[-empyre-] if a tree falls in a forest...

["Sue Thomas" <sue.thomas@dial.pipex.com>]

Melinda asks:

>  what
i
> really want to ask is
> are 3d environemnts only alive when a user is in them.. do they become
liek
> a recessive gene when sitting on the server waiting for human presence to
> activate them.. that gets almost into gender politics doesnt it..the
> passivity of the space (or the potential of the void)  waiting for (hu)man
> to give it life...

This is like the 'what is the sound of one hand clapping' or 'if a tree
falls in a forest and there's nobody there to hear it, does it make a
sound?' questions.

I don't work in vrml, I work in text, and 99% of the conversations on this
list go way above my head, but I am attracted to the level of debate,
especially Melinda's question and also to:

> Roya asked:
> - Real time objects have aura. What about virtual objects?

Melinda's question assumes that there are only two entities in the
equation - the 3d environment and the human.  But is that correct? Perhaps
other things can act within the environment, nonhuman things, datathings,
manifestations.

And perhaps those datathings could be linked to Roya's question - do virtual
objects have aura? In so far as flesh objects have electromagnetic fields
etc, perhaps virtual objects have that equivalent as well, and perhaps that
'aura' is the datathing I refer to above.

I guess what I am getting at in this rather clunky and uninformed way is
that the debate above seems to put the human at the centre as the most
active and controlling entity. Perhaps this is a natural result of
programmers / builders conversing, but I prefer to think that we have not
built and we do not control every single thing in a virtual environment, but
that we are simply seeding something which will itself evolve and mutate.

My experience here is much more related to online than vrml, but I am
guessing this could hold true for both. There used to be stories of mutating
code wandering the internet and self-replicating into new and wondrous
beings -- rather off-the-wall, but fun to think about!

For the same reason, I really like Melinda's graph, below:
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electronic works have all of these.. they do generate their own charge,
rhythm, glow, hype, uniqueness, value.  the users are also uniquely
generating a vibration or rhythm within them....every users keystroke or
mouse rhythm is like a digital signature. even as a list  we have created
our own  flow and fluctuation this month so far.. generated our own life
world data breath ..
(- = 1 post, rows are days of the month)
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This is my first    -     at Empyre :)

I hope it's not too far off the mark.

Sue

Sue Thomas
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/suethomas/