Reality, Virtual Reality, Life etc etc

Second Life is a virtual phenomenon which allows people to create perfect looking avatars and live a second life. And when I say live a second life, I mean they eat, sleep, exercise, date, get married, shop etc in this virtual world. There have been many news stories covering instances when Second Life has spilled out into the real world; where couples get divorced because a spouse was caught ‘cheating’ in Second Life and where people get married who have met in Second Life. It creates a weird concept whereby virtual realities are really affecting us in our real world. At first it may just seem that these people who use Second Life are just obsessed with a fake online world which has no real value to people. But after closer inspection, could this Second Life actually be ‘real’ to some people, and could it be impacting their physical lives?

I do agree that experiences create grounding of belief, and in my opinion, virtual worlds and whatever occurs within them are very ‘real’. Anything that a person puts time, energy and emotion into can become real to them. Humans need things that are of great value to them, things that they can look forward to working on or creating, and if this comes in the form of a virtual reality, then so be it. Being part of generation Y, I guess I’m quite used to the concept of video games and computers, and consequently, they are a normal part of everyday life to me. So maybe I do overlook the issue a lot of people seem to be having with Second Life.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the relationships formed on Second Life and the relationships harmed in real life as a result, the emotions associated with these situations are too, very real. Emotions and feelings expressed in a virtual reality are still real emotions and feelings, and this is what makes virtual realities ‘real’. This is in fact, not dissimilar to the concept of religion, something some may argue is even less ‘real’ than a virtual reality. Makes you wonder anyway…
I regularly get lost in thought imagining the possibilities of things simply being impossible for the human brain to comprehend. The human brain is restricted and I’m sure there are many things in our reality, world and universe that we are unable to identify and understand. No one can know what they don’t know, and it’s for this reason that I don’t believe people can really define if many things are ‘real’. I think there is just too much ‘out there’ to bother worrying about what is ‘real’ and what isn’t. Just writing this blog entry is enough thinking about reality for my liking.