More
and more people are purchasing and using goods that don’t really exist. That is, they don’t really exist in the
external world of mass, matter and substance, where most of us actually
live. They do exist in the vacuumized
worlds of screen reality and virtual reality.
There are virtual currencies like bitcoin that many people like because
they sidestep the participation of banks and credit card companies, which can
slow down the process of the transfer of money and add fees for their
participation in the processing. In
addition, there are emojis , which have become an integral part of computer
screen reality communication. And more
and more, there are the virtual figures that are used in the virtual reality
games. For example, players in these
games can earn virtual currency in order to buy virtual weapons in order to win
in virtual conflicts. Or they can jump
ahead in the development of their offensive forces and purchase virtual weapons
from other players. They can also use
real money to purchase these virtual weapons as well as virtual houses, virtual
neighborhoods or even whole virtual kingdoms.
And, at some point, after purchasing these entities, players can turn
around and sell them to other players, thus making a profit. There are players who make good real money
dealing in these virtual game products.
Good virtual weapons can go for tens of thousands of dollars. Whole virtual kingdoms can go for hundreds of
millions of dollars. Definitely serious
money.
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So
what is the significance of so many players endowing the gravity of real
existence to these vacuumized phenomena, to the extent that they are willing to
shell out such large sums of money to obtain them? Perhaps, simply the enormous quantities of
free-floating manufactured figures in the external world have created an
enormous overstimulating tension pocket of abrasive friction. It becomes hard to delineate the boundaries
of all these free-floating figures. It
is mentally exhausting. And eventually
all these figures begin to blur together into one enormous mass of clutter such
that it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate through it. And then one yearns for wide open spaces
where the figures that are present are not the kind of figures that one can
bump into. One withdraws into an
experiential vacuum over which one has some control in order to avoid the
overstimulation of a cluttered external world.
In
the history of humanity, people tried to rise above the enveloping aspects of
nature through the figures of tools that eventually evolved into machines and
all these implements created technological environments where people were
protect from being swallowed up and undifferentiated by organic
environments. These environments were
filled with ungrounded, uprooted free-floating figures that provided a kind of
mirroring for people and gave them well-defined boundaries for their sense of
self through the abundance of defined discrete stimuli these figures
provided. Unfortunately, the increasing
self-definition from defined discrete stimuli came at the cost of losing
self-coherence as the flowing blendable continual stimuli of nature became
scarcer and scarcer.
As
has been stated, we have gotten to the point where there is an overabundance of
free floating figures which is pushing people to escape into controlled
experiential vacuums that are filled with infinite continuous stimuli that
intermingle with the defined discrete stimuli that together form the foundation
of the vacuumized figures. These
vacuumized figures fill the screen reality of movies, television, video games,
computers, tablets and smartphones. And
increasingly, virtual reality, in particular, is occupying a larger and larger
space in the lives of people in modern technological society. The question is should we just look at this
dispassionately as one more experiential phase through which people are passing
as their societies and cultures continue to evolve? The problem is that in a virtual reality,
there are no organic surfaces upon which to make and preserve organic imprints,
and so, to have meaningful life narratives and prepare for death with a
personal surrogate immortality. And as
for rich vibrant experiences, it seems to me that this is why so many of the
experiences that people have in virtual reality revolve around modern video
games where people are shocked into feeling alive by all the intense
role-playing in which they are involved.
There are plenty of shocking adventurous narratives in virtual reality
games. But the worlds which are created
here are not worlds in which the players actually live. They are worlds which players can share with
others when the players actually dwell in their communities.
And
yet in at least one way, there is a blurring of the boundaries that separate
virtual reality worlds from the world of external world reality, and this is
when players use real money to buy virtual weapons or virtual real estate. In using real money to buy virtual entities,
players are treating virtual entities in certain ways as if they were real
entities. Real non-vacuumized entities
that have mass, matter and substance.
This blurring together of external world reality and virtual reality is
very dangerous. There is a sense in
which not only people mirror us, but also things as well. I know that up until now, the only
non-organic entities that I have discussed with regard to mirroring us have
been complex machines, computers and robots.
But, in truth, everything has a certain degree of impact on us, even as
we perceive things and interest with them.
And to the extent that we start purchasing virtual entities with real
money, this treating of these entities as real external world things leads to
putting these virtual entities as on the same plane with us and we become
vacuumized, particularly as we use an avatar to interact with these virtual
entities. And to the extent we become
vacuumized, immersing ourselves in the world of virtual reality, it will become
more and more difficult for us to properly function in the external world
reality where we belong even with all the clutter. Virtual reality will make us more and more
numb and cause us to lose control over both our external world reality as well
as ourselves.
Just
as our fear of being swallowed up by nature and of being hit by the partial
figure forces found in nature like earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme
cold, extreme heat, wild animals and diseases, lead to trying to rise above
nature by creating a technological environment filled with free floating
figures that we create and control, so now we forever are trying to escape the
clutter of too many figures. By moving into a world with no mass, matter and
substance, a world with vacuumized figures and vacuumized living
environments. This virtual reality world
which lacks the restraints of gravity and solidness, seemingly allows us to do
anything our imagination would allow.
But the virtual reality world is created by devices and takes place in
our minds. Take off the device and we
are back in the real world. The world of
external world reality which exists independent of our technological
devices. Destroy the devices and all the
supposed imprints we have made and preserved vanish as well on the experiential
surfaces on which the imprints are made.
If we
become our avatars, we become incapable of carrying on the human race as we
know it. Gaming is an addiction and
living in first video games and then virtual reality games becomes such a
strong addiction that players frequently wear adult diapers, so that they don’t
have to take time away from the game in going to the bathroom. Is this kind of life situation the kind we
want the future generations of humans to immerse themselves in? And what does it say about the sanity of
people who would purchase virtual weapons and virtual real estate in order to
win in role-playing games in virtual reality?
Is there so much mental and physical clutter from all the data and
things floating in our modern technological living environments that there is
no longer any room for new organic imprints?
If so, the human race is in big trouble.
(c) 2018 Laurence Mesirow
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