7. Virtual Worlds – Fiction or Reality?

Saturday January 26 2008 18.00 - 19.30

Tools such as Second Life and Facebook are new ways of extending life to the virtual space, for example, allowing us to attend Wimbledon while standing next to one of the players or living out our social desires anonymously without restraints nor risk of sanctions. More and more people are turning to virtual reality to establish who they are, what they know, who they interact with and how. This will influence how society is structured in the future and how real or fictive this virtuality will be.

1) In the context of the virtual worlds we are creating, what is the difference between fiction and reality?
2) With the ease of access to these virtual worlds, how do different generations react?
3) How does this world of immediate access, limitless social skills and unrestrained behaviour influence our moral framework?
4) Should we focus on the technological or human side of progress?

Speakers

• Rafael Capurro, Professor, Information management and information ethics, Stuttgart Media University, Germany
• Florence Develey, Pastor, Switzerland
• Joseph Weizenbaum, former Professor of Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,  USA
• Reid Hoffman, Chairman and President of Linkedln Corporation, USA
• Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Labs/Second life

Moderation

• Loic Le Meur, Seesmic, USA

Webcast

• Open Forum - Virtual Worlds -- Fiction or Reality?

Comments

[Kay Shelton]

Unfortunately, access to SecondLife and other 'high end' programs are not easily accessible. There are still many people who have slow Internet connections and older computers with video cards that are not compatible. Not that long ago there was talk of the digital divide, refering to people who had computers and those who did not have access to computers. Programs such as SecondLife have the potential to create a second digital divide, between people who can afford newer and faster machines and Internet connections and those who cannot to keep up. I hope no one forgets about that, so both the technological and human side of progress must be considered together, not as separate aspects.

[alexis bonte]

One of the issues with platforms like facebook is that your virtual life is just an extension of your real life, its a simple communication tool. Very useful but not life transfomng. The issue with second life is that there is no real goal or challenge to it other than personnal expression and as per Kay Shelton´s comment it is difficult to access if you don´t have broadband. We think that the future is with easely accessible platforms that allow you to reinvent for yourself a different virtual life one where you can live your dreams and make them reality, a little like in a video game or World of Warcraft but in a much more powerful way, one that is closer to reality and always with a social aspect. We are far from it for the moment but this is what we hope to achieve eventually with www.erepublik.com

[John Zarkadas]

The issue is not creating a virtual world and then leave it work on itself .The point is to create a virtual world and then provide the right mechanism to make it better than the real world .What is the point of playing second life if you do what you do in your real life?And why should i sent a beer to my friends in facebook when we can go out together and enjoy it?
Virtual worlds should offer sth new from the one hand and the mechanism to make happy the users from the other hand .This is what www.wishdone.com is all about!Create your 2 profiles who you are and who you wish to be and then be active as to have your wishes granted.From user generated content let's all use the internet power and start the phenomenon of user generated wishes granting!
John Zarkadas
Founder of WishDone

[Oliver Thylmann]

How do you encode right and wrong in software and how far will you go? You can just not allow stealing for example, based on code. You could not allow killing, or only temporary. As soon as people starting living in these worlds, how does a virtual world right-wrong context interact with the real world.

[Paisano]

OpenCroquet is the future of Virtual worlds online. www.opencroquet.org

[Louisa Markova]

Strange how the comments are speaking about technique, whereas it is a question about feelings and human relationship...

My experience is... terrible. But so deeply interesting. I wrote in my profile :

"Some psychologists say reality is a construction. In our brain, seat of imagination, is located as the same place than memory. Brain simplifies reality in schemes, shapes. First life ? Dream ? Second Life ? Who will remember the difference ?"

I can tell you... i experienced it. The danger is really to not remeber the difference.

Sorry for my bad english, i am french.

[Gigih Arleedstanto]

fiction: you can be All that you can be.. you can just turn your back around if you face a problem. it's just one happy place where you can live your life the way you want..
reallity: war, conflicts, global warming, oil price crisis, poverty, illeagal logging, minimum wage, unemployment..

why do we create these virtual worlds? because its safe.. you can have fun, meet people, talk to them, without being afraid of getting hurt/ abused.. and so on..
this is why now more people are loging in the virtual world.. ragnarok,world of warcraft, xian, second life, facebook and many more.. for short "online gaming/ MMORPG ( Massive Multiplayer Online ROLE PLAYING GAME)

now, can the Real World, these days, provide us with the feeling of security? can you go 2 blocks, in the middle off the night, in the city of, say.. New York, Mexico City to buy milk for your crying child without the feeling for being scared of getting mugged or even killed?
Or meet people without the fear of getting abused? Sick of being the employee with minimum wage? barely enough to pay all the bills at once? want to be the "billion dollar man?
well sorry to say, the virtual world provides it.

how does the new generation react? VERY GOOD!! why? because you can be ALL you can be, easily! you "cheat" in the real world, you go to jail.. you cheat in the virtual world? reset!! start all over again.. you got nothing to lose, TIME maybe..
AHA! TIME!! with out proper supervision, or self awareness... your drifting away in your own world that you carefully orchestrate.. which leads to insufficient "know how" of living in the real world. you might eventually don't want to live in the real world anymore..

need proof? google an article on how an korean boy skipped school, only comes home to eat and then goes back to his favorite internet cafe for 2 weeks, his parents found s him in a hospital due to dehidration and just purely exhausted, for playing 2 weeks non-stop?

they now open up rehab centers for kids who are addicted to online gaming..

thats just plain sad..

i think, if we dont start to make the real world a better place.. you'd probably be facing a new generation with no "skills" to live in the real world.

"think globally, start locally.."

[Dr. Ashish Manohar Urkude]

It is true that Reel and Virtual world have increasing impact on the daily lives of individuals.
Many send s.m.s. and emails to make their dreams come true. For example, somebody gets job after sending application on email, some one wins business contract, some one send Real sentiments to one's family on internet or through s.m.s.
Thus, virtual space has become a big and real contributor towards Real life.
Like movie is reel world similarly, virtual world is also a reel world, but, their contribution in Real life is increasing. More contributions are available on Virtual world of Internet, and positively it is capturing more space, time, money and efforts and other resources. Knowledge explosion on the internet beyond imagination, in fact, knowledge is doubling every two years on the World Wide Web/ Internet.
Thus, Virtual world has lost its characteristics of reel-ness and fiction; it is becoming Real in terms of contributions.
Also through proper and systematic communication through this medium, lots of lives are saved. Through this medium, lot of positive communication has occurred beyond boundaries. On this virtual world, lot of technologies have been cumulatively developed, lot of financial transaction have occurred, lot of human made barriers been broken, lot of intercultural and intercontinental friends have made friendship, lot of true emotions have been exchanged on this virtual world.
Everybody has started calling himself as a "Glocal" person at the click of the mouse or at the click of few buttons. Glocal means Global and Local i.e. person having Global citizenship and not only local citizenship, due to this Virtual world.
Hence, I would say that Virtual world has lost its reel-ness or fiction-ness and it has become real contributor in daily lives of common man.
One more thing human being can go to places in the Universe only through proper use of this virtual world, being the best communication medium for education, and emotions and world of happening.
For more things just visit my Web log/ Blog:
http://www.managementengineering.blogspot.com/
Conclusion is Virtual world is REAL Contributor in the lives of many.

 Dr. Ashish Manohar Urkude, India.

[William Tell]

Fragen Sie Kissinger und Rice

über Ziele und Kosten der
NATO-Chemtrail-Umweltvergiftereien
mittels Chemiesprühtankfliegern
kreuz und quer über der Schweiz !
( "Kondensstreifen"
"Contrails" )
BR Schmis darf maulkorbhalber nichts sagen.

[A. G.]

Strange to call this "Open Forum", where I can not see any Forum - even less, an "open" one - at all.

Oh yeah, I can comment on specific topics, like this one ("Virtual Worlds") whereas I can't see any "Virtual World", nowhere at all. A virtual world might be - for me - a world where people can talk together; share ideas, etc., maybe even elaborate? I can't see this possible neither in "2nd life", nor any other online plattfrom I've encountered so far.

Wikipedia - the technique - might have had the potential, but they set rules, it made it impossible to really "talk" ... even less -> elaborate; so sad, what a pity.

[Praveer Kumar, India]

The second life or the extended life shows the fiction written By HG Wells in Time Machine becoming an reality the elois or the persons with resources living an giant life with no work while the persons without resources fighting and perpetuating unhuman acts on humankind. I hope the virtual world is an strong vehicle and communication agent to improve the financial, intellectual & philosophical status of the haves nots and the wide use of the virtual medium is definitely going to improve the living standards and properity among the masses

[Miriam]

Well it's a no-brainer. Every response on this website came from an actual human being. It is clear that human desire is what is driving globalization and the virtual world. It is the need to be connected, to know why we are here. Since Adam and Eve humans have been guilty of desiring knowledge especially when they are deprived of it. They seek it in a form that is understandable, personal to their experiences, and enjoyable. "Virtuality" gives us that opportunity but it is just an extension of our own imagination and limited in that way. At the risk of sounding too idealistic and a bit anti-existential, I expect as worlds continue to come together in the virtual realm we will cease to see it as something external or unreal and view it as a higher form of reality. At IGI (Institute of Global Integration) we focus on the human side of global integration to make it less of a big scary force that is being exerted on us and more of part of human evolution as we become transnational and global beings as opposed to members of closed societies. It is not just escapism, but a higher form of existence as we search for our purpose in this vastness. Thus we see how we control this force to further our own desires.