[MD] Inorganic, organic, social, intellectual,.... virtual

[Krimel]

Peter,
Funny you should mention that. I am such an avatar. I was born into the land
of Norrath in the virtual world of Everquest. I am a wizard of the 75th
rank, a master of teleportation and dealing death to my enemies with magic
spells of fire and ice. My sometime collaborator Case is a Bard, who sings
songs of power that strengthen and quicken our friends and slow and befuddle
our enemies. Our user brought us from the world of color, light and
adventure into the dim world of intellectual jabber and courier fonts that
are the MoQ.

In the land of Norrath there is an inversion of Nietzsche's famous dictum,
"If you kill it, it will always make you stronger." I ventured into the
world of Second Life for a time. There I was forced to take a last name so I
became Krimel Darwin. But the fact is I never saw the point of Second Life.
There are no battles to fight, no epic missions to complete, no artifacts to
discover, no prizes to loot from the corpses of your enemies. Or perhaps it
is just my lack of social skills. I am notorious in Norrath for ignoring
group chat and just blasting things or typing incoherent messages to my
mates. The prospect of a virtual world that highlights my short comings
rather guaranteed that my stay there would be brief.

Others have mentioned to me the connection between the out of body
experiments in that article and the second person perceptive of virtual
reality. Perhaps there is a connection although I think for my user the
experience is more like his absorption into oneness in a movie theater. I
think what produces the OBEs is combining the physical stimulation of a
persons' real body with apparent stimulation of the virtual body. That
incongruity seems to trigger a kind of tactile illusion.

I do not believe the programmers of Second Life had Aspersers' syndrome but
there have been attempts to provide therapy to people with the disorder in
the virtual environment. Virtual worlds have also had some impact in helping
people with phobias by giving them a chance to confront their fears in a
relatively nonthreatening way. It is being used as a pedagogical tool even
at the college level as instructors hold classes in virtual space.
Anthropologists and other social scientists, even economists have been
looking into virtual worlds. They study how people form social networks and
interact in this kind of environment where the usual laws of cause and
effect are upended and the rules that influence the nature of social
interactions are fixed by the game.

Enjoy your sojourn in Second Life but from my point of view it is for
sissies. There are no guts and no glory there. 

Krimel

p.s. If you are looking for a real "second life" you might consider World of
Warcraft.