kajarainbow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kajarainbow) wrote2004-11-18 02:37 pm
kajarainbow) wrote2004-11-18 02:37 pm
The (un)reality of the Internet
Something always disquieted me about the standard perception of the Internet as some non-real thing. After I watched Lain, I finally got some words for it--in Lain I saw interesting metaphors about how the physicals and the Wired interact.
But Lain didn't give me new thoughts, merely inspiration for new words to finally solidify my thoughts.
People who say "It's only digital" or the similar bug me in any contexts, though some are more more outright obnoxious (like the ones using it as an excuse for, well, obnoxiousness) and some merely disquiet me a little.
If cyberspace interactions aren't real, human social interactions aren't real either. The Internet, it's a great big telescoping device for human interaction, it's a means for retrieving and storing information, and so on. All of which can have real, significant physical impacts. Look, right now, I'm (as per my last post) running some computing of proteins on my computer's spare CPU cycles, the results of which is transmitted over the Internet, okay? This will help create data which will potentially have ramifications on the way we do medicine. Real-world impacts.
Words on the Internet. They can drive people to suicide or to joy. They can inspire people to undertake *physical* reshapings of things. Just like words transmitted directly through sound waves in the air from one mouth to an ear near enough to hear it. Only those words are transmitted through fingers to keyboard to wires to monitor to eyes (in most cases, there're exceptions as in the blind, etc.).
Those words feel disconnected because they lack the additional context people rely on, the facial and tonal and gesturing cues. People thrive on stimuli. Saying "It isn't real" because it doesn't have the additional stimuli coming from in-person interactions, I think, misses the point. It's real. It just doesn't have the additional information most people rely on.
Say we get to the point where it's a trival matter to transmit visual, sound, and tangible impressions of oneself. What then? Is it still unreal? What changed? Was it the reality, or simply the amount of stimuli given?
People, by their nature, crave stimuli. Both physical and 'mental' ones. The Internet gives a small subset of the stimuli one can experience 'in the flesh'. But, different people have varying stimuli requirements. Some of them have great difficulty acquiring certain stimuli through the flesh-channels that they can more easily acquire over the Internet. Certain kinds of mental stimulations, the experience of people with shared interests.
I became addicted to the Internet. It has given me a fuller mental life than I ever experienced in the flesh. But I find myself suspecting that I need to restore my balance of stimuli, acquire more ones that can't be acquired via the Internet. A lot of the things people treasure about the physical, I don't seem to value highly. But, some things, I do feel I am missing.
Do tell me to get more balance of stimuli.
But, goddamn, don't tell me the Internet isn't real.
But Lain didn't give me new thoughts, merely inspiration for new words to finally solidify my thoughts.
People who say "It's only digital" or the similar bug me in any contexts, though some are more more outright obnoxious (like the ones using it as an excuse for, well, obnoxiousness) and some merely disquiet me a little.
If cyberspace interactions aren't real, human social interactions aren't real either. The Internet, it's a great big telescoping device for human interaction, it's a means for retrieving and storing information, and so on. All of which can have real, significant physical impacts. Look, right now, I'm (as per my last post) running some computing of proteins on my computer's spare CPU cycles, the results of which is transmitted over the Internet, okay? This will help create data which will potentially have ramifications on the way we do medicine. Real-world impacts.
Words on the Internet. They can drive people to suicide or to joy. They can inspire people to undertake *physical* reshapings of things. Just like words transmitted directly through sound waves in the air from one mouth to an ear near enough to hear it. Only those words are transmitted through fingers to keyboard to wires to monitor to eyes (in most cases, there're exceptions as in the blind, etc.).
Those words feel disconnected because they lack the additional context people rely on, the facial and tonal and gesturing cues. People thrive on stimuli. Saying "It isn't real" because it doesn't have the additional stimuli coming from in-person interactions, I think, misses the point. It's real. It just doesn't have the additional information most people rely on.
Say we get to the point where it's a trival matter to transmit visual, sound, and tangible impressions of oneself. What then? Is it still unreal? What changed? Was it the reality, or simply the amount of stimuli given?
People, by their nature, crave stimuli. Both physical and 'mental' ones. The Internet gives a small subset of the stimuli one can experience 'in the flesh'. But, different people have varying stimuli requirements. Some of them have great difficulty acquiring certain stimuli through the flesh-channels that they can more easily acquire over the Internet. Certain kinds of mental stimulations, the experience of people with shared interests.
I became addicted to the Internet. It has given me a fuller mental life than I ever experienced in the flesh. But I find myself suspecting that I need to restore my balance of stimuli, acquire more ones that can't be acquired via the Internet. A lot of the things people treasure about the physical, I don't seem to value highly. But, some things, I do feel I am missing.
Do tell me to get more balance of stimuli.
But, goddamn, don't tell me the Internet isn't real.