The Internet is beautiful isn't it?
You can be who you want to be in the Internet. You can be a girl if you're a boy, or a boy if you're a girl. You can be a legendary hero, or a devious villain. You can be a magician, a swordsman, a warrior, even a dark lord. You can be who you want to be.
You can be wild and outgoing. You can be meek as a sheep. You can be sassy, aloof, conceited.
You can be anonymous.
The Internet makes this duality very possible. In the Internet, you can be who you want to be, even be the complete opposite of who you truly are. If you're shy in the real world, in the Internet you can be wild and outgoing. If you're ugly in the real world, you can be as sexy and alluring in the Internet. If you're a loser in the real world, you can change that in the Internet.
The Internet is beautiful isn't it?
The anonymity associated with the Internet makes all these possible. In the real world, you can only be born once, and once you become a physical entity in the real world, you assume a set of traits, and other people begin associating those traits to you. You gain an identity, and that identity will stick with you. It's not to say you cannot begin anew; the physical world permits this. It's just that, you cannot really begin anew, the old you would continue to haunt you.
This is not true in the Internet.
In the Internet, you can create as many identities as you want. You can assume any characteristic, any trait, any personality. And you can do it as many times as you want. You can assume any number of virtual entities, any number of virtual identities.
In short, you can be anybody.
A friend of mine wrote about freedom and reality. For him, reality is a "concentric", with multiple "realities" existing inside each other. It need not be a complete reality, sometimes sub-realities exist. For instance, a slave lives in his or her own reality, in which he or she is limited by his or her master. Slavery then is a sub-reality of the "real" physical reality. The difference between full realities and sub-realities is also ill-defined, what could be held as a sub-reality can be a reality all on it's own. In this light, freedom then is defined as being in the most external of reality, and questing for freedom is defined as finding your way out of your inner reality and embracing an outer reality.
How do you find out if you are still in an inner reality?
For him, an indicator would be repressive force. If something represses you in your reality, then you are not truly free. There exists a more external reality than where you believe you are in, and it's up to you if you want to pursue this more external reality. A slave would feel repressed by the limits set upon him or her by his or her master. This would indicate that there is a more external reality to the reality the slave is accustomed to, since he is not totally free yet due to the repressive force.
What then is the most external reality?
Is it the physical world? Then why do people escape to the Internet? In the physical world, you cannot assume more than who you are. It's difficult to be more than who you are already; unlike in the virtual world.
Is this repressive force? Is this then enough to say that the physical world is not the most external reality, but is an inner reality to something else? Say, the virtual world?
So which is it? Which is more real? The seventeen year-old boy sitting in front of his computer, or KittyMaster<3<3 his laser saber of kitty-cuteness, cutting a swath across the magic flower field? Isn't he more free as KittyMaster<3<3 than as a boring seventeen year-old bound by the rules of society?
Who then is who?
Haha, oh this is going to get interesting.
ReplyDeleteAnd all this because I introduced you to Lain Iwakura XD
You have a good point though
good citation! XD and great argument.
ReplyDeleteStill the virtual world exists inside the physical one because the latter created it and the former resides in the latter.
also, i would not agree to the fact that reality is dependent on how other people know you. just because you're known differently doesn't imply a creation of a new reality. your new identity might play a different role in that society, just like when you move from one place to another town, or a different country. still, these places exist in the same reality.
when you phrase people escaping to the virtual world, my take on that is they simply evade the physical world and try to feel distant. However, that doesn't exempt them from the influences of the physical world; they still have to eat, pay taxes, etc.
as i said, the power still lies on the more external reality and ultimately determines where the truth is.
anyways, great post. XD
^ First, about the physical world creating the virtual world. While it is true that it was man who created the virtual world, the virtual world evolved on it's own. With the advent of games and interent applications, the virtual world gained a "reality" of it's own, which undeniably coexists with they physical reality.
ReplyDeleteOn your second point about the creation of a new reality when you make new identities in the Internet, isn't it true that when you move to another town to start anew, you create a duality, a second you. You then assume this as the new reality. It may seem as if it's still lesser than the physical reality, but if you think about it, the person who created a new identity assumes that identity as his or her default. This makes it arguably the bigger reality. The same is true with most Internet identities.
As for your third point, about escapism, if you think about it, even if they are still influenced by the physical world, they have assumed the virtual world as their default reality, it's where they feel they are free. It may be a lesser reality, but for them it is the greater. They evade the physical world because they feel a repressive force. It's like a slave breaking free from his or her slavery.
The virtual world may seem to us now as the internal reality inside the physical world, but it won't be too soon when the virtual world would *co-exist* with the physical. It would then just be a matter of time before the virtual overtakes the physical, and become the default reality. We are just so used to the notion of the physical world being the real world, but I think we are coming into the age when that would be challenged.