2010.01.30 01:00 - Concepts, Perceptions and virtual 'reality'

The Guardian for this meeting was Liza Deischer. The comments are by Liza Deischer. Present beside myself, were: Calvino, Zon, QT, Aztlan and Yaku

from a virtual Hawaiian shirt …

Liza Deischer: hi cal

Calvino Rabeni: Hello, Liza

Liza Deischer: What time is it at your place Cal?

Calvino Rabeni: it is the same as SLT

Liza Deischer: ah, you live on the west coast then

Calvino Rabeni: Yes

Liza Deischer: you couldn't sleep or didn't want to?

Liza Deischer: hi Zon

Zon Quar: heya

Calvino Rabeni: it is a habit lately to keep the hours of an Owl

Calvino Rabeni: Hello zon

Liza Deischer: ah

Calvino Rabeni: Nice "hawaiian" shirt you have

Liza Deischer: your shirt is telling me you expect the sun to be here soon

Zon Quar: ty..i like it too

Zon Quar: sun is here all the time

Calvino Rabeni: where did you get it ?

Zon Quar: its just the angle..

Zon Quar: it was a free shopping area

Zon Quar: let me see if i got the LM

--BELL--

 

… to virtual traveling ...

 

Zon Quar: its no transfer..i bought it from freebie beach

Calvino Rabeni: Thanks - the price is right !

Zon Quar: yup cost benefit ratio is good

Calvino Rabeni: And I can use it about now - I'm on a virtual vacation to the tropics :)

Liza Deischer: a virtual vacation :-)

Calvino Rabeni: Yes, so a virtual shirt would be just the thing.

Zon Quar: arnt we on virtual vacation all the time ..lol

Liza Deischer: :-)

Liza Deischer: in sl you mean, or also in rl?

Zon Quar: hm

Zon Quar: lol

Calvino Rabeni: No just in SL. I was motivated by all the retreat stories

Liza Deischer: I mean what is virtual

Liza Deischer: ah

Qt Core: hi all

Aztlan Foss: HI EVERYONE

Liza Deischer: hi QT, Aztlan

Aztlan Foss: hi liza

Zon Quar: hi Qt; Az

Liza Deischer: but what do you do on a virtual holiday?

Qt Core: virtual holiday ?

Liza Deischer: Cal is on a virtual holiday in the tropics

Calvino Rabeni: I have looked at temples, and gone down canals, and looked at art

Aztlan Foss: sounds fun

Calvino Rabeni: and houses

Calvino Rabeni: and bells, but can't actually ring them

Liza Deischer: and get the feel of the environment?

Calvino Rabeni: Some places I've been before - revisiting with google earth and picasa

Zon Quar: picasa ?

Qt Core: is it the same as when people say they go exploring or has it a different (quieter ?) feeling/mind state ?

Liza Deischer: ah, the 'real' virtual thing

Qt Core: ohh, i thought we were speaking about tropical sl sim

Calvino Rabeni: that would be good, but the detail is still better in google-land. Some day of course google will buy linden and then merge them, I think

Liza Deischer: could be

--BELL--

Liza Deischer: what is different / the same as the real thing

Liza Deischer: you have also been to most of these places?

Liza Deischer: I mean in rl

Calvino Rabeni: yes, so the simulator is in my brain also

Liza Deischer: as memories you mean

Calvino Rabeni: Right, but the memories are more than half imagination

Qt Core: i'm so lazy the last tour in google street view i made was in my neigh-borough ;-)

Liza Deischer: :-)

Liza Deischer: I can imagine that Cal :-)

Zon Quar: instead of talking a rl walk u can use google to exercise

Liza Deischer: hi Yaku

Calvino Rabeni: Good thing the photos are low - rez - because otherwise I would have washed my car the day the google van went by taking pictures :)

Yakuzza Lethecus: hey eveyone

Calvino Rabeni: Hi Yaku

 

… to virtual concepts and perceptions

 

Calvino Rabeni: Now that you're here, we're sure to get serious and talk some PaB :)

Zon Quar: hi and bye all, rl walk calls

Qt Core: it helped as i "went" in front of a shop which phone number i needed but could remember the name... and they had it on the ir sign ;-)

Liza Deischer: by zon

Qt Core: hi yak

Liza Deischer: I was trying to get to PaB

Liza Deischer: trying to figure out what is virtual and what isn't

Liza Deischer: is our perception virtual?

Liza Deischer: and what does it mean?

Liza Deischer: what does it tell us about our perception?

Yakuzza Lethecus: i will log off, wol´s taxi is coming soon, wanted to try this open wifi

Yakuzza Lethecus: cya everyone

Liza Deischer: by Yaku

Qt Core: bye yag, have a nice trip home

Qt Core: yak

Liza Deischer: is that a could topic?

Calvino Rabeni: I would say so - although it seems hard to get a handle on

Liza Deischer: true

Calvino Rabeni: The concepts are used extremely loosely

Calvino Rabeni: for instance, advertisers say "perception is reality"

Liza Deischer: at least we perceive it that way

Calvino Rabeni: but they actually mean something more like "opinion" :)

Calvino Rabeni: As in, "my perception is, it is a good product"

Calvino Rabeni: Or, whatever conceptual conclusions someone has come to about a political candidate

Calvino Rabeni: I think it's safe to say there's very little perception in all that

Liza Deischer: meaning?

Liza Deischer: define perception

Calvino Rabeni: That it is attitude, opinion, interpretation, concepts

Liza Deischer: how real /virtual are they to reality?

Calvino Rabeni: a more classic notion treats perception as something like the early stages of interpreting senses

Liza Deischer: is there a perception before interpretation

--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: so somehow senses are used during construction of a concept of what is happening in the immediate environment - that is typically "perception"

Aztlan Foss: I guess by definition there should be, you need data to interpret

Liza Deischer: then you put the concept before the senses

Aztlan Foss: I'm wondering if perception is something I can control and weather it makes a difference.

Aztlan Foss: yeah there's something out there and then I sense it and then I interpret it.

Liza Deischer: or you have a concept, there is something out there, and your interpretation will be in line of the concept

Calvino Rabeni: The simple version is like that, but it's not a very accurate model

Calvino Rabeni: As Liza points out, it is biased by expectation and memory

Aztlan Foss: yeah I haven't really thought about the order of things

Aztlan Foss: I could very well have a perception and then selectively conclude the "out there" as it fits the idea.

Aztlan Foss: but it's interesting how we can all communicate and agree about things, in general, like, what is funny.

Aztlan Foss: I know some people don't agree but if you're in a room full of people and something is funny it can be a wonderful experience

Calvino Rabeni: There's not really a set of stages - it bounces back and forth, with a lot of parallelism thrown in, plus anticipation and imagination

Liza Deischer: yes we use concepts all the time

Aztlan Foss: I heard some guy talk about mirror neurons

Aztlan Foss: they haven't figured out exactly how they communicate but apparently they mirrors other people's perception

Liza Deischer: I wonder if there is a moment that your senses perceive something before the concept can get hold of it

Aztlan Foss: so we do end up having a collective experience of reality

Aztlan Foss: how does that work over the internet?

Calvino Rabeni: There are some "loose" or tentative interpretations Liza

Liza Deischer: meaning?

Calvino Rabeni: So it is sort of like that, but the concepts probably match by degrees, with ambiguity, and maybe several competing processes

Calvino Rabeni: It's not like, suddenly a concept goes from zero to 100 percent

Liza Deischer: I agree, but to me it seems to be interesting if there are moments when concepts aren't there, even the shortest moments

Calvino Rabeni: Have you ever observed your perception process when extremely fatigued ? It reveals some of the mechanism then

Liza Deischer: true

 

communication and imagination on the internet

 

Liza Deischer: I think Aztlan that internet is not making any difference

Liza Deischer: we still seem to have these collective concepts

Aztlan Foss: yeah but why do I value any of your ideas just as much or even more than someone who's in front of me?

Aztlan Foss: merely with writing? can I really sympathies?

Liza Deischer: what is your own experience about that Aztlan?

Aztlan Foss: I'm not sure, sometimes I think that writing can communicate more than verbal communication, people's internal and better thought ideas. But then I think I'm not looking at the person so it's basically all just inside my head. I can just THINK I'm understanding but I might be way off like that idea someone posed of first comes perception and then you interpret input to fit in to their perception.

Calvino Rabeni: I was thinking about that earlier today. For awhile I thought internet might have a negative effect on knowledge, if people accept their interpretations of shallow language (that is, online mediated communication with all its missing information)

Calvino Rabeni: But then, I considered the other side of it - is that people's imagination has to work overtime just to conceptualize what is going on at the other end of the line

Aztlan Foss: plus it's easier to search and seek information that fits in to your ideas.

--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: And that exercise of imagination might actually have a positive effect when people meet in real life, because they KNOW they have to read between the lines, and can't take their interpretations as "givens"

Aztlan Foss: sometimes, since you search for what you seek, it's harder to encounter ideas that will Shake shake shake... you away from your world view

Liza Deischer: so the difference with rl is that we get less information and therefore need more imagination

Calvino Rabeni: That was the idea I was looking at, right, Liza

Aztlan Foss: in RL sometimes I guess we get less honesty and more clumsy dialogue, less thought out ideas.

Aztlan Foss: when you write you can edit before you press enter

Calvino Rabeni: OTOH, people can press enter before the idea is mature

Calvino Rabeni: And they know they won't be "looked at" by the person they are speaking to

Liza Deischer: somehow it is easier to do things and say things we normally don't do in real life

Qt Core: time to go, bye all

Liza Deischer: bye QT

Calvino Rabeni: Bye, AT

Calvino Rabeni: *QT

Aztlan Foss: yeah wel all pretty much manage our image but it's easier online since we get more time to edit and revise before we present.

Liza Deischer: but maybe that is the result of not really connecting

Aztlan Foss: in RL everything moves quicker and that's where you end up regretting what you said or didn't say, etc.

Calvino Rabeni: I think SL chat supports deliberation, but not necessarily depth

Liza Deischer: agreed

Aztlan Foss: plus you're hiding everything else people evaluate

Calvino Rabeni: But scholars think chat is poor for deliberation, because the context is limited - thinking offline and writing affords better deliberation

Aztlan Foss: the way you dress, how much you go out, with who, expressions, how much you make how happy you are with your situation etc.

Aztlan Foss: yeah that's why I think email is yet another way of managing your identity

Liza Deischer: I think you need to pay more attention to the context on the internet

Aztlan Foss: it plays in every context of your life I think.

Aztlan Foss: as methods of communication change people make mistakes they wouldn't otherwise have made in a method of communicating that they are familiar with

Liza Deischer: true, but chat has a way of going form one subject to another, without being thorough

Aztlan Foss: like those teen girls showing their boobs to their boyfriends on cam

Aztlan Foss: so, us as observer will see those things and judge but as things change more eventually more people, or certain people, will be more forgiving, maybe more than they used to be.

Aztlan Foss: it has an impact all through every aspect of your life.

Aztlan Foss: in terms as how you judge life and your friends.

Aztlan Foss: and how people see you

Aztlan Foss: I can imagine a proud shifting to being open and accepting a lot quicker than in a previous life time.

Calvino Rabeni: Chat does jump around a lot - a bit like party talk, never very thorough

Calvino Rabeni: why would we expect it to be so? Because it is a written medium?

Liza Deischer: thats the word thorough :-)

Aztlan Foss: yeah, which makes for free association with an added layer of edit ability and thoughtfulness

Calvino Rabeni: You know the web site "edge.org"? A bunch of scientists and web elite, look at current issues

Aztlan Foss: what I see is people end up discussing more and more of their deeper concerns, things that used to be secrets

Calvino Rabeni: This year they did "how has the internet changed how YOU think"?

Liza Deischer: no, but i surely will have a look at that

Calvino Rabeni: I like that they made it personal, like PaB :)

Calvino Rabeni: http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_index.html

--BELL--

Aztlan Foss: thanks for the link

Aztlan Foss: see I don't know how that plays here. In RL i'd be like "cool" for that link but I'm more polite here

Liza Deischer: that only seems to be a matter of time :-)

Aztlan Foss: did I type during a silence time?

Liza Deischer: yes, so did I

Liza Deischer: I need to go

Liza Deischer: but feel free to go on

Liza Deischer: and see you next time

Calvino Rabeni: OK Liza, talk to you later

Aztlan Foss: bye

 

 

 

Calvino Rabeni: In the PaB group, it is interesting because the chat is like a raw material, but it gets refined by people looking at the logs later - the scribes, etc.

Aztlan Foss: they refine it?

Calvino Rabeni: So it has the potential to have more thoughtfulness added later

Calvino Rabeni: Well, they re-read it, which gets another view on the same thing, after some elapsed time

Calvino Rabeni: and the scribes can interpret as much as they feel drawn to do so

Calvino Rabeni: Like picking out the important ideas, or seeing how they missed something, or seeing how different sessions go together

Calvino Rabeni: It is not done in a systematic way, more like a causal literary way

Calvino Rabeni: At one point in the past the idea was proposed, to do "tagging" of the topics

Calvino Rabeni: but that's a lot of work, and it wasn't pursued

Aztlan Foss: like topics?

Calvino Rabeni: Yes, topic tagging. Kind of like tagging links on delicious.com or some other "folk" classification

Calvino Rabeni: There is a proposed guideline for it, with some ideas, but it hasn't been put into practice (yet?)

Aztlan Foss: so only certain people would be able to tag?

Calvino Rabeni: Any of the PaB group "guardians" can do it - that is, anyone who has a login to the wiki

Calvino Rabeni: There was no proposal to have it be any "expert" process

Calvino Rabeni: http://playasbeing.wik.is/Informatio...ing_Guidelines

Calvino Rabeni: But the main thing is, the chat logs could be somehow like "low grade ore" that might be refined by reflection, into something like philosophy

Calvino Rabeni: As in a scientific process, where the discussion in the pavilion meetings produces the observations

Calvino Rabeni: and then a later process says -hey, what are the patterns here and what do they really mean.

--BELL--

Aztlan Foss: I'm off to bed

Aztlan Foss: thanks for the chat everyone

Calvino Rabeni: OK, thanks for the conversation - Az, CU

Calvino Rabeni: Bye for now