Second Life and the second dimension

Imagine a society of which you really have no physical contact with. A society literally embedded throughout the globe, where although they feel as though they’re best friends, they don’t even know who each other really are? Welcome to Second Life, an online computer game allowing folk to disconnect from their real lives, with their 40 hour a week jobs, bills, illness, children and possibly undesirable physical appearance, to jump into a virtual reality in which they control the tools to make themselves whoever they want to be, to create their own reality around them.

But really, could second life ever be considered reality? I think that Second Life should be considered as a form of reality. Although you are controlling your “avatar” merely through fingers on a keyboard, there is a level of shared experiences which makes Second Life’s experiences undeniably real. Chatting to friends in coffee houses, playing games, and flying through the air: these are fake experiences that people are discovering together. And when several million people are coming together every day to experience it, clearly, their reality is transcending far beyond simply “Playing a computer game”. These players are socializing, exploring, chatting, laughing and maybe even loving. How could all of these emotions ever be considered fake?

As Meadows argued, the fact that people in these virtual worlds such as Second Life are building things, using them, trading them and discussing them and other people in the game are seeing that object to and placing value on it, clearly there is an aspect of reality in it. These peoples’ shared experiences have created a reality of their own outside of the scope of the real world, and some may say that this fantastic. Think about what the real world is like: worldwide famine, disgusting wars, racism, hate, anger and murder. Wouldn’t you just like to fly away from it all? Well, in Second life, you can.


People have done some pretty amazing things within Virtual Worlds. Marriages have blossomed, ideas have boomed, and people have that ultimate feeling of discovery from within their living rooms. You, as a citizen of the cyber world, can write your own destiny.

This is definitely where the appeal comes from. This new reality must have come to pass from people who are so incredibly unhappy with their own personal lives that they seek to colonize a plane of virtual existence that holds no bias against them, not even the bias of being born a specific colour. By seeking freedom from their own lives, it’s possible that these men and women have created a utopia in which you can escape the real world’s dystopia, and by experiencing it together, they have created a shared reality that could be argued to be as real as the world around you right now.

So I say, go for it. Explore the Virtual Worlds, colonize and good luck!