VIRTUALITY & REALITY
A thought on
The Virtuality and Reality of Avatar Cyberspace. The Oxford handbook of virtuality. 2014
Damer, B. & Hinrichs R.
“The simulacrum is never what hides the truth – it is the truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true.”
It is just so exciting to begin my note with this paragraph, since the author placed such a high value upon this field of reality and simulation, which reminds me of “The Matrix” and “The Truman Show” (which I love it!) movies in some ways. This book captured my attention so much that I decided to take a closer look at it. However, I have not yet begun reading it. This may be the purpose of the philosophical content, rather than directing you toward the handy answers and leading you along the path, they even drowned you deeper into the unknowns and created more questions than ever before!
Baudrillard demonstrates very clearly how our modern culture is constructed from images and other stimuli derived from media sources and computer simulations rather than what is considered real. Thus, the simulacra of these cultures become real to us because we have never seen real societies.
According to Baudrillard, today’s simulations have evolved to the point where they now constitute our understanding of reality. Hyperreality is a representation so realistic that it cannot be distinguished from reality but is treated as such.
His example of illness illustrates how it is difficult to distinguish between the real and the simulated - a person who is “truly” ill may simply lie in bed without displaying symptoms, while a pretender might deliberately display symptoms that doctors would use to diagnose or treat the illness. How should we interpret a person’s behavior when they believe they are ill or are convinced they are ill, or if their symptoms disappear after being given a placebo? All of this makes me wonder, are they even different?
Baudrillard discusses how mass media affect people, especially advertising, which he contends manipulates and tests people. Our products no longer serve us, but rather we serve them.
In addition and maybe as one of the mass media productions, “Baudrillard assumes that science-fiction is an extension of reality, but argues that in blurring the line between reality and imagination, globalization restricts the scope of imagination; that is, if everything has been explored/described/systematized, then science-fiction has nowhere else to go. But did this assumption bear out after Simulacra and Simulation’s publication?”
Based on Baudrillard’s theory, we now live in a world that consists of hyperreal and self-perpetuating simulacra, which makes me wonder if perception is the same as virtuality.
“We might come to the conclusion that this Virtual Reality may be more than just another layer added to our world, nor it would “enable us to perceive computer-generated environments (Naimark, 2018) through embodied experiences as real” (Novak, 2022).
It is “an attempt to change the user’s perceptions of truth by offering worlds constructed by men or in some cases machines while giving the designers the role of an omnipotent entity within the designated world From this perspective, VRworlds can be seen as embodiments of verisimilitude, a falsehood that seems real while having the appearance of true reality (Renardel de Lavalette & Zwart, 2011). This must be seen in the light of the purpose of VR is to mimic reality (Heim, 1993; Sharma et al., 2015).
I would like to use the game or video game as a tangible representation of collective experiences, since we may have all encountered them in our childhood. We often feel so deeply immersed in the digital world that we become unaware of our presence in the real world. It would be impossible for us to live with all our senses if that world was not real. Or we might have survived without those perceptions!
Or perhaps we are putting our entity into something more pragmatic and sentimental named “Avatar”, which has now become a manifestation of our self-presence beyond the physical plane.
As Dramer mentioned in his book, “Recognizing avatar presence and immediately responding to it when the users are engaged in procedural activities is common. Inspired by the gamification literature” (Kapp 2012).
It’s a natural thing to think about new projections of ourselves and our society, as Dramer stated, because when we sense something around us, we develop a meaning and narrative for it, whether it’s a molecule or a pixel, which is still molecules living in a different medium!
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. Novak, R. (2022, April 8). The rise of the ‘Immersive Virtual Online Avatar Society’: Does an online community established in the virtual space constitutes a ‘real’ society? Brill. Retrieved February 15, 2023, from https://brill.com/view/journals/vjep/6/1/article-p1_008.xml?language=en&ebody=references
. Naimark, M. (2018, February 16). vr / ar Fundamentals—3) Other Senses (Touch, Smell, Taste, Mind). Medium. https://www.medium.com/@michaelnaimark/vr-ar-fundamentals-3-other-senses-haptic-smell-taste-mind-e6d101d752daLinks to an external site..
. Sharma, G., Chandra, S., Venkatraman, S., Mittal, A., & Singh, V. (2015). Artificial Neural Network in Virtual Reality: A Survey. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Greeshma_Sharma/publication/297556633_Artificial_Neural_Network_in_Virtual_Reality_A_Survey/links/56dfd64808ae9b93f79aa51a.pdfLinks to an external site..
. Kapp , K. M. 2012. The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-Based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education. San Francisco: Pfeiff er.