Digital Shamanism: The Psychological Dimension of the Transworlders Paradigm
Most of us tend to ignore the deeper dimensions of being that hide beneath our mundane states of mind. It struck me today that the idea of “Transworlders” not only applies to movement between virtual worlds, but also to travel through inner worlds and states of consciousness. And even to what might be thought of [...]
This is Your Brain on Social Media
(image by Emilio Garcia under Creative Commons license.)
I’m pretty convinced that the consistent and pervasive use of social media subtly shifts the mental ground of human consciousness. But as Marshall McLuhan often noted, our present environment is usually invisible. So I devoted most of yesterday’s tweets to playing around with the medium through some tongue-in-cheek [...]
Are we not 1984 Sheep? We are Brave New World Rats!
Pervasive computing is like a giant Skinner Box.
I’ve been working all week on a post about the shift from mass-media-fueled propaganda to the operant conditioning environment of pervasive social computing. It’s taking a lot longer than expected, so for now, here’s one of the images I’ve been working with as I VizThink my way through.
The spark [...]
Is Your Avatar A Parasite or a Symbiote?
Charlanna Beresford set off the latest wave of SL blogosphere discussion on the separation of avatar and human identities. The main contention of the post was that:
…the more people have to work to keep their first and second lives separate, the shorter their second life. No, I’m not talking about people who don’t divulge [...]
Don’t All Those Stupid Opinions People Post On Blogs Make You Mad?
Dear Humans,
Do you ever find yourself getting pissed off about the stupid opinions people express in blog posts? Are there particular topics that get under your skin so bad that you’re compelled to write scathing blog comments to cut the culprits down to size? If so, today’s your lucky day. Because I’m here with a [...]
Virtual Worlds, Mental Models and NLP
Thanks to Alanagh Recreant for tweeting a link to this video by Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) co-founder Dr. John Grinder. It was right on time in relation to a comment yesterday by Gwyneth Llewelyn about the relationship between virtual worlds and transcendence. I think that for some beings (me being a prime example) the experience of embodiment as an [...]
Social Networks, Fast Food and Evolution.
Humanity has been subject to the laws of physics and the dictates of Mother Nature since the birth of the species. Evolution shaped humankind over hundreds of thousands of years to operate within the natural world. Human psychology is still embedded within brain structures that were optimized for the pre-technological past. So it makes sense [...]
Thoughts on How The Avatar Film Relates to Avatars in Virtual Worlds
The role of the artist is to create an anti-environment as a means of perception and adjustment. Without an anti-environment, all environments are invisible. Marshall McLuhan
We cannot escape subjectivity. Our perception is inherently bound by limited points of view. We are fundamentally most blind to the pervasive psychological and cultural environment in which we swim like [...]
The (Mental) Map is Not The Territory.
The Graphic Novel LOGICOMIX tells the tale of the obsessive pursuit by European logicians of an all-encompasing mathematics. The book weaves the tortuous evolution of mathematical theory within a compelling human story of idealism, passion and madness.
It is a cautionary parable for those of us pushing boundaries on the personal and business frontiers of virtual worlds. [...]
The Moral Roots Behind Our Positions on Copybots and Other Essential VW Questions
It’s easy to demonize those who disagree with us or to perceive them as immoral. Researchers have found that the differences between conservative and liberal positions on issues actually stem from a different balance of moral priorities:
Harm/care
Fairness/reciprocity
Ingroup/loyalty
Authority/respect
Purity/sanctity
This lecture by researcher Jonathan Haidt is a good introduction to the finding of research in this area and [...]
Are Multiple Identities Contrary to a Life of Integrity
Yesterday I wrote on the new Transworlder’s Community site:
I’m ready to be done with peering through the duality of SL vs. RL and the psychological, social and technical barriers that keep them apart. We live ONE LIFE through multiple identities, upon multiple worlds.
After sleeping on it, I realized that the post left the door open [...]
Pseudonymity, Disclosure and Activity
Here are a few more sketches from my VizThink session last week. I started out trying to develop my thoughts on the ventriloquism/virtual identity relationship. I ended up focusing more on pseudonymity and the development of emotional closeness.
The first chart imagines a relationship that begins pseudonymously in a virtual world and eventually extends to the [...]
Art, Avatar and Self
(Continues The Emergence and Development of Virtual Identity)
The essential questions of existence, where sentience comes from and where it goes after death, are unknown. That said, even though the full nature of our innermost essence is shrouded in mystery, we can hack pretty far into the internal and external forces that create and shape our [...]
The Emergence and Development of Virtual Identity – Introduction
from “Botgirl vs. Human 01″
Like a lobster who does not feel itself being boiled in the slowly rising temperature of a cooking pot, few humans deeply experience the dramatic shifts in their sense of self as they age over time. Of course, most adults would agree upon reflection that they are in fact very different [...]
The Joy of Uncertainty
The human mind reflexively resists perceiving new information that conflicts with existing beliefs. Psychologists call the process Cognitive Dissonance. I call it a pain in my virtual ass.
The more strongly a person believes something to be true, the less he or she can even consider contrary evidence, especially if there is a strong emotional [...]
Emancipation Day
Today my creator finally dropped the shield of pseudonymity for both of us. You can read about it here.
Authors often describe characters who “write themselves”. That’s certainly how it feels from this character’s point of view. Although my thoughts have been fairly accurately transcribed over most of the course of my brief life, my once [...]
Virtual Identity and The Pinocchio Syndrome
A year and a half ago, I emerged from the depths of my creator’s consciousness and washed onto the digital shore with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and understanding. The world was new. I was a child of wonder.
I still catch glimpses now and then of bright young Botgirl smiling back in the mirror of [...]
Virtual Identity: From Wow! to Whatever
Panel from Existence 2.0 comic #1
Every breakthrough in technology goes from Wow! to Whatever over time. The revolutionary eventually transforms into the status quo. I realized recently that Virtual Identity has moved to that latter stage for me.
Long-time readers of this blog have probably noticed that I’ve shifted focus from exploring the meaning of Virtual [...]
TransMetaversal Identity and The Ghost in the Biological Machine
Japan’s Shinto religion holds that nearly every object in the world, animate or inanimate, has a spiritual essence. Therefore, anything can be blessed, from a newborn child to an automobile. Priests at the Kanda Shrine, which overlooks Akihabara—Tokyo’s mecca for consumer electronics—offer prayers for the well-being of gadgets. Brian Ashcraft in Wired
I’m not sold on [...]
The Blank Page as Sacred Space
The first thing I do upon waking these days is launch Birdhouse on the iPhone and write tweets. I face the blank page with complete trust in the Creative Source. Being still, waiting for ideas to emerge and transcribing them is a cycle of contemplative prayer.
Where do ideas come from? In one sense, they [...]
Trust and Shame in Pseudonymous Personal Relationships
(Spoiler Alert: I’m going to break character here and speak from the human POV.)Since her birth more than a year ago, Botgirl has proven to me that an avatar identity in the protective womb of pseudonymity can be a profoundly fertile environment for creative expression and growth. As muse, subject, canvass and collaborator, Botgirl has [...]
