Living in the Unreal World
Part One: A look at the evolution of simulated life and lifestyles Since humans first felt stress and anxiety about our world, we've been searching for a way to escape from it. Although there's a certain glib association between socially awkward introverts and the fantasy and science fiction genres, and in particular with role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, the image of the pale-faced player is being replaced with housewives, businessmen, and even the in-crowd. As the "fiction" part slowly fades away, with concepts once relegated to the imaginations of basements becoming mundane, and as fantasy becomes more and more integrated with experience, techno-escapism has officially gone mainstream. Text-based role-playing games built on D&D-type structures, also known as MUDs (multi-user domains, dimensions or dungeons), have been online from the invention of the computer network through today's modern internet, growing ever steadily in their populations. However, in spite of their increased interactivity and imaginative attention to detail, they still evoke an isolating, in-the-basement feeling. In a more recent phase of recreational evolution, the old concept of role-playing games has taken a strange new twist: reality-based fantasy. Every-day people are playing the characters of themselves on social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook, presenting a version of their lives and themselves to the world that reflects how they want to be perceived. Since, philosophically speaking, perception is reality, the line between fact and fiction can be drawn anywhere--or not at all. These platforms simulate the experience of interacting with a personality that may or may not exist, experiences which may then be replicated through retelling, and are convenient and accessible portals of self-promotion. Suddenly, anyone can have a visible presence in the world separate from and with no obligation to adhere to their perceived physical reality. Further beyond these ubiquitous cults of personality is the literal genre of computer-simulated life. The idea of simulated variables is nothing new, as scientists have developed mathematical models to predict and explain behaviors of life and matter since well before the birth of the computer age. Although quite consummately amusing to scientists, someone figured out along the way that the concept of creating a separate version of reality based on models of reality could be entertaining in general. Computer games from Maxis' Sim brand, (Sim Life, Sim City, etc.) brought the concept into the mainstream in the early 1990's, and regular people became infatuated with the feeling of playing God, even if it was all just math. The latest, wildly popular Sim incarnation, The Sims, was the closest anyone had come to simulating real life and lifestyle in the mainstream, however the experience was still fundamentally like playing with an extremely elaborate dollhouse--a childhood experiment in projecting the version of reality in which we'd like to participate. But in 2003, Linden Labs opened up a whole new realm to the public with a fully simulated global "metaverse" called Second Life, which combines the real-time interaction of online role-playing games, the visual appeal and control of The Sims, the self-promotion and cultivation of social networking sites, and the most undeniably real thing any simulated world can have: a working economy, complete with market fluctuations, that interacts with the economy of the physical world. The currency of the simulated SL world, the Linden dollar, is interchangeable with money in the outside world in scaled exchange, meaning that the stronger currencies in the world are still worth more than weaker ones, and also meaning that the rich enter the simulated world rich, as do the poor enter poor. The notion of a common reality amongst humans is one of the greatest illusions of life. Perception of reality is determined by situational and emotional experiences relatively unique to everyone, and an individual's frame of reference and experience create by default a divergence from any objective commonality. Regardless of the philosophical analysis of "common reality," most people can agree on a few basic things: solid is solid, liquid is liquid, light is not dark, hot is not cold, and so forth. The number of objective truths is rapidly decreasing as the experience of interacting with objective truth is becoming less genuine and more simulated. The result is social migration towards realms where the illusion of common reality is swapped entirely for illusion, relieving the pressure of reconciling perceptions of an overwhelmingly hyperreal world. Games are, after all, designed for relaxation. But it may be just a matter of time before the pressure of the simulated world becomes all too real as well. |
