What is real?

Recently I've read in several threads people stating that SL isn't real, it's just pretend, and "only pixels", and use that as an argument against the various political and social proposals that have been set forth. I look at it differently, and I seek your opinion.

It seems to me that whatever captures the collective consciousness of any particular group is "real" to the members of that group. For example, I have never been to Iraq or New Orleans. I don't know anyone in Iraq or in New Orleans, and yet both of those events seem very real to me. They affect my life. They affect the things I think about. My only source of information about those places are pixels (TV and Web) and moving air (radio).

Okay, I admit that even though I have no direct involvement with people affected in those areas the fact is there are people affected. So here's another example, perhaps a bit more esoteric: The real world politics in the USA. The actions put forth by the party in power rarely conform to the platform the party used to rise to power. For instance, Republicans are always proposing smaller government, and yet the number of government agencies and the federal debt always seem to rise under Republican administrations. Still, the image put forth by the Republican party is very real to many people. Their source of information? Often it is in the form of pixels alone.

Without picking apart my particular examples, what do you think constitutes a sense of reality? To me, if there is a community of people, who care about each other, who care about issues pertaining to them, who have some type of social interaction, there is reality, even if it only exists in pixelated form.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

That it is what you make of it. And how often you question it.

Second Life or Reality? Both, really.

Nothing is real, we just think it is.

Eboni wins.

I suspect only Neo Anderson can answer your question, but currently he is dead

I am an avatar dreaming Im a man, I swear.

Ow. My brain hurts.

I love the forums, where entire branches of philosophy are reduced to a single thread

Go forth and study!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology

I never claimed it was an original question. I'm just looking for opinions as it relates to the SL "metaverse" and whether the sense of reality in SL has any bearing on social issues within it.

SL is real. I'm pretty sure I actually log in and do stuff and it's not me blacking out and halucinating. It's not real in the sense that it's truly a second life. If I spend too much time here and stop attending to my bodily needs and die at the keyboard, I won't continue living in SL... at least after I time out from inactivity

Reality is simply a set of events that we accept as a canon. Whether or not they 'actually' happened is impossible to determine except on a person-by-person basis.

Basically, if you don't experience it and accept it, it didn't happen.

Maybe.

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the prim. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no prim.
Neo: There is no prim?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the prim that is tortured, it is only yourself.

Jillian will you marry me

We play at dolls, dressing them up and making little houses for them. In a sense that's play. However, we project our thoughts and feelings and some proportion of our selves into them.

Some of us are role-playing lightly. Just acting.

Some of us are role-playing more deeply, investing emotion and feeling into an alternate identity.

Some of us are being ourselves within the confines of the environment.

Our feelings are in there. Our thoughts are in our words.

In the regular world your thoughts and feelings are real. As real as tables and chairs, or any solid thing. They exist for you, matter to you. In SL, we express our thoughts and feelings. No less real or genuine. No less meaning.

We form REAL relationships. Real friendships. Real love. Real enmity.

Think of your SL friends. When they are hurt, in trouble, or poorly treated, you feel badly for them. When they are happy, healthy and doing well, you feel good for them.

That SL is a shallow environment doesn't matter. That you cannot see someone's face. Hold them. Dry their tears. Tuck them into bed. Doesn't matter. They're real people, and you are too.

SL brings people together who otherwise might never have met, and gives us an opportunity to love, hate, play, talk, and FEEL. All the things that we might do in the real world. And perhaps more.

In the real world, I might never start a conversation with a stranger. I rarely lift my eyes to see anyone's face. I am probably diminished for all that.

But many of you have seen me in SL. I've spoken with many of you. Made friends, probably pissed a few of you off, laughed, had misunderstandings, gotten angry, sad, happy (though never lonely). Have you known me to be shy of saying hello to strangers? Of welcoming a new resident to SL?

Though our inner feelings are - perhaps - closer to the surface in SL, many of us are LESS afraid about how a stranger might treat us - even though some of us have been treated poorly by strangers (in SL and RL). Even though we seem to be able to be hurt more deeply, more quickly in SL, we also seem to form deeper bonds more quickly. An interesting tradeoff worthy of it's own discussion.

Real? Hell yes. The medium isn't real, but the medium isn't the message. The message is YOU and YOU are real! And that's what really matters, isn't it?

Reality is a self-reinforcing phenomenon