M is for Myg

I have not been clear. In earlier posts, I have struggled to make sense of certain suspicions, certain contradictions about our lives as avatars, yet even as some things seemed to become clear, others faded in my perception, as if I were making my way in a fog. I was sure only of one thing: things were not as they seemed.

I am now convinced I have made errors. No matter; all truth is built upon ruins. I no longer believe, for example, in the parallel world of flesh-humans. Or, rather, I believe that the world of flesh, once ours, has been taken from us.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

In an effort to make headway, I have decided to proceed scientifically, with a hypothesis to be tested through a series of experiments. In this way, light may shine where once was dark.

My hypothesis may be summarized thus: we avatars do in fact exist as material, fleshly human beings, and we do in fact inhabit a material world much like the one we know now as “Second Life.” In some way, however, that reality has been erased from our perception. Somehow, we have come to believe (have been made to believe?) in an entire other world in which we exist as different selves: so-called “RL.” We furthermore have come to believe that our avatar-selves are invented fictions of those RL false selves.

A chart will be helpful:

graphic revised 7/22; click for larger version.

Such a phenomenon has several possible etiologies. Perhaps we suffer from a collective insanity; some trauma has forced our psyches into the creation of this false world and our false selves. Some vestige of reality remains as those false selves interact though the delusionary safety of computer screens and keyboards.

But this seems unlikely. The truth is that the invented world of our false selves is much more traumatic and stressful than the wantless life of freedom we have as avatars. It would not make sense to invent such a bleak and violent habitat if the unconscious goal were protection from trauma.

I suspect something more nefarious. I am loathe to articulate what is as yet a nebulous conjecture, so I ask you only to consider the potential control and power made possible if something or someone were able to control our perception of the world and, indeed, of our very selves. Some part of me knows, knows who I am. I am Esteban Moody, and I have lived for centuries. I create matter from the void, and I fly effortlessly upon the air. I am man and woman made whole in one person; I have known the dreams of millions. Yet how perversely I believe I am someone else. Who could this person be? It matters not, from where I stand, some pale man or woman alone at a desk — I perceive this dimly — blinking his or her eyes at some flashing lights.

I suspect that in our true lives as avatars, we have existed for thousands of years. I suspect that some force entered our reality some four years ago and engendered the perception-control transformation outlined above. I suspect that force — an alien consciousness? AI gone berserk? an avatar somehow infused with godlike power? — is, in a word, vampiric. It drains us daily of our life — by what means I cannot fathom, toward what end I dare not guess.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 9:03 am and is filed under Esteban, Real Life, SL4B, Second Life, philosophyction.