Re: [-empyre-] Lambda Moo

["John Hopkins" <jhopkins@commspeed.net>]

>>What I'm seeing now is a new generation of theorists trying to
>>re-invent the wheel.  In forming a theory of second life, surely one
>>has to at least acknowledge Lambda's role and the considerable
>>amount of papers it inspired?


I use the term "attenuated reality" to circumscribe what people want to
get at with the term "virtual reality" in the sense that the particular
social system, in this case SL, allows human interaction, but under
specifically attenuated conditions.  The attenuation comes in the form of
limiting the 'bandwidth' or pathways of possible human exchange.  Using as
a base standard the conditions of f2f interaction, it is relatively easy
to define the particular socially-applied attenuations presented by
different communication systems.  These include the direct attenuations
applied by the technological infrastructure (think limited frequency
spectrum of sound, for example), as well as the more abstracted
attenuations applied by donning the avatar... etc

regarding blakkbyrd, Ana, Helen's & some other comments, I too am somewhat
bored by the almost complete amnesia and lack of historical reference in
the SL discussion.  Granted that SL seems to be the initial arena of
synchronous online presence for some folks here, but the attenuation
parameters for SL aren't significantly different IMHO to necessitate the
hype.  I do understand, from years of leading people into attenuated
reality situations via the internet (and elsewise) that the first time is
a bit of a kick, but I think the current hype surrounding SL is just too
overblown.  LambdaMOO was not hyped by any comparison, but that was
probably because you couldn't exchange money (the root of all social
abstraction!) nor could you see the virtual sex ;-\

cheers,
JOhn

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