The Deeper Meaning of Second Life

For Walker:

"non dénué d'humour" = "not deprived [lit. denuded] of humor."

Personally I'm drawn to SL because it's an illusion within an illusion. It's very interesting to observe the mental processes that are triggered by pixels on a screen, explore their meaning, and then explore the next step up. Were my avatar Descartes, would I not be his "evil genius?"

Cross-posted. Has someone been watching Serial Experiments: Lain?

B.eautifully S.atirical? Now what made you say that? Sixty paragraphs of critical analysis to follow....

Appropos of nothing, I've heard that there's a real life out there and it's a far more challenging game than SL. Time for a look, maybe?

But the most challenging game of all, the one that will occupy you for the rest of your life, is the one that goes on inside your head. No escaping that one for anybody.

Merci beacoup, Meilian!

De rien, you're welcome. 14+ years of study in French wasn't useless after all!

lol, i have a feeling we're not really disagreeing, but I will add that SL is part of real life -- it is an experience, just like any other. You read a book, hike a mountain, visit a friend, succeed at a job, paint a picture, build a primset, etc ad nauseum -- it's all fodder for our mind, for our character, for our lives. Happiness can be elusive in this world, whatever formula people need to try to attain it, I'm all for. (well, that's a BROAD-ass statement I just made, but you probably get the gist).

The experiences we choose to partake of in our lifetimes are choices and tradeoffs. Your average person, yes I would agree, would be foolish to sacrifice too much of RL in exchange for SL.

I take neither the "game" nor the "metaverse" view of SL--I see it as a 3D microcosm of the World Wide Web, in its infantile stages. Like the WWW, if all you want to do is chat, you can. If you just want to "Google" Find Places and see what's out there in your field of interest, you can do that, too. You can also randomly "surf" around (on a surfboard, even) and see what you find. The difference between SL and WWW sites is that an SL site is an actual peice of land. Beyond that, the possibilities are similar--you can use that site for a hobby, a business, or a mode of personal expression, as you like it.

The main difference between SL and the WWW is that SL's still small, and still pretty much a closed system, like an embryo in an eggshell. There's limited interactivity w/ the Web, and almost none w/ RL (it's not expected, for instance, that an RL business, band or political movement will have a presence on the SL grid). If it continues to grow in population and content, then at some point the grid will have to break that shell and become THE 3D mode of the WWW, more fully imbedded in the internet and in RL. For it to happen, RL economy would probably have to eclipse the Linden, or alternately, L$s would have to become a fully viable currency for exchange of RL goods on the grid.

Beyond that, I would say the deeper meaning of much SL content is that mammals like sex.

well put Vudu!

My turn!

Second Life is, for what it's worth, nothing new. It does embody what I feel is the trend in open-ended world systems, and a large part of it exists simply because no artificial method of achievment need apply. Sure, you can look up the leaderboard and think differently, but that exists only because some people identify better with artificial systems.

As Forseti put it, the open-ended design, much as reality exists, is the point. As in reality, you can very easily follow the beaten path, hook up with a linear method of achievment, and still survive. One only needs to realize that this system is artificial, and only represents a very small part of the whole.

Second Life, on the other hand, allows for a much broader spectrum of goals, views, and ways to succeed. This has lead to what it is now, and what many suddenly realize is a good thing in many respects: Second Life is in many ways what happens when you hold up a funhouse mirror to reality - it exists much as reality exists, but within a completely different medium.

While the original poster expresses one stance of that, I feel it is limiting and, again, only a very small portion of the whole.

Second Life, indeed, has grown to encompass many goals and outlooks, ranging from "making money" and "creating art" to mirrored takes of "consumerism," "hedonism," and yes - sex and violence. The point is that all these goals are relevant, because there's no direct authority to say what's right and wrong short of imposing on another person. This is where LL steps in as arbiter.

This slightly-restricted freedom leads into what each resident believes... and again, we're right back to the estranged view of reality.

So, ultimately, the "deeper meaning" is what you make of it. If that be a shallow path of achievment, then you're more than welcome to it. If you are, like me, one that exists to break things only to make them better, then you're welcome to that. If you want to log on to virtually screw someone or fly around shooting people, do so. As long as individual rights to succeed and fail are free of being imposed on, more power to you.

As long as every person is able to maintain their right to achieve, and fail, along their own path - and the system protects this freedom - I see it existing as long as there are people willing to achieve something in this second reality.

No way.

Second Life is just a fascinating new medium desperately searching for a killer app.

Now, if you're arguing that the killer app is the ability of the medium to reflect whatever dream the user has, then I'd say we have a lot more work to do with the interface, tools, and story-arc.

[Do I put the little winky face here like I'd originally intended? Because in rereading this, I've realized I'm completely serious. Hmmm....]

Interesting post, Jeffrey.


Seth, IMO SL is a new medium looking to be a platform for MANY killer apps, on a recurring basis. The logic (or one interpretation of it) is that one person/company cannot consistently plan and produce hits, so you put a platform in place and harness the energy and diversity of your user base. Kind of like genetic diversification for survival/success.

SL is nowhere near what it needs to be for this to work, in terms of tools, stability, performance, etc. This is a major reason why the company should not grow it's user base too quickly.

Someone, whether LL or another company, is eventually going to crack this nut with the right technology infrastructure, but it is going to take some time.

--
Edit: SL is also more than a platform waiting for those killer apps, it is an online society. That, in itself, is not innovative but one could argue that this society is richer than others due to the increased, and increasing, potential for personalization and expression.

Keeping up with the ever growing number of people who like to escape reality through technology, or maybe enhance reality? I'm still in doubt as to what "reality" is so....I have to agree that keeping the users proportional to the ever growing popularity of the experience is advice worth taking.

I believe this is what I was saying.

SL and RL are actually pretty close.

It make take years to find out what you want to do with your life and sometimes you never do.

There will be good times and bad times.

There may be romance, maybe love and many dissapointments.

There will be friends and enemies.

There will be good people and bad people.

You can be a creator or sit and enjoy the creations of others.

The advantage of SL over RL? You can always start over.

Tito

Well put! I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my life, and sometimes I wish that I could just "start over" like I can in SL. What would we do different, if we could do it all again?

Wholeheartedly aggree!

But I would like to add: what SL 'is', is very much different to different residents. Not only the posts in this forum show this fact. And not one of these ways to look at SL is 'wrong'. And to say 'No, you are wrong. My god, how could you say that. SL is in fact much more/just ...' seems at least a little bit egocentrical to me.

There are residents to whom SL is 'a game'. For others it is a '3D chatroom'. For some it is en environment to express their artistic creativity. For others a kind of business playground. For a few it is already an evironment to spend a large part of their lifes in - and even earn some of the money that's needed to live in 'real' life. So, SL is (at least part) of 'real' life to some people.

And maybe that is, why it is so hard to define 'what is the meaning of SL'. It is like the question of 'the meaning of life' (with regard to what we like to call RL). Everyone eventually has to find his or her own meaning of life, give it meaning. And there are at least as many meanings to it as there are residents in SL. Maybe even more

Which doesn't make it any easier to find an answer when some outsider or neewbie asks '... and WTF is the purpose if all that?' But maybe there does not have to be an easy answer.

For me SL is all about expressing a little creativity, making a few friends, and eventually being crowned Second Life's beloved figurehead monarch. Not a monarch with real power...I just want to show up at ceremonies and wave alot.

Love the idea ... Aimee for Empress!

Aimee, what are your plans? Will we have a nobility too? Princes, princesses? A queen mum? I'll run for queen mum!

To seth: lol, so we were agreeing after all



To aimee: no way, sis. You're getting bronzed remember. We're gonna have you locked up and placed on a pedestal, like han solo in carbon freeze. There'll be a little aimee tucked inside going "let me out! let me out!" and little blue butterflies floating around targeting all of your visiting admirers.

then torrid will dress up in a really skimpy outfit and be forced to dance for everybody so that your captors are distracted while Cat comes in wielding her uber-scripting powers and rescues you.

I will be the innocent bystander who gets caught mouth agape and sucked down into the giant sand-jaws-of-death thingy.

I will refrain from guessing who gets to play jabba the hut LOL

I smell a Star Wars spin-off thread coming.

I think the true meaning of Second Life is different for each person. But here are some signs posted along the path to help pilgrims unravel the truth:

1. Ugly feet with toes all stuck together. Think about it.
2. Belly Laughs.
3. A short guy with a sword almost always appears at almost all events.
4. You can dig very deep in the old sims, while the new sims are shallow.
5. Hippos, ants, moles, sheep, fish and lots of cats.

Good luck on your journey.

SL also can also bring many moments of unexpected joy.

Example, just came back from a trip to Ireland, which I greatly enjoyed. The day after I came back, I discovered Baron Grayson's awesome Irish Pub at Sanctum Sanctorum (90,136). I even got to drink a virtual pint of Guinness!

His incredible build, texturing, and overall ambiance transported me right back to Dublin. It was an awesome experience! Now, everytime I want to bring back memories of Ireland, I can just take a short flight to Baron's Pub.

If you have not visited Sanctum Sanctorum, you should! It's an awesome place to explore.

Tito

Don't bother, it's rigged.



Indeed. SL or FL are just extensions of that one.

All of the above are why I see SL as a 3D microcosm of the WWW, with potential equal to the WWW 20 years ago. I find my activities in SL almost identical to how I spent my time on the WWW 8 years ago: I noodle around with my site for a bit, maybe actually create some content, then jump over to a social game (then it was Acrophobia, now Tringo), or find a busy chatroom. Likewise, other people's activities seem the same in SL now as then on the WWW: wander around for more than ten minutes and you trip over a casino or a porn site; you run into people throwing propositions or proposals at each other's screen names, or having a bitch session about government, pop culture, or the software they're using to communicate. One person claims to write this code for a living, while another has never ventured beyond the chat room/welcome area.

I see no difference of kind here, only scale--SL is still very small, and who knows if LL will be able to keep up with growth (tho I think they're doing pretty well so far).

You mean SL isn't real?