Wednesday, November 28, 2007

 

SecondLife and the virtual self

(backposting) I went to a lecture in Chelmsford Cathedral today: "The Virtual Self". The lecturer, though providing some decent quotes from Baudrillard and making some comparisons with the images in Plato's cave which I liked a lot, was generally very negative about SecondLife and the rest. I didn't like the fact that he spent a lot of time talking about people with clear issues IRL, and then how much time they spend in-world, or how different their avatars are from their "real" bodies. He talked about idolatry a lot, and addiction.

There were questions at the end, and I was one of those who stepped up. I made three points:

  1. that everyone there is very welcome to join us at that Anglican Cathedral in SecondLife, that we hold services and prayers meetings and have pastoral encounters
  2. that Baudrillard would say that they growth of the "imagined" other self dates from at least the invention of the printed book, and that every time we make a phonecall or write an email, we're imagining a self, and employing a persona. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and no-one - not even ourselves - can truly know the "real" us, except God. The imagined selves that we present are part of who we are and how we engage with the world as it is now, and although there are dangers, there are opportunities, too.
  3. that we have a duty as Christians to step out and engage with people wherever they are, and that not only are there lots of normal people there, but they are very ready to engage in spiritual and theological encounters - more so than is often the case IRL. And they are _young_ people, who the established churches have problems interacting with generally...

I wasn't the only person to stand up and make positive points, but the people there were mainly in their 50s or above, and this was all pretty new to them. And frightening, from the way he talked about it.

I was flabbergasted, by the way, that he felt in a position to talk about, and criticise, MMOs (and social networking sites like Facebook, which he painted with the same brush!), despite never having visited any of them.

Ah, and my first night on my own with the girls (Mel baby-sat until I got home).

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Comments:
"that Baudrillard would say that they growth of the "imagined" other self dates from at least the invention of the printed book, and that every time we make a phonecall or write an email, we're imagining a self, and employing a persona. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and no-one - not even ourselves - can truly know the "real" us, except God. The imagined selves that we present are part of who we are and how we engage with the world as it is now, and although there are dangers, there are opportunities, too",

and we cannot minimise the opportunities nor stay away from them because they represent a risk- for all of life is a risk.

projecting "other selves is a part of being human, there are some ways in which every relationship draws out a different side of us, we are rarely whole!

As you know Mike this is an area I am keen to explore, good post.
 
Good on ya for speaking up. It stuns me that he would make such pronouncements without ever experiencing his subject. I would go as far to say that his material, though perhaps interesting, is therefore of limited value. You must have been disappointed?
 
Interesting--I hadn't thought about the difference between how people interact in Second Life as opposed to IRL. I haven't tried it yet, because my computer's graphics card wont support it, but maybe someday...
 
I was disappointed that he hadn't engaged with the actual technology. He had an OK grasp of some of what goes on, but referred to SecondLife and other MMOs as "web sites" on occasion, for instance, which rather misses the point.

Good to see things being discussed, though, and good to have chance to tell people about the cathedral. I introduced myself: "My name's Mike Bursell, and my SecondLife avatar's name is MikeCamel Albert", so it was pretty clear from the beginning where I was coming from!
 
Nice!!! Perhaps next time you should take a data projector and connect while there and respond from inside SL!
 
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