Virtuality Readings
In this week's reading de Souza e Silva's piece "Defining the Virtual" created a sense of context for the philosophy of virtuality. While Baudrillard falls into the camp of virtual as simulation of the real, other theorists, such as Deluez have looked at virtuality as possessing the ability of "actualization of potential reality"(de Souza e Silva, 2004). The framework of the discussion of the virtual emplored the classical idea of the virtual as a copy, then moved to the virtual as simulation, possible, potential, and non-place. Within the discussion of virtual as simulation, Descartes' proposed discrepancy between perception and reality is addressed in the discussion of the piece, "What the Frog's eye tells the frog's brain" as well as the idea that "every reality is a mediated reality"(de Souza e Silva, 2004, p.61). This remains an interesting problem as it addresses on an individual scale the idea of "objective" truth versus socially constructed truth, in that the function of perception disallows one to ever reach a truly objective truth, as reality is mediated through our senses. Similarly, in the pursuit of what is real, there was discussion of mobility in the movies "The Matrix" and "Thirteenth Floor" functioning to break the duality of mind/body, virtual/real by allowing consciousness of the physical and virtual/digital realms. This connects back to the idea of the mobile elite in an even more chilling way. Not only are the mobile elite able to amass more power, information, and resources through their advanced mobility/speed, but in the context of a mobile elite being able to move between virtual and real, they have a better chance to get closer to a philosophical understanding of reality? Also, in terms of the virtual as non-place and heterotopias connecting virtual and physical worlds, it is important to think again about the ethics of physical place and virtual access. If the virtual holds the power of actualization as the real it is as if the situation where the people captive in the virtual realm without access to the real world in the Matrix might be subverted in the future such that the digitally disenfranchised are captive in the physical realm-- denied access to the virtual and the different experience of place and reality.
In the piece "Theorizing the Virtual," Poster claims that virtual reality systems "provide participants with a second-order reality in which to play with or practice upon the first order"(Poster, 2001, p.129). Poster then goes on to discuss the ways in which skeptics have reacted to virtual reality and various interpretations of virtual communities as "disemboddied." I thought this was interesting in light of Lupton's piece where she claims an increasing perception of the computer as embodying us, as well as Poster's point that with increasing visual and audio cues are we able to consider virtual space as embodied or not? Poster then goes on to present Baudrillard's views of virtuality as taking over reality where referents are replaced by signs. In the end Poster(2001) exposes Baudrillard's view of virtual reality as insufficient in that Poster maintains: "simulations are coherent sets of meanings, even if they are detached from referents and preceed their objects"(p. 138). He concludes the review of Baudrillard by stating that in virtual reality there is an immersive relationship between model and simulation that contains its own constraints. Next Poster considers Derrida's theory of hauntology where "the virtual [ghost] is essential to the real"(Poster, 2001, p.139). However, he points out that while Derrida usefully attempts to identify features of a term 'teletechnology' he places the framework of the discussion in a science fiction realm of "what if Freud and the psychoanalytic movment had an electronic archive system?" What was also interesting in Poster's review of Derrida's work with ghosts, justice, and deconstructionism was the idea of a shift in power/virtuality/materiality. Attention is given to the idea of a ghost whereing a gost helmet or a material helmet and that relationship to power. In relation to the discussion last week on materiality/immateriality, the idea of the ghost as a concept representing virtuality brings up an interesting point that in the privileging of mind/immaterial in the mind-body duality--ghosts seem to undercut that relationship because, while possessing the power of haunting, they also seem to present an impotence in immateriality.
Levy(1988) defines the root of the word "virtuality" in "The Nature of Virtualization" as "that which has potential rather than actual existence," and therefore the virtual should be compared with the actual rather than the real(p.23). Therefore, virtualization is presented as "a movement of actualization in reverse"(Levy, 1988, p. 26), where the invention is then positioned in a possible environment/problem. Levy puts forth in detail the idea of virtual as "not-there" and that in no longer being material or geographically/locationally present virtual realms and virtual communities "reinvent a nomadic culture"(p. 29). Levy posits this in terms of the virtual as an exodus, a means of escape, however, this points virtuality once more towards mobility in its changing location, terminology of search, exploration, navigation, and lack of fixity. However, one of the most important questions that Levy raises at the end of this piece is the idea that virtual information worlds will have to negotiate the same balances as the physical world, and that where ecology had to balance recycling with consumption and waste, the info/virtual world will have to address new skills acquisition with the discarding of a "marginal" individual(p. 33). This was something addressed in discussion last week in reference to the increasing level of education that will be necessary in order to be considered part of the "skilled labor force." Also, in the end Levy raised the issue of being a "member." If we are moving to virtual corporations and virtual communities, there is again a balance involved in immaterial nomadism, which might not be the loss of belonging or membership, but might necessitate further study on ties between the virtual and attachment.
Deluez(1993) begins "Incompossibility, Individuality, and Liberty" with an explanation of possible worlds and incompossibility in the example of Adam the non-sinner as being non-contradictory in a world God might have selected in which Adam did not sin. Although at times in this explanation, drawing on Liebniz's original theory, I felt like I was in Voltaire's Candide, singing "The Best of All Possible Worlds," I was interested in the way Borges and Leblanc constructed stories where God did not choose the best, but instead the "game had no rules" and all incompossible worlds are passed into existence. Also, I thought Deluez's inversion: "If this world exists, it is not because it is the best, but because it is rather the inverse, it is the best because it is, because it is the one that is"(Deluez, 1993, p. 68). In this way, the world that we live in, the reality that is real is the best because it has been actualized? And the other incompossible worlds remain virtual spaces that play out the possiblities not actualized?
Finally, in his short story "The Garden of Forking Paths," Borges deals with both the idea of nodes and branches in fiction and the instantiation of multiple "incompossible worlds" according to Deluez. What is so striking in this short piece is not just the use of a complicated philosophy of virtuality and multiple worlds in the imagery of the forks of the labyrinths but the way that this multiplicity of selves and worlds is carried out in the smaller references at the very start of the story such as "I bade farewell to myself in the mirror"and "I felt myself visible and vulnerable, infinitely so"(Borges, 1941, p. 31). Also, as the introduction notes, this story with the idea of an infinite book relates to another Borges story called "The Book of Sand" which tells of a book that cannot be sequenced, opens to a different page each time and is of an infinite length. In "The Book of Sand," the reader becomes so obsessed with the circular nature of the "narrative?" that he becomes ill from doing nothing but reading trying to get to the end and must get rid of the book in order to reclaim his life. Although the protagonist in "Garden of the Forking Paths" does not kill Albert ostensibly for anything connected to his work with the translation of the book The Garden of Forking Paths, the expression of dizziness in the recognition of multitudes of possible worlds and possible selves is presented as a nightmare that he also kills off with the shot of the pistol, at the same time restoring linearity, "choosing" a possible world, and validating the statement Albert makes that: "In the present one, that a favorable fate has granted me, you arrive at my house; in another, while crossing the garden you find me dead; in still another, I utter these words, but I am a mistake, a ghost"(Borges, 1941, p.34).
Also, if you are a fan of Borges, you should check out his short story, "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quioxte " which also has to do with possible worlds in that the protagonist is writing Don Quioxte and has numerous footnotes which satirize academia and speak to incompossible worlds (i.e. one in which Cervantes wrote it and one in which Pierre Menard wrote it).