[-empyre-] II (

[Alan Sondheim]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2012, Jonathan Marshall wrote:

>
> Alan
>
>> Hi Jon - think this is really wrong, the idea that people are "convincing
>> themselves" sidesteps the fact that they're not, they're in lived
>> situations that are fundamentally different than off-screen.
>
> You are absolutely right that the convincing is complex, although i 
> would still say one reason they are being convinced that it is different 
> is because it is 'only an image', it is not real.

I don't think they're either convincing or being convinced. I don't think 
this works that way.

> A lot depends upon how the situation is framed.  If its framed as 
> virtual or just an image, or just a film, or just a simulation, then its 
> easier for people to assert that its not really real and has no pull, or 
> that we as 'audience' have no responsibility.

Again, I don't think the word "just" works here - I think it's a different 
way of processing altogether, involving inscription, reconstitution, 
replacement, power, psychoanalytics, etc. It's complex. The "not really 
real" goes all the way back to the cues given in Bharata's Natyasastra, 
probably over 3000 years ago, but the "not really real" doesn't say what 
it is - the difference between Bharata and this discussion is that he/they 
actually work through this within a positivity, not through "not."

> thats why i keep pulling back to saying that what people call virtual is 
> real, is full of humanity (to use an old fashioned phrase), it resonates 
> with suffering.

Resonating with and the same sort of suffering are entirely diff.

> then lets have more!
>
Really don't want to quote myself, it's up at the url - starts w/ the pain 
text, works thru my father's death, daughter's disowning, issues of 
physical floods, embezzlement, etc., and how this may or may not inhabit 
the virtual.

>>> and first steps are good.
>>
>> and usually the last.
>
> thats why i said the second step is difficult, but that is why there 
> might need to be guidposts but without the first step you might not get 
> the second.

true enough!

Alan (hope others will come into the discuss, Monika, Patrick, Johannes, 
Ana? - I don't want to monopolize the discussion - thanks)

>
> jon