Can we really call this reality?

“Shared experiences create a sense of reality”

Meadows (2008:51) argues that experiences create a grounding of belief. “People in virtual worlds build things, use them, sell them, trade them and discuss them. When another person confirms what I am seeing, places value on it, spends time working to pay for it, buys it, keeps it, uses it, talks about it, gets emotional about it, and then sells it – this tells me there is something real happening. The suspension of disbelief has become a grounding of belief”

These words written by Mark Stephen Meadows have some merit and I do agree with them to an extent. Even in a virtual world there is still interaction between people. Even though these people are represented digitally as ‘Avatars’, they are still under the complete control of real people in the real world. An example of a virtual world that is inhabited by avatars is the program 'Second Life'. This platform allows people to live in the program and do anything they could do in real life. Does this then make a virtual world reality?

Meadows states that “When another person confirms what I am seeing, places value on it, spends time working to pay for it, buys it, keeps it, uses it, talks about it, gets emotional about it, and then sells it – this tells me there is something real happening”. These shared experiences are supposed to create a sense of reality and in a way it does. I think that the interaction between people does validate a sense of reality. However, the platform in which this happens is very un-real.

In a world that has little or no governance and lacks law enforcement and even laws for that matter, it is hard to suggest that a virtual world is reality.

Also, think for a minute that this virtual world that a person can; on some level, ‘live in’ can all be ended at the drop of a hat. If the creators of the program decide to shut down in ‘real-life’, then the entire existence of this virtual world and everything in it suddenly becomes extinct. Just take a look at the similar avatar-based social world that is 'there.com'. This entire world, along with everything and everyone in it is now completely non-existent. The amount of time, effort and money users have committed to this virtual world now equates to nothing. This fact now raises the question of whether you could consider this reality. A world that could be ended so easily by its creator cannot possibly be considered as reality nor even closely replicates the concept of reality.

Although Meadows is right in saying that shared experiences; that involve other people, can in fact create a sense of reality, he doesn’t seem to be addressing this concept relative to the real world. It is fine to say that when people build things, use them, sell them, trade them and discuss them in a virtual world it creates a sense of reality, but I think this can only be true in the sense of the interactions between people and the relationships built when using this virtual platform. Every other aspect of a virtual world is however, superficial and cannot be considered as reality. The endless complexities of real life, I think, just cannot be replicated in a virtual world and so, can not really be considered as reality.