humans. It's main function seems to be violence by a range of exotic weapons, and a sense of power achieved by overcoming one's opponents.

Virtual worlds and digitized realities are developing as meta-system constructs and they have taken a life of their own, in a sense. They are providing more and more people not only the possibility for leading vicarious lives, but, more importantly, the means for realization of the possibilities that are created virtually in the first place. I am not talking about simple fantasy or wish fulfillment.

I am not saying this is an all good or all bad kind of thing to happen. It is clear from our shared history that what can empower us can also enslave and ultimately frustrate us. I am saying that it is something that is clearly happening, something that we barely understand, and something that will clearly have an impact on our world and our future in that world. We do not know fully the kinds of possible outcomes this may entail in our world. People, in frustration with their daily lives, can turn more and more to virtual realities as a form of escape--they can at least pretend to be more than they really are, by doing so in a virtual way.

The thing is, I don't think, or am not sure at least, anthropologically speaking, that human beings don't already do this kind of thing anyway in their everyday lives. Manipulation seems to be an intrinsic facet of human reality and human systems, even if the only persons we ever really fool are ourselves. Human beings seem to have a basic need for fantasy, play and for anti-structure in their daily lives--they seek and find this whether they are allowed to by formal constraints in systems or not. Virtual realities provides them the framework for such anti-structural development and realization.

I must admit that my own framework, especially Omniprise.net, is essentially based on this principle, that the development of a virtual world may lead into alternative possibilities in the real world. I think the communicative efficacy, in contexts of otherwise near complete social exclusion, is proving itself gradually, and this provides a context for development that transcends social prejudices and patterns of socio-structural discrimination that dominate and in a sense predetermine our lives.