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

[Peter Corteen]

Hi Arlo,

you have obviously been around these virtual worlds for some time and you
raise some interesting points about the notion of identity. I'm still very
new to SL but I found that it's possible to change the avatars body, skin
and clothing in a few clicks which can be confusing for people who you met
previously with a different appearance so already I started to make an
avatar that looks close to the RL me (minus some wrinkles) as I feel uneasy
about pretending to be something I am not. Having said that I will probably
end up with a few accounts where I can project different, more idealised,
personna under a different SL name.

Like in RL you will find people who want to deceive others for their own
ends. SL is a moral world and you have to work in order to enjoy it.

-Peter

2008/9/4 Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu>

> [Krimel to Peter]
> If you are looking for a real "second life" you might consider World of
> Warcraft.
>
> [Arlo]
> May I suggest Cenarion Circle server-world? There you will meet a helpful
> and kind shaman named Aenea (named after the heroine in Dan Simmons Hyperion
> quadrilogy), who has attained the highest level currently possible in her
> world, and who is now eying the depths of Serpentshrine Cavern.
>
> There are many papers examining "identity" and the ideas of
> representational avatars for various identity constructions. Even way back
> before MMORPGs, researchers were looking at MUDs and MOOs as areas which
> problematized the notion of "one body, one identity". Indeed, the notion of
> "identity" itself is fairly problematic, since even "IRL" we assume
> sometimes largely different identity roles. Which is "us"? One? All? Is
> there "one core identity" that rules them all? Sherrie Turkle's (now
> "ancient" by web standards) piece in Wired "Who am we?" (
> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.01/turkle.html) was one of the first
> popular pieces to consider that "identity construction" is both a socially
> negotiated process and a plurality of personae none of which could be said
> to be "any more real" than any other.
>
> By the way, if you missed it here is a funny clip from The Office (US)
> where Dwight talks about his foray into Second Life (
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3d_fqDcN1s).
>
>
>
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