ephemerology – n. – the study of the unreal

Wide open lonely spaces…

06 Jan 2010 @ 4:10 PM

Hamlet Au asks (paraphrased): “How can a virutal world with 75k online [at once] world seem so lonely?”

This feeling struck me when I first started in SL as well. It all seemed so empty and barren. Like the person in the Slashdot article he references mentions, as I wandered, I hardly ran into a person. I found some really terrific builds. I checked out the NOAA sim, and no one was there. Vassar’s SL campus was bare. In one region, I actually saw a green dot on my mini-map and zoomed over to find the owner of the sim working on something (an industrius-looking fox-furry in grungy cyberpunk gear). He was completely surprised to see me and was shocked that I’d taken the time to look around the build. It felt like some science fiction novel where a great civilization had been wiped out in an instance, removing all inhabitants and leaving the artifacts of their civilization unscathed.

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Posted By: Blade Hamilton
Last Edit: 06 Jan 2010 @ 04:24 PM

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Categories: Immersive Virtual Environments, Metaphysics, Second Life

Augmented Identity

11 Dec 2009 @ 8:49 PM

It’ll take a bit to get to my point here, but bear with me. I think that one of the problems with how people react to the modenr world is that they make assumptions about what the progress brings us. Moon’s First Law of Sociology is “Human nature only changes in response to new technology.” And I think that too often, we look at these things not from the standpoint of understanding what we are becoming, but rather through the lens of what made sense in the past

—

Let’s pair up a few personal experiences here. Just recently, I posted on a blog about finding more people to hang out with, both offline and online. My goal is to become more sociable (a skill I’ve lost some in the last few years). I did say I wanted to know if people wanted to do online stuff with me as well, especially local people, so we could hang out online and offline. One of the responses I got was someone saying that looking for people to hang out with me online was defeating the purpose of trying to cultivate sociability.

My response was based mostly around the fact that some of my hobbies are specifically online hobbies. I enjoy virtual worlds and Internet technologies, among other things. So I want to enjoy those with other people, both locally and remotely. (As an aside, I’m a big believer in the idea taht if you want to develop friends or find dating partners, you should do it while enjoing your other hobbies. I think you are far more likely to find someone compatible).

I think this exchange highlights one of the big paradoxes of the Internet Age: The Internet is becoming a cornerstone of modern cultures on many levels, and yet we usually consider what we do on the net as trivial. An example of this: MC Lars (who is really a geeky musician and often associated with the niche nerdcore genre) has a song “Internet Relationships are Not Real”. Yet, I met my wife of 10 years on the Internet. I know a lot of people who have forged long-term relationships online. But it’s still considered ‘strange’.

Of course, that’s a lot anecdotal evidence. So let’s bring in some science. In the Journal of Communications, there’s a paper called “Looking for Gender: Gender Roles and Behaviors Among Online Gamers” (http://dmitriwilliams.com/LFGpaperfinal.pdf). I found this quote in the middle of it, where they are talking about the fact thatthey found that, unexpectedly, women who play online games play more hours than men who do. Their suggestion is that women use it as an avenue for social interaction. (emphasis mine)

The desire for communication could in part have been met through game play with romantic partners and/or relatives, suggesting that MMOs may allow (especially younger female) players greater opportunities to communicate with friends/family outside of normal routines. [...] If true, this pattern would be consistent with the general trend in Internet research to find online activities to be more of an extension of offline life,

for example, a maintenance tool, than a substitute for it.

So here’s the point I am finally getting to: science is beginning to show that online activities aren’t overall, escapism. Rather they are an extension of a person’s life. And I think that this is one of the key things that will come out of the generations that grow up with the Internet, that the ‘virtual’ world is just way to extend who you are. The future isn’t Extropian transcendentalism, where we shuffle off this mortal coil for the digital aether. Rather it is bolting on the reach the digital age gives us onto who we are.

The future isn’t virtual reality, but rather augmented identity.

We are human and we are always going to be. But what we can do changes with technology. Like augmented reality uses technology to ‘extend’ what you can do/see/interact with, augmented identity is where who we are is extended through the avenue of technology.

What is augmented identity like?

* Decentralized social identity – the people in our life don’t have to be close by. People keep up with friends and family all over the world through email and social media. You don’t have to run into a person on a regular basis in order to be informed on their life. Of course, there’s nothing like real face-to-face interaction. But it seems like now that is being extended by socializing in ‘the cloud’.

* Simultaneous multichannel communication – my father-in-law mentioned to me recently that he noticed how in IM conversations, you often have two threads of discussion going on at once, as people respond out of sync to one another. He said you get used to it. Because of the Internet, texting and IM have made this commonplace and reflexive for some. It’s an asynchronous way of communicating – we communicate in little bursts here and there and hop back and forth between them quickly. Conversations are happening interwoven with each other and thus effectively simultanously. And it happens across multiple media as well – having IM conversations while on the phone or talking to someone in the room with you. This is second nature to those who grew up with it. And I think that’s the source of the frustration older people have with younger people texting while having conversations while the younger people really don’t understand what the fuss is about. Multichannel communication is natural for the internet type, but not for the pre-digital person.

* Multidimensionality of self – another favorite of mine. Augmented identity acknowledges the fact that people have more dimensions to them than usually gets expressed. There has always been this human experience (I act differently when I am at work as opposed to when I am at home) and some more real life ways (see the SCA). But the extension into the virtual allows people to express these parts of themself in ways that couldn’t otherwise. Second Life is, I think, one of the prototypical examples of that now. Culture in second life has evolved into several noticable ‘virtual races’ (neko, vampire, furry, dragon, etc.), virtual genders (shemale, hermaphrodites) and even virtual ethnicities (Gor, Uru, and more). While there is roleplaying in all of this, if you look, you find that these are real people adopting personas and customs as an expression of who they are. That person may not be physically a black skinned drow with cat ears, but does the fact that they present themselves as such make it any less a part of who they are?

It’ll take a bit to get to my point here, but bear with me. I think that one of the problems with how people react to the modenr world is that they make assumptions about what the progress brings us. Moon’s First Law of Sociology is “Human nature only changes in response to new technology.” And I think that too often, we look at these things not from the standpoint of understanding what we are becoming, but rather through the lens of what made sense in the past

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Posted By: Blade Hamilton
Last Edit: 11 Dec 2009 @ 08:50 PM

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Categories: Metaphysics

Why the obsession?

31 Oct 2009 @ 1:38 PM

So, I’ve been into Second Life for about a year now. And before that, I was a rabid player in Myst Online (and its previous incarnations, Uru Live and Until Uru). Before that, I was a MUDer and built things on LambdaMOO. And before that, I played in RPG channels in QuantumLink (what AOL was called before it was AOL). So, what I am saying is, I’ve been in virtual worlds a lot.

Like many people who are very into a more esoteric hobby, I have a hard time explaining why I find it so fascinating. I tend torwards niche hobbies and cult-movies anyway, so that’s always a point for virtual worlds in my book. And, I’ll admit to a certain level of obsessiveness. This seems to be a common trait in the hobbies I’ve chosen.

Hamlet Au talks a little about <a href=http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/10/when-is-sl-a-cult.html>the cult-like nature</a> of Second Life residents in their advocacy of Second Life and virtual worlds in particular. There’s some confusion over whether it’s about ‘cult’ in the cult movie, ardent niche fandom sense, or in the hyper-obsessive drink-the-koolaid sense. I think it’s telling that people resonate with both of these interpretations (both in the positive and negative senses). I think that SL Residents realize, on some level, that they are obsessed with something. And that they are interested in something that varies from the norm.

This isn’t unique to Second Life, though. As a member of the Uru community, I’ve seen some of the most fanatical fans I’ve ever met in that community. While the games and background serve as a common mythos, the community has become as much about the community as the games. This community developed into what anthropoloist Dr. Celia Pearce called a ‘virtual ethnicity’ as she <a href=http://www.mixedrealities.com/?p=1180>traced Uru fans across virtual worlds</a>. They display that ‘cult’ sense as well, both in their sense of ‘separateness’ and in their nigh-on legendary fanaticism about the game and the world.

As I look back, I see that same sort of attitude about MUDs, and the early Internet in general. In fact, you can find that same attitude in most ‘geek’ fandoms and subcultures.

But what makes these things so different? Dusan Writer asks about the <a href=http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2009/10/24/symbiotic-links-google-wave-and-second-life/>symbiotic link</a> of Second Life, that thing that ties it into common experience (it’s brought up in reference to Google Wave, but I think it’s a good thought to apply independently). I think the answer is right there in the name – it’s a second life. As Dusan writes elsewhere about Second Life: <a href=http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2009/10/30/de-augmenting-my-reality-and-beach-houses-in-nebraska/>”But I’m going to keep talking about immersive power and explain that there are some of us who also LIVE here.”</a>

Now, I’m not talking about escapism. At least not cheifly. There is elements of escapism in all the above, of course. But I’m talking about a more <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#The_pre.2Ftrans_fallacy>trans-rational</a> sort of existence. Rather than a replacement life (a deadend concept in transhumanism, in my opinion), Second Life seems to be most valuable (philosophically speaking) as an added dimension to human existence. It allows those things which are unreal in our First Lives and thus we can learn more about ourselves in every dimension. That’s, I think, the symbiotic link – the extension of the human in previously impossible ways.

So, I’ve been into Second Life for about a year now. And before that, I was a rabid player in Myst Online (and its previous incarnations, Uru Live and Until Uru). Before that, I was a MUDer and built things on LambdaMOO. And before that, I played in RPG channels in QuantumLink (what AOL was called before it was AOL). So, what I am saying is, I’ve been in virtual worlds a lot.

Like many people who are very into a more esoteric hobby, I have a hard time explaining why I find it so fascinating. I tend torwards niche hobbies and cult-movies anyway, so that’s always a point for virtual worlds in my book. And, I’ll admit to a certain level of obsessiveness. This seems to be a common trait in the hobbies I’ve chosen.

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Posted By: Blade Hamilton
Last Edit: 31 Oct 2009 @ 01:38 PM

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Categories: Immersive Virtual Environments, Second Life, Uru and Myst Online

MagiQuest: Review and Musing

26 Oct 2009 @ 2:00 PM

So, this weekend I went to MagiQuest, a chain that bills itself as the ‘largest live action role-playing game’. There are several around the country and a few in other places, like Japan. Some are stand-alones while others are parts of bigger resorts. For example, the one we went to is at the great Wolf Lodge, a family-oriented resort in Grand Round WA (80 miles south of Seattle). I’ll sum it up, give a review and then talk about where it sends my thoughts.

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Posted By: Blade Hamilton
Last Edit: 26 Oct 2009 @ 02:04 PM

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Categories: Gaming, Reviews

Virtual is bigger than you think

23 Oct 2009 @ 10:03 PM

When we talk about virtual worlds, usually we mean something like Second Life, or World of Warcraft – something that falls into the Neuromancer/Lawnmower Man/Matrix school of virtual reality. It’s about 3D environments that replicate or extend our world and dreams up uploading yourself into it, leaving your fleshy prison behind.

However, I was looking at a < href=http://www.briansolis.com/2009/08/breathing-new-life-into-virtual-worlds/>blog post</a> by Brian Solis. In it he has some graphs of virtual worlds, placing them by ‘sector’ and by age group. There’s some interesting info in there. But what struck me is the number of things in there that I’d never heard of, and the number of things I wouldn’t really have thought of as a ‘virtual world’. These include things like Gaia Online, Neopets and Webkinz. This makes me think that what I think of as a ‘virtual world’ is a rather limited definition.

So, it occurred to me that this idea needs to be taken further. Once, William Gibson said that cyberspace was where you were when you were on the telephone. And I think this is really one of the great revelations of the information age. From the telephone forward, we have been visiting virtual worlds.

The basic facet of virtuality in all of its forms seems to be the disassocation of self from physical place. When we are on the telephone, we are communicating in real time with someone who is not sharing the same space. This is a different sort of interaction than in earlier communication-over-distance. That was just writing letters – passing messages back and forth. But the immediacy of real-time conversation has a different effect, I think. Instead of just messages, it becomes a shared experience. In essence, you were both ‘there’. There just wasn’t an actual ‘there’ involved.

At that point, ‘there’ becomes a consensual construct. Rather than a place, it’s a point of reference for the experience and gains a measure of reality, one that is completely subjective. Humans can only really think of such a thing in terms of place. So when we talk on the phone, we are ‘on’ the phone, we are ‘in’ a virtual world, etc. Any place where we can have a experience that uses a non-real point of reference instead of place, can and should be considered ‘virtual’. Not just your 3D worlds, but telephone conversations, IM chats, IRC channels and more. And even non-realtime interactions that provide that sense of place – BBSes, roleplaying games, etc – reach into the relam of virtuality.

So when we talk about the virtual, we have to realize that this is actually an umbrella term with fuzzy edges. And any exploration of virtuality has to look into these areas as well.

When we talk about virtual worlds, usually we mean something like Second Life, or World of Warcraft – something that falls into the Neuromancer/Lawnmower Man/Matrix school of virtual reality. It’s about 3D environments that replicate or extend our world and dreams up uploading yourself into it, leaving your fleshy prison behind.

However, I was looking at a blog post by Brian Solis. In it he has some graphs of virtual worlds, placing them by ‘sector’ and by age group. There’s some interesting info in there. But what struck me is the number of things in there that I’d never heard of, and the number of things I wouldn’t really have thought of as a ‘virtual world’. These include things like Gaia Online, Neopets and Webkinz. This makes me think that what I think of as a ‘virtual world’ is a rather limited definition.

So, it occurred to me that this idea needs to be taken further. Once, William Gibson said that cyberspace was where you were when you were on the telephone. And I think this is really one of the great revelations of the information age. From the telephone forward, we have been visiting virtual worlds.

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Posted By: Blade Hamilton
Last Edit: 26 Oct 2009 @ 02:09 PM

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Categories: Metaphysics

My journey into ephemerality

21 Oct 2009 @ 1:11 AM

For a long time, I’ve held the belief that most of the things that are important to us don’t actually exist. While there is an objective reality that is at the base of our existance (all you solipsists out there, sorry to have to break it to you), the majority of what drives us as human beings is not these physical things, but the intangibles. What drives the human condition are things without material reality.

Politics is driven by ideology. Religion is based off of belief. International boundaries are lines on a map. Economics is a web of agreements called stocks and credit. Wars are fought over conflicts in meaning, whether they be religion, boundaries, ownership or ideologies. Science is the extrapolation of patterns, and technology the application of these patterns in novel and useful ways. Even the idea of socThere are physical realities involved in these things, and are often at the base of them. But the layers of value, interpretation and extrapolation pile up quickly. And as humanity progresses, we focus more on these intangible layers than we do on the underlying matter.

It boils down to the fact that human beings are a symbol-using animal. Our brains excel at modeling the universe using the data we encounter, and thus we create maps of the universe. We are beings of abstraction and these abstractions are our tools for grappling with reality. And in order to utilize abstractions, we make judgments based off of perceived meaning. In the end, it is the meaning that is as important as the actual reality. And as humanity has continued to grow and expand, it is our universe of meaning that has expanded far beyond our universe of form. In contemporary society, the Information Age has given us the ability to tackle this world head on. Virtual worlds, online communications, and more highlight and accentuate this mode of interaction. From there, it seeps into all levels of our experience.

The human condition, more than anything, is based off of compelling ephemerality. It’s this world of the unreal yet vital that interests me the most, as I am humanist at heart. And I can’t think of anything that is more uniquely human.

I hope to talk about that on this blog my exploration of ‘ephemerology’. I’d like to approach it from several different angles, from the personal to the philosophical to the technical to the fantasic. It’s not intended to be a scientific survey, but rather a continuing exercise in “reflective attentiveness” from my own point of view. Nor is it intended to be an impartial exploration. As such, I plan to include topics such as metaphysics, spirituality, religion and occult as areas of the ‘unreal’ that drive who we are in one way or another.

For a long time, I’ve held the belief that most of the things that are important to us don’t actually exist. While there is an objective reality that is at the base of our existance (all you solipsists out there, sorry to have to break it to you), the majority of what drives us as human beings is not these physical things, but the intangibles. What drives the human condition are things without material reality.

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Posted By: Blade Hamilton
Last Edit: 26 Oct 2009 @ 02:06 PM

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Categories: Miscellany

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ephemerology - n. - the study of the unreal

Wide open lonely spaces…

Augmented Identity

Why the obsession?

MagiQuest: Review and Musing

Virtual is bigger than you think

My journey into ephemerality

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