Second Life is a rhyme of history that brings the user into a world where he or she is connected with other real people taking a journey and experiencing the same virtual reality. Kevin Kelly on the Next 500 Days of the Web describes how the future of the web is going to be a place where everything is connected. He hypothesized that every piece of data will be shared on the web. We are going to be in the middle of the web and everything is going to be connected, just like in Second Life. We are going to be codependent with the web. Total personalization will equal total transparency. We are going to be the web. We are going to be the machine. It’s going to be smarter. It will anticipate what we are going to do. It is going to become more ubiquitous with us in the middle of it with all devices as portals to it. The web is going to become a global stage and a more reliable machine.
Kelly's concepts of embodiment, restructuring, and codependency can be found in the rhymes of history example of Second Life. Everything that is created in the virtual world of second life never represents just one thing - it is an embodiment of all of the connections that the users and interface has created. The entire virtual community is continually being restructures to support the one complex world that is codependent on everything inside of it.
Reference
Kelly, K. (2007, December). Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the Web[Speech]. Speech delivered at the EG 2007 Conference, Los Angeles. Retrieved fromhttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html
As you express in this post, man has enjoyed the diversions that entertainment has brought forth over the years in terms of theater, books, and cinema. Virtual worlds have emerged as another type of entertainment that allows the user, who was previously the "consumer" of the entertainment, to become an active participant. The Forward 150 article predicts that within the next 10 years people will be involved in immersive virtual reality worlds that will actually connect the nervous system to life-sized 3D avatars. I find this a fascinating concept. Entertainment has always been a sort of escapism for some, to help them to temporarily escape from the pressures and stresses of daily life. It is fascinating to consider that a virtual worlds like Second Life could allow someone to lead a completely different life in a virtual world outside their current reality. The implications of this possibility are intriguing. While there is a potential that one's life can be enriched by the experience, there is the threat that some may become more immersed in their virtual worlds than in their real lives. What kind of impact might that have in terms of social, political, economic and psychological realms of life? Could events that occur in a virtual world actually overflow into the real world? It seems preposterous to me that anyone would ever actually spend money in a virtual world or follow a virtual professional sport. But, as you pointed out at the beginning of your post, "man has always longed to go to far away places to experience something that life currently could not provide." Theater, books, cinema and now Second Life are all rhymes of history.
ReplyDeleteElon University/Pew Internet Project. (n.d.). Imagining the Internet: A history and forecast: Forward 150 timeline. Retrieved April 7, 2011, from http://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/predictions/forward150years.pdf
Your analogy of how Second Life serves as present-day theatre entertainment on the internet is one that I had not considered until this present discussion. The fact that virtual worlds allows one to enjoy an alternate reality is indeed similar to the theatre. It is interesting that the Second Life concept has been extended to the realm of video conferencing. I ponder as does Cathy, the social, political, economic, and psychological implications of the immersion of virutal worlds. The Rhymes of History have certainly given us food for thought.
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