Artificially Cultured

Gessler's "Ethnography of Artificial Culture: Specifications,Prospects and Constraints" really helped expand my thinking about my time in Second Life. I think I was even somorphically groping at some of the topics he discussed, in my previous postings.

Examining Artificial Culture (AC) has distinct advantages to consider, compared to Natural Culture (NC). AC (especially one as advanced as SL) gives the researcher the advantage of being able to capture, manipulate and study worlds, on an unprecedented level. Scenarios for experimental research could be attempted in ACs with affects much less adverse than such experiments in NC (although, as we learned in the previous readings on research ethics online, there are still certain concerns to consider). SL creates a world with that mirrors the physics, objects and sensuality of our own, but AL and the subsequent culture it creates is only as valuable as it's verisimilitude.

The T.I.E.R.S. program might better simulate our world NC than SL. The prospects of being able to use a world that so affectively simulates ours that it can be used to study our origins is mind-blowing. As much as I believe we can grasp new insights regarding human nature via SL, I wouldn't imagine that it, or any other program could unlock the mysteries of our development into and as hominids.

The processes of trade, information exchange and risk sharing, that have brought us into civilization, still are developing, as we evolve. Oddly enough this tool, which might enable us to better understand T.I.E.R.S, will also change our evolution and the way we trade, share information and the risks we share as a society. As an advancement of T.I.E.R.S, programs like SL change the way we communicate as people and might be an entirely new evolution (doubtfully on the level of "hominidization," but certainly worth studying). Based on my earlier reactions, you might guess that I will be most interested in the "T" in T.I.E.R.S....