Playing Games in Virtual Reality
| 12:39 UK time, Tuesday, 4 April 2006
The virtual world of is worth much more than the idle whim it might seem to be, said our guest Prof. Edward Castronovo today.
You can play games with friends and family abroad, enhance your self esteem and learn creative skills, all online.
Our favourite New Yorker, Tara Gadomski, took on the personality of 60-yr old Lala to explore the virtual world, and seemed to enjoy herself buying dresses with makebelieve money (Linden dollars) - especially after she met the virtually charming Nick in Second Life Land.
But you don't fool me.
I know that Second Life is the real world and ours is purely imagination. I've seen that movie.
You can't possible expect me to believe that a world in which leadership involves is real.
The real world must be a place where people look after their chidlren and help them play to learn in order to give younger generations the best of chances.
Comments
There seem to be two different impulses at work in the contemporary world: that of cyberspace, where people like to be anonymous or operate under an assumed name or become characters in a game invented either by themselves or or one made up for them in Virtual Reality; at the same time, American highschool students like to wear military-style dog tags with an entirely civilian intent, stating their personal preferences in shorthand or carrying photographs of friends or family. In the 1950s sociologists made much of self and role. People seem to want to play roles in cyberspace and to retain their own personality outside it--and to let the world know what that is.