[MD] Food for Thought

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Dan asked Laird]
I'm curious... you say you "met" these people. In person? And how do you know
they are who they say they are?

[Arlo]
Who is anyone but what they say they are?

That's the point of the Turkle piece. Where do we locate an "I" behind all the
various faces/roles we create? In the physical body? Who is the "Arlo" that
posts on this group? Is he the same "Arlo" who works in a language center? Is
he the same "Arlo" who rides Harleys? Or fishes? What if some people know me as
"Jim" (they do)? Is that still "me"? Who is the real person and who is the
virtual? Who is real and who is role?

MMPORPGs have brought us considerable insight into how people construct
identity(ies), and how this constructive process is not separate from whatever
"real you" you think there is. This is, I believe, partly what Pirsig was
getting at when he talks about the "ridiculous fiction" that is "this
autonomous little homunculus who sits behind our eyeballs looking out through
them in order to pass judgment on the affairs of the world".

"This fictitious "man" has many synonyms: "mankind," "people," "the public," and
even such pronouns as "I," "he," and "they." Our language is so organized
around them and they are so convenient to use it is impossible to get rid of
them. There is really no need to. Like "substance" they can be used as long as
it is remembered that they're terms for collections of patterns and not some
independent primary reality of their own."

In this sense, I'd argue, each "identity" is a "collection of patterns"
dialogically constructed through social settings, or some people call this
"identity negotiation". There is no "real Arlo", there is only the "Arlo" that
is here, that you know via the negotiated discourse on this list.

We'd ask, why is the "Case" that posts here considered "real", but the
Norrathian avatar "unreal"? Maybe "Case" is an avatar for some woman-physicist
in Austria. Does that make the "Case" we know "unreal"?

Fun questions, nonetheless.