Virtual Worlds – A Philosophical Exploration of Cyber-Space
(Through Their Meta-Virtual/Real-World Appreciation?)*

0.   Introduction

	In this working paper (as a starting point for an open forum dealing with this topic) let us try to come to some form of a consensus on the nature and ramifications of this phenomenon of virtual reality. (1)
	Virtual worlds are not a new concept. The genre of science fiction has been around for some time along with a variety of other comparable genres such as adventure, fantasy, gothic horror, romance, historical novels, etc. Even earlier genres that have utilized the exercise of our imaginations in a similar manner can be found in the narration of culturally-based myths or the artistic visual exploration of religious dimensions like heavens and hells, e.g., etc. However, virtual worlds simulated through the use of a computer are a relatively new phenomenon. Wikipedia has the following definition: “a virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. This habitation usually is represented in the form of two or three-dimensional graphical representations of humanoids (or other graphical or text-based avatars). Some, but not all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.” (2)
	In this working paper we will be examining the phenomenon of virtual worlds and exploring some of the ramifications this type of experience will have in the so-called ‘real world’ as a non-virtual reality form of experience. Hence this appreciation will be both both meta-virtual in orientation and real-world/non-virtual in orientation; the former by virtue of its representation of the virtual and the latter by its exercise in real space and time/non-virtual space and time (in the same double-manner, e.g., as when this text itself is examined in the shared social space-and-time of this workshop and also discussed in meta-textual terms of reference). (3)
	Basically, we will examine this phenomenon under the following headings: the general nature of a virtual world experience (in which we will describe some of the features of the virtual world known as ‘Second Life’). Then, we will examine some of the problematic ramifications that seem to be issuing from this type of experience, e.g., various health mental issues, legal connumdrums, advantages and dis-advantages of this type of experience, etc. (4)
	In our creative explorations of this phenomenon let us propose a variety of ways to resolve problems created by this new genre of experience, and, suggest patterns of behaviour that might find some advantage through their uptake within this type of virtual space proffered by recent innovations in computing power, etc. (5)
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1.   Second Life (As Prototypical Exemplar of Virtual Reality)
	Wikipedia, itself a virtual encyclopedia, defines ‘Second Life’ “as an Internet-based virtual world which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007.[4][5] Developed by Linden Lab, a downloadable client program enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another.” Moreover, while Second Life is sometimes referred to as a game, it does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games. In all, more than five million accounts have been registered, though many are not active, and some residents have multiple accounts.” (6)
	If we have not already visited this Second Life let us imagine what a visit might entail. Then, imaginatively explore some of the conundrums arising from this new frontier as they manifest themselves upon this virtual landscape and within this world of everyday reality as shared by the denizens in this non-virtual world. Lastly, let us look at the wider ramifications, both positive and negative in nature, of this apparent enrichment and/or impoverishment of non-virtual reality? (7)

2.   Exploring Second Life through a Set of Anecdotes

	You switch your computer on. Connect to the Internet. Call up the web address of this site (perhaps best found by googling Second Life). You sign up and prepare to enter this realm of virtual space, this metaverse called Second Life. (8)

	You might be met by an avatar acting as a guide to this new world or someone who is there merely as a passerby. They type hello and you do the same, thereby entering into a conversation (oral communication via a microphone will make this process of communication easier if this method is used?) At each juncture various options are there before you whether you are completely aware of all of these possibilities or not. What are some of those options that a Second Lifer might follow up? (9)

	You might like to enter a ‘room’ dedicated to a certain topic, say, the current war in Iraq, or, the latest issues in quantum physics. Apparently various universities already conduct seminars in this form of cyber space. Similarly, some businesses are also conducting conferences there too. Even get to attend concerts in the real world but simulated simultaneously in cyber-space as done recently by the BBC. Or, you might like to go shopping. Yes, you can shop in Second Life! For a start, you might like to design or re-design the current state of your virtual embodiment. Do you want an avatar that looks exactly like you? Or, do you want one with enhanced features and performance possibilities; a topic whose detail, I believe, could cause embarrassment. Now, should you wish to go with an avatar with proportions that exactly parallel the embodiment of your non-virtual self then you could enter a clothing shop to try on various creations on display in that shop and ‘see’ how they fit in real life. Now, if that particular shop is linked to a real-world store equivalent you could then make a real-world purchase and have it delivered, by mail or courier, knowing that that outfit or hat or whatever made a perfect fit and generally fulfilled your expectations for your use of that item. Imagine, you could view yourself in the round wearing the same, not as seen in a mirror but in a three dimensional simulation! (10)

	The world of advertising is now taking a keen interest in this world of cyber space. If people are going to be spending a considerable proportion of their time then why not buy advertising space there too. Today, you can neither escape death nor taxes nor advertising! Then there are political forms of advertising as well. The French Nationalist Party, as led by the far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, decided to buy a building for their party in Second World. When this fact was discovered the building was continuously picketed by a crowd of avatars with placard denouncing that rightwing organization. Until, one day, the building just simply disappeared! (11)

	Yes, you can build a house in Second Life! Indeed, if you want a palace you can have a palace if you are prepared to pay the requisite building costs and rental for the same. Then, you could lash out and buy an entire island if you can and wish to afford the expense of the same. In this world you can own both property and intellectual property. In a sense all property here is essentially intellectual property by virtue of its being encoded digitally, etc. This innovation has unleashed a whole plethora of novel phenomena. I have joked that I could start a business digitally duplicating works of art already owned by yourself to furnish your new home and make you feel at home within the same. Or, you might like to furnish it with works of art already in the public domain of the real-world? Or, you might like to commission works of art from an artist working in cyber space? Perhaps, should you like such art, also have it fabricated in the real-world? No doubt new art-forms might arise like, e.g., three dimensional-like walls set up to simulate an aquarium with all manner of aquatic life (a sort of virtual world within a virtual world). Or, you might prefer the ‘stock exchange wall’ where you can trade real or cyber stocks from the comfort of your cyber lounge. Or, perhaps you might like to invest in the movie screen wall and watch the latest movies (perhaps in cheaper pirated editions?)? Or, the ‘symphonic wall’ where a three dimensional orchestra would play for you in the comfort of your own entertainment room. So, then, why not also invite your cyber friends to visit and enjoy that performance with you? (12)

	How do you invite your friends to your home or your palace or your tropical island resort? They might wish to walk or swim there. Or, take a cyber form of transport? Perhaps a horse and coach or a prestige car or a private jet? Or, just trans-locate by nominating the appropriate coordinates or similar. You can even fly there through your ‘own volition’ although you are only allowed to fly to a certain height. In turn, aircraft fly at a higher altitude, again with certain limitations as to virtual altitude. (13)

	By various strategies you can make money in this virtual world. Or, you can convert real money into Linden dollars as this virtual currency is known. It is estimated that in real-terms this virtual economy already has a GNP of US$220 million per year and quickly growing. You can also convert this currency back into real money and the real world has already witnessed the first cyber-space millionaire (in real US dollar-terms), namely, a property developer, a Chinese resident who currently resides in Germany who has made her fortune within cyber-space itself. How was this feat orchestrated? First, she bought various cyber properties, whole islands and other forms of real estate. Then she developed them by building buildings, planting forest, adding other features, etc. This she did by employing about fifty programmers in China to digitally build what was required to build and furnish these residences. Then, these properties were sold on to people all round the world at profit. (14)

	This same Chinese millionaire recently gave a press conference. In cyber-space of course! This event was memorable for the fact that it was also invaded by a school of big, pink penises that floated through this room as she was speaking to the avatars of the press corps and guests assembled within. A quite memorable occurrence, for all the wrong reasons. This cyber intrusion touches on the topic of cyber-terrorism within a virtual world and already we have the SL Liberation Army letting of virtual atomic bombs outside store-fronts with brand names such as American Apparel and Reebok in protest against a claimed colonization of SL. (15)

3.   What are the Ramifications and Consequences of Such a Phenomenon? 

	Where money goes legal disputes are often not far behind! Let us now explore some of the legal ramifications and conundrums flowing from this new phenomenon of cyber-space. (16)

	How are rights to intellectual property to be projected into or created within or extended from the virtual realms of cyber-space? Remember, there is not just one virtual world in cyber-space but the possibility of an infinity of such realms. Imagine creating a fabulous garment in your cyber fashion shop and someone comes along and digitally copies the same and then sells it in their cyber shop. Well you might want to sue them then and there. But where? A first recourse might be in the courts of the real world? And this has already happened. Or, someday, and this must be inevitable, virtual courts are going to have to be created to deal with virtual issues in that form of cyber-space. Then, we will need cyber judges, cyber law, cyber enforced forms of punishment, etc. Indeed, the inevitable formation of a cyber police to assist the functioning of this legal realm of virtual law. Perhaps virtual robots could be programmed to act as virtual judges, etc. Would virtual prisons be far behind? Miscreants, no doubt, already can be terminated by extinguishing their current digital accounts (itself not without legal ramifications). What other legal anomalies could we envisage on these new frontiers of cyber law? (17)

	When money is being made taxes are not far behind! How do we tax people making money in cyber-space? E.g., how would a government tax our Chinese millionaire and all those following on in her footsteps so to speak and which government or governments would be ‘entitled’ to do so? She lives in Germany, employs about fifty people in China and sells to people all around the world using computers in USA (and mirror installations that could be elsewhere)? (18)

	Just imagine – this open forum, and its use of this working paper, could be conducted in cyber-space. No need then to go out into the rain or snow or venture out if the day be too hot or too cold. Even if you were to travel overseas – no problem. Just visit an Internet site and come on board. (19)

	However, for every intentional act spent in cyber-space to that same extent that intentional act is not being exercised in the non-virtual space of the so-called real-world?! Of course we cannot leave the real-world, but, much of our intentional being in the world would be diverted to this intentional arena of the virtual. What existential anxieties might be provoked by this diversion of our intentional interest? Does such a preoccupation add to or subtract from the real quality of our lives. Or, much more likely, are we dealing with a two-edged sword here? Discovering various pluses and minuses in keeping with the manner of our being in this World-of-Life as we disport/comport ourselves in these realms of the non-virtual and the virtual? Then, to what extent is the mental health of the individual to be affected by this type of phenomenon? We know that the world of the Internet is addictive. We can also see that the worlds of Internet gaming and gambling are also very addictive. What are the potential consequences for an individual or community that we might expect to follow from an excessive repetition of this type of practice? From natural, non-virtual experience can we already reach some form of a consensus in this regard? Do we not have a parallel phenomenon in the advent of television and its addictive viewing? Problems arising form excessive advertising and violence? Have you not noticed that television is forever continuing to flicker from one scene to another every few seconds or so? How does the younger generation ever manage to concentrate on something as static as a book, e.g? Are we all going to end up with a gross attention deficit?! Or, as we already know, from television violence some people will be motivated to emulate the same. E.g., we have the bobo doll phenomenon. Let me very quickly paraphrase what is meant by this social experiment and the ramifications we can extrapolate from the same and what parallels we might safely be allowed to make on the strength of such parallels to addictive behaviour and responses within and outside a particular form of cyber-space!? If young children are exposed to specific acts of violence on a television program they are then later seen to exactly emulate the same when given a set of dolls to play with. Moreover, those same acts of violence observed by those children get a higher frequency of reproduction in their play with those dolls. Children often exactly repeat such types of activity, as seen by them on television, with their dolls, and, one must only wonder how this is going to affect upbringing given the degree of violence already on television? Indeed, similarly, among a host of other issues, the excessive advertising to children of unhealthy foodstuffs has been strongly implicated in the recent trend of childhood obesity. What else is adversely affecting children from their television and Internet time? In the same vein, what might be affecting adults in an adverse manner given an excessive preoccupation with these new genres of activity, or, rather, inactivity? Admittedly, watching a few murders every night does not turn the general population into a population of murders! Moreover, in contrast, can we also see quite positive consequences flowing from these new media as well? E.g., the breaking down of excessive class constraints? A broadening of a child’s understanding of the world? The exhibition of a greater range of positive role models? An over-coming of some gender-stereotypes? Remember, it was not too long ago that doctors were only male, and nurses were female; whilst women did not go to university, along with much of the population for that matter. What other parallels might we like to consider in regards to the exercise, addictively or non-addictively, of virtual time? Along with the possibility of an increased violence in the non-virtual world what other consequences for individuals and society are going to stem from this reconstruction of the Life-World? Are there serious mental health issues involved here, or, is it the case that we are dealing with a two-edged sword where some people might benefit from these novel forms of ‘socialization’, albeit it in virtual space, and where it might be the case that a few others merely have reinforced forms of pathology already present or about to be triggered regardless of the media adopted? (20)

4.   Conclusion(s)?

	An exciting new type of frontier has presented itself. A frontier shaped like those of the past and present, but, yet, not quite the same! In philosophically maintaining our sense of a transcendental distance (through the general use of an overall transcendental suspension) we are effectively already dealing with the virtuality of these cyber-worlds of virtual simulation. Hence our meta-virtual level of appreciation of this phenomenon. Building on current research into the effects of television, role modeling, etc., we no doubt, I believe, will find ways to meta-virtually investigate and explore this range of phenomena. At the same time, it must also be realized that at no stage does the person in operating in a virtual space altogether escape the trials and travails, tribulations and profitable trade-offs realized in the enactment of our being engaged in the non-virtual world of the real-world (itself being merely defined through the negation of the former, etc?)? Thus, hopefully, many of the problems, legal conundrums and mental health issues exaggerated or induced by these new dimensions of our virtual being-in-the-world with-others may well be resolved through an extension of current observations and treatment processes when and where found relevant and beneficial in this regard? (21)

	Finally, let us ask to what extent our meta-virtual appreciation of this phenomenon, and others of a similar nature, through their mental simulation actually coincide with both our everyday realization of the non-virtual and our immersion in the virtual? In other words, to what extent our philosophically oriented vision of the world is actually found to-be-lived in our worldly practice as lived before-other with-others… i.e., to that extent theory and practice can mutually cohere… despite their inevitable frisson? In this process of reflection we should ask “is there any real difference between these various types of ‘simulation’, and, that ultimately, the world is merely a world of simulations (and re-simulations) (as argued for by various postmodernists?)?!” (22)

							      Noël Tointon, Sydney, 6.5.07.

A Final Note on the Determination of the Non-Virtual from the Virtual

	In this Post-Post-Modern era of the Contemporary we can no longer appeal to the pre-simulated or non-simulated in order to account for the nature of the ‘real’. As everything is simulated we would now need to ask is there a difference, indeed, any real difference between the virtual and the actual, or, rather, the non-virtual? The answer to this question is both a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’. ‘Yes’ – there is some difference, and, ‘no’ – there is no absolute difference. Let me explain. (23)

	The world of cyber-space is always situated in the midst of the relatively non-virtual. We use a computer. Or we shut our eyes and imagine a certain scenario. Or, we try to remember the details of a certain event. What is the difference between these two parallel forms of simulation? Only a qualitative difference of richness, a richness meant in two senses. First, in our determination of the relative real we find a relative plethora of modalities coinciding with a mix of modalities expected with that type of phenomenon. Furthermore, we find a relatively greater richness in the presentation/re-presentation of many of those modalities. This collective sense of a multi-modal richness of detail allows us to make this conventional judgment of reality, i.e. what is relatively more real (since it is also true to say that all experience is experienced as a ‘real experience’ regardless of the nature and status of its content). On the other hand, in states of dream, or memory or imagination our engagement is not so vivid or broad spectrum, still, no less real as an experience for all of that! And how do we determine this sense of a difference between the relatively non-virtual and the relatively virtual? Through the very magic of the overall transcendental suspension! In this we determine the relative existential richness of that presented to us through this same type of reflection. Furthermore, we can note both the differential richness of that area of focus and the differential in richness it has in its relationship with its appropriately corresponding background. Background is always richer in detail since our focus is always within its potential sense of detail, and, no point of focus can be richer than this sense of a background. Moreover, in a determination of the relative non-virtual we note that this intuitive sense of a differential between the background and its area of focus is not so great in comparison to those times we find ourselves engaging in this more rich environment of the relatively non-virtual (to which we append the determination of  the ‘real’). (24)

	However, what happens when we forsake the path of the overall transcendental suspension (before losing our gestalt sense of integration in a state of deep sleep)? If that were to occur then these differentials just noted could not be so determined or determined as clearly. Into a psychosis we would either fall or from a psychosis slip! This, then, is the worry when dealing with an excessive and addictive utilization of the relatively virtual, as in, e.g., lengthy periods of gaming (and its cross-over into the ‘real world’ through acts of wanton violence and destruction sometimes followed by acts of a suicidal self-destruction). Given this framework could a psychosis be induced that would stop us from determining the relatively real from the relatively unreal, or, would it be the case that a psychosis itself was the primary cause in this loss of differentiation between the virtual and the non-virtual? And, given this provisional understanding, today, should one be able to visit a toy store in order to find the requisite material to go gaming, etc., without worrying that the same might unleash a psychosis, and, given this understanding that if one were not prone to suffer an organic psychosis, then knowing that the same would most likely not occur, regardless of the degree of emphasis placed upon the experiencing of the relatively virtual, might we ask “so what?” It would seem to follow, therefore, that all those methods that advance an overall transcendental suspension would automatically facilitate a greater degree of non-psychotic health in our passage through this World-of-Life with-others before-others... Perhaps the very intensity of lived-experience, whether in the non-virtual world or a virtual world, usually is our psychic self-protection in this regard?  (25)

Hence our transcendental powers assist us in the determination of the relatively non-virtual from the relatively virtual, and, ensure our relative transcendental integrity, health and sanity as we traverse these many phenomenological dimensions and genres of the Life-World be they established or novel in origination, N! (26)

Some Points for Consideration and Debate

1.	Are virtual worlds merely extensions of the so-called real world? E.g., isn’t ‘going shopping in a virtual world’ merely an extension of the genre ‘shopping’ as exercised in the everyday world?

2.	How might we tax cyber-inhabitants?

3.	How would you solve legal disputes in cyber-space? Say, e.g., someone who stole Lindon dollars from your SL account? Does it alter the matter if the ‘crime’ extends to or from the non-virtual world as well?

4.	To what extent virtual motivations, through repetition, might become realized in the non-virtual world?

5.	How might you go about creating ‘some more good’ in the world by co-opting cyber-space?

6.	What ramifications can be envisaged as following from a greater degree of access to (quality-)education in cyber-space (by universities, etc.)?

7.	By what methods might you envisage the creation of  ‘wealth’ in cyber-space (transferable to the non-virtual; but, would you run them past me first?)?

8.	What political ramifications might result for either a democratic society, or, a society controlled by the military or a single party, or, a relatively closed society?

9.	What are the ramifications of these new forms of media for philosophy, religious practice, publishing, etc?

10. 	Is it possible to copyright a text or set of texts in a cyber-world and have that copyright recognized in non-virtual reality? Is that not already in play to some extent within the bounds of a cyber-world? How should virtual copyright be protected?

11.	Is there still a role for censorship; how might you enact/counteract the same? 

12.	What problematic considerations might you propose…? (27)