Virtual realities exist in opposition to our “real” lives.
- real life
- is bodily/material
- includes face-to-face interactions
- can’t be ended on demand
- includes emotions/feelings that can’t be replicated through other channels
- includes things that really matter
- people
- pets
- memories
- objects that bear investment and inspire emotional response
- has real consequences (instead of effects on a pretend world)
- is uncontrollable
- Is messy and imperfect
Virtual realities include:
- online games (ex: World of Warcraft, Minecraft)
- create some form of avatar, which allows the player to take on a different persona and live chosen acts
- these can be very compelling, and perhaps overly time consuming or distracting
- these can be fun
- commerce is a major factor
- players pay
- they are run by commercial entities
- people can earn money playing
- some allow for a great deal of creative construction, or world building
- some have potential for education and simulation
- Social media (ex: Facebook, YouTube, chat spaces)
- interactions can be more confrontational than face-to-face ones
- users can shape their representations more carefully, which perhaps allows them to be more themselves (or the best version of themselves)
- Imaginative spaces draw from media
- books, movies, tv shows, video games
- Invented worlds (ex: “playing house” as a child)
- Role-playing interactions (ex: model UN, camp interactions)
- Conspiracies
- inhabiting an imaginary world all the time
- Sensory states
- hypnosis
- meditation
- prayer
- dreams
- substance-induced states
- Alternate Reality Games (ARG)
- The Beast
- partially online, partially offline
- responsive to players
- contacting them
- shaping its narrative and puzzles
- writing the acts of players into its fiction
- a puzzle-driven narrative
- no rules, no goals, no reward
- no advertisement, no acknowledgement of its status as a game
- separate environments
Virtual realities evoke questions - Are they escapism?
- Can they prevent a person from living a “real” life?
- Is there a true, core self?
- If so, where is a person most him or herself? Do virtual realities facilitate or hinder this actualization?
- If so, what constitutes the core self?
- values?
- morals (understood as beliefs) and ethics (understood as acts)?
- traits like sense of humor?
- If not, what is the self? Is it purely a circumstantial construct?
- What is a game?
- something with a goal and rules
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