Central Institute for Distance Education Research - FernUniversität in Hagen
04. August 1997
Helmut Fritsch ( 1995)
Virtuality
It started out with the capacity of computers to simulate complex structures, to do this in real time and by the huge calculating capacities of these machines to do it in a quality that resembles reality.The training of pilots might be one of the better known examples. The goal is to filter out intruding effects from outside which are defined to have nothing to do with the procedure trained; and to avoid costly consequences of real life.
Most slot machine-games tell you that you have several lives: you become immortal once you feed the machine inspite of the most dreadful deaths you encounter.
It must have been hundreds of years ago that a single human being would be able to
incorporate the wisdom of that age - since then the growth of knowledge has been
developing in an exponential way.
Today the main question is not to have the wisdom of the
world at hand or in your mind but to know how to get it fast . Scientific work has been
developing more and more into the direction of administration, drifting away from reading
and writing, presenting correct references, reading again and again what had been written
before.
The life span of books decreases down to nothing. It will be of no use to collect
my books from the period when I studied in order to pass them on to the next generation.
Libraries where lots of people sit and read will change more and more; all information is
available via computers and it will be updated constantly like universal
wisdom.
The velocity with which computers work, rose constantly - there are not many bottle necks
left, connections to the net belong to the standard already- the big hardware providers think
about downsizing the machines because you might get the updated newest version of special
software exactly to the extent you will use it from the net. (It makes sense when you consider
that some 90% of the features I bought with my software never will be used).
Being present and connected throughout the world - more and more people know people they never
met in reality. A neighbour of mine was in summer 1996 very upset one night because a "pen
friend" of hers from a chat box did not react and she had learned from TV that a hurricane
crossed her region on the other side of the globe
. The last message she received was
that there was lots of rain and nobody home. It took three days until the telephone lines were fixed and her friend was "on the net" again, connected.
Yes, virtuality is a religious theme, immortatlity, omniscience and instant
ubiquity.. Read the advertising or just the handbook of new software - you will find all these glorious things there which in the medieval ages were assigned to angels -
Or think of your own curses, when you encounter the shortcomings of that promised land - not religious? In many different religions we find reality of our life to be considered only as a passage to the eternal essence, to the
promised land.
Our human existence has been thought of as an image of God, embreathing brings life to us. Platon used the term akroasis for the harmony of the planets - Sound and the healing power of music. All our senses seem to be doors to the eternal essence, usually locked by intruding factors, the petty things of civilization. Promoting Virtual culture seems to me like singing the anthem "Nearer God to Thee". The danger of this view is that the original sin in the Bible was the strive of man to be like God.