A life by any other name (day 31)

I wonder about Second Life.  I feel old when I think that many others wonder why I have to wonder.  There are so many trends to keep track of and one must show discernment.   I've been in Second Life a few times and each time I feel icky and awkward.  The social rules don't apply in the same way and I've been through a few chats that left me feeling a little affronted if not assaulted.   So I decided not to invest much time into it.  The SL headlines wizzed by at dizzying speeds for a while.  The hype couldn't have been more shrill.  Now it's down to a drizzle of headlines and most people have polarized into "i like it, i don't like it".   Maybe it's the disillusionment phase of a new technology where we suddenly see the hard work it'll take to solve the inherent problems.  And the phase where we see that we are still humans fundamentally still looking for the panacea.

In the disillusionment I see realism and I feel better there.  It's like I can have some room to think about what it might mean to carve out a space for myself in that technology.   In the best possible virtual world with the most enlightened avatars, what would happen?  Actually it's the avatar part that I'm not so sure of.  Or rather the humanoid forms that pass for avatars up to now.   Playing the game 'Flower' today made me think of what it might be to navigate information as a petal rather than a human.  I know it's fanciful but it seems a lot closer to the way I feel when I traverse information in a browser for example.   I'm not exactly sure why a body needs to be added.  Sure, the body language is potentially interesting but if it can be faked at the click of a button, what's the point?

I have to sleep.  More on SL tomorrow.

A song for this post.