Archive for October, 2009



 

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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