Virtual World versus Real World

[coberst]

Virtual World versus Real World

 

Wo/man worships and fears power; we enthusiastically give our loyalty to our leader. Sapiens are at heart slavish. Therein lay the rub, as Shakespeare might say.

 

Freud was the first to focus upon the phenomenon of a patient’s inclination to transfer the feelings s/he had toward her parents as a child to the physician. The patient distorts the perception of the physician; s/he enlarges the figure up far out of reason and becomes dependent upon him. In this transference of feeling, which the patient had for his parents, to the physician the grown person displays all the characteristics of the child at heart, a child who distorts reality in order to relieve his helplessness and fears.

 

Freud saw these transference phenomena as the form of human suggestibility that makes the control over another, as displayed by hypnosis, as being possible. Hypnosis seems mysterious and mystifying to us only because we hide our slavish need for authority from our self. We live the big lie, which lay within this need to submit our self slavishly to another, because we want to think of our self as self-determined and independent in judgment and choice.

 

The predisposition to hypnosis is identical to that which gives rise to transference and it is characteristic of all sapiens. We could not function as adults if we retained this submissive attitude to our parents, however, this attitude of submissiveness, as noted by Ferenczi, is “The need to be subject to someone remains; only the part of the father is transferred to teachers, superiors, impressive personalities; the submissive loyalty to rulers that is so widespread is also a transference of this sort.”

 

Freud saw immediately that when caught up in groups wo/man became dependent children once again. They abandoned their individual egos for that of the leader; they identified with their leader and proceeded to function with him as their ideal. Freud identified man, not as a herd animal but as a horde (teeming crowd) animal that is led by a chief. Wo/man has an insatiable need for authority.

 

People have an insatiable need to be hypnotized by authority; they seek a magical protection as when they were infants protected by their mother. This is the force that acts to hold groups together, intertwined within a mutually constructed but often mindless interdependence. This mindless group think also builds a feeling of potency. The members feel a sense of unity within the grasp of their leadership.

 

‘Why are groups so blind and stupid?’ Freud asked; and he replied that mankind lived by self delusion. They “constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real.” The real world is too frightening to behold; delusion changes this by making sapiens seem important. This explains the terrible sadism we see in group activity.

 

Questions for discussion

 

Is there a vital difference between human sciences (such as psychology) and natural sciences (such as physics)?

 

Is it possible for humans to create a virtual world that is more important than the real world? What is the difference between a virtual world and the real world?

[Kyrisch]

The virtual world is a delusion and the real world is, well, real. If you don't believe in gravity and you jump off a cliff you will still plummet to your death. I'm sorry.

 

(As an end note, I feel kind of weird using an analogy that I originally heard when I told an evangelist that I didn't believe in Hell, however fitting it may here be)

[mooeypoo]

I think it depends how you define "more important". While the laws of physics always apply, a philosophical point of view would state, possibly, that we already ARE in a subjectively conceived world. For that matter, I see myself differently than you see me, or someone else sees me, etc. It's not just about self consciousness or shyness, necessarily, either.

 

It's a deep philosophical question, and pretty interesting one, imho.

 

You can't change the laws of physics through psychology, but you can probably argue that you perceive some of them differently..?

 

~moo

[Edtharan]

The virtual world is a delusion and the real world is, well, real. If you don't believe in gravity and you jump off a cliff you will still plummet to your death. I'm sorry.

I jumped off a cliff today hoping that I could fly. However, I plummeted to my death. Of course this was in a virtual world.

 

Just because a world is "virtual" does not mean that it does not have rules and that you as an individual can do whatever you desire.

 

A virtual world is just a computer program and a computer program operates on logic. The computer would be implementing rules (the program) and using the logic of its processors would then calculates the result. If that result says that you fall to your death then you can do that. If it says you can respawn then you can respawn, if it says that you can't respawn, then you can't respawn and once you die that would be it.

 

Your argument actually is a strawman as not all virtual worlds would be different from what we know of as reality (especially is they were a simulation of reality).

[mooeypoo]

Wait, an imaginary world isn't "virtual"?

 

Since the OP suggested correlation between physics and psychology, that was the first thing that I thought of - a "psychological" virtual world.

 

That's not possible?

[john5746]

 

Questions for discussion

 

Is there a vital difference between human sciences (such as psychology) and natural sciences (such as physics)?

 

Is it possible for humans to create a virtual world that is more important than the real world? What is the difference between a virtual world and the real world?

 

1) physics has much harder math.

 

 

2) We might think a virtual world is more important, but our physical bodies require energy from the real world - as does our virtual world. That is why science > mythology.

[Motor Daddy]

What is "the real world?"

[mooeypoo]

The world that we are in, in which the laws of physics apply.

[iNow]

MotorDaddy,

 

While it might seem an innocent question, yours has little or nothing to do with the topic under discussion. That is what people mean when they ask that you not hijack threads.

 

If you'd like to persue such a conversation, I encourage you to start your own thread on "what is the real world?"

 

Then, we can all jerk around in there with you, about your question, and tell you how it's a reality show on MTV.