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

[Peter Corteen]

Hi Krimel, thanks for the lengthy reply; I knew already you were into this
kind of thing.

While using Second Life I noticed that my avatar sometimes looked at where I
directed my own eyes on screen; that was a bit spooky until I found out that
the avatar is programmed to look at where the mouse pointer is and that I
was subconsciously moving the mouse as my eyes moved.

I never tried any other such role playing game; sorry but World of Warcraft
does not sound like my cup of tea! I know that you can play games within
Second Life too but, so far, I am not interested in that aspect. I like to
chat and I aim to use their sophisticated CASE tools to construct and
animate stuff.

-Peter

2008/9/4 Krimel <Krimel at krimel.com>

> 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.
>
>
>
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>