Crucial: “Being is Dead, Long Live CyberBeing™.” Introducing Cyber Existentialism.
For those who may be interested, debuting this week on HBO Max is a documentary that follows the virtual "lives" of several young VRChat users attempting to maintain some semblance of a social life during the pandemic period. I have not seen the film, "We Met In Virtual Reality," and will thus hold judgment, but if the trailer is any indication it seems to promote an emergent philosophy of life I've been describing as Cyber Existentialism (or CE).
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It's still early days here so hang with me as I attempt to describe CE, but in a nutshell I characterize it as a personal philosophy akin to 60's Existentialism, but operating within the immanent frame of a virtual or disembodied construct. Though I will leave a fuller exploration of CE for a later post, I recognize that diving a hair deeper into this concept may help paint a clearer picture of its impact, so here we go:
Being inherently metamodern in nature, CE marries the modernist view of Dasein, or "being there" (a concept necessary for Hegel and Heidegger to describe basic "being") to the postmodern state of hyperreality (Baudrillard's concept of a culture inundated with simulacra). Now for those who study HCI and HCC or work in immersive media, the blending of these two concepts is nothing new. For example, pioneers such as Witmer, Singer, and Slater have attempted to first define and then quantify the concept of presence, or "being there", as experienced through virtual media, since the late 1980's. So widely used is this concept of presence, that even I have proposed research surrounding its interaction with cognitive styles.
What sets CE apart is that the virtual or vicarious has been widely adopted as a completely acceptable surrogate for physical. Though we know that our experience is merely a construct, our fears and insecurities drive a choice to experience Dasein, and by extension being, within a digital simulacrum. As experiments using Robert Nozick's Experience Machine have shown us, it's certainly arguable that there has always been a contingent of individuals who would have chosen the Matrix over a physical reality, but likewise it's safe to say that CE kicked into high gear with the global enforcement of "social distancing" protocols.
Beyond the obvious issues of sustainability, another fundamental problem with CE is that it requires that we embrace this type of vicarious, 3rd-person living as crucial for personal growth, but cosmically meaningless. So we feel around for any traction, often landing on a nihilistic conclusion: that curating a digital existence—where our "divine" status remains uncontested—is in fact our only hope for establishing a personal legacy! But friends, please know that nothing thirst quenching resides at the bottom of that virtual well. Any satiation it delivers is not only fleeting, but in fact, designed to be that way. Moments of empowerment, acceptance, and transcendence are happy outcomes, coaxed from the user by way of riskless interactions and UX-exploitable brain hacks. The man behind the curtain has been replaced by a sophisticated algorithm whose sole aim is to convince you that a life consumed by disembodied novelty is substantive and worthy of your undivided attention.
To escape the gathering whirlpool of CE I challenge my readers to schedule time away from their digital conduits. Seeking times of solitude where the only soundtrack is nature. Allowing beauty, awe, and wonder back into our daily lives. Entering into meaningful conversation with those closely, and casually, connected to you. Vulnerably embracing others without a guarantee of reciprocation. And above all else, humbly seeking an encounter with Truth by emulating the faithful Centurion:
When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.
We live in a world filled with the wonderful fruit of our intellectual and creative capacities, much of which is capable of enriching our lives. But if your firmest desire is wisdom, leave the safe borders of your digital fiefdom and risk yourself by entering into the wilds. I promise it won't disappoint.
“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!”
C.S. Lewis (The Last Battle)
