BAZON BROCK: REAL VIRTUALITY

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What interests me is the difference between virtual reality and real virtuality. In other words, the key discussion about the digitalization of the world we live in. Most assumptions so far have predicted that digitalization will transform our world into a system of codes and signs, a world which in fact no longer contains anything real as such, since the signs themselves refer to a further set of signs and so on… In other words, reality is becoming virtualized and is slowly disappearing – more or less.

Except that experience very quickly tells us that this is quite blatently not true. Even if I completely surround myself with sets of signs displayed on computer screens and then bang my head against the monitor, I will certainly notice the difference between the world of signs - as represented on my screen - and the screen itself. Indeed, the result is a bruise on my head. So it is nonsense to say that the digitalization of the world or its conversion into signs would lead to the loss or even the dissipation of reality.
We must seek an explanation elsewhere, in an assertion already thousands of years old, which claims that this – even the current process of digitalization – is about the realization of virtuality. The virtual is more or less what goes on inside our heads: thoughts, feelings, ideas or expressions of intent, whatever is happening in our psyche. Through words, images, signs of all kinds, gestures, mimicry, forms of behaviour and so on, the virtual becomes real: as signs.

Humanity has always been governed by virtual projections – ideas, depictions, for instance, of the existence of gods or angels or devils, or of animistic spirits which inhabit trees, and people have always tried to lend these mere virtual constellations within their heads, these psychic conditions, a reality as signs, to render them real.

They built temples, they constructed sites of worship, invented forms of painting, suitable costumes and accessories etc. We are continually realizing virtuality. It has always been like that: just imagine, in the Middle Ages people believed that the virtual figure of the angel existed, so they painted these angels on the walls of cathedrals or drew them… or they introduced them into book illumination, whatever. As a sign the angel was tangibly real.

If we today react to this painting, then we ourselves to a certain extent become participants in these paradises and these realms of the dead etc.
And in my view this is the gigantic impact produced by digitalization: we are now able to transfer all these historic ideas and projections with much greater effect to large numbers of living people at the same time; this digitalization allows us to move into paradise or, on the other hand, into an Egyptian realm of the dead. Into whatever fantasies… or imaginary landscapes we want.

Just assume we were possessed by evil spirits, then this belief would cause us to behave in a certain way in the real world. We might for instance say:
„I want to protect myself against evil spirits, so I will nail up my doors and windows.“ As a result, these doors and windows, these nailed-up doors and windows, are reality. Hence in the digital world it is not relevant to criticize what someone imagines or thinks, but instead the manner in which these ideas have been realized, what the status of their reality is. A golden rule of socio-psychology states that whatever is going on inside our heads becomes real through the consequences of what we perceive as true or assume to be real.

The crucial issue is, how can we define the reality of the projection offered to us by the digital sign-generating apparatus, be it as an idea, a sequence of images, a view of the world or an experience within time and space? And, of course, our only available means of examining this is to ascertain how it effects us, since we ourselves are essentially an interface between a psychic steering device – the entire central nervous system – and an organic substrata – our liver, our gall bladder, our kidneys… And we call this unit our body. Which means that there is a reciprocal… a mutually controlling interaction… a brain cannot function inside a preservation jar.

In other words, we cannot exist in this world of signs with all these wonderful repetition-repetition-repetition machines, with these sign-generating engines, with these imagination machines capable of creating worlds of the dead, worlds of the gods, worlds of the spirits. Instead we actually have to incorporate it, which is the decisive effect caused by this digitalization process. What new approaches to the body, what new forms of behaviour, what new sense of the self and what new modes of human relations will be thrown up by this development, and what kind of effect will it have on the physical unity of our psyche and soma? Will this result in something we think of as illness, that once we have become fully integrated in these worlds of signs we then discover we have somehow become mentally disturbed, that we have gone crazy, even psychotic?
In other words, really living in this world with all the consequences… such as inappropriate responses to the reality of walls or stairs or the upper floors of buildings… thinking we can fly and then dropping headfirst to the ground?

The key issue is whether the progressive digitalization of the world and its transformation into signs will result in increasing numbers of people losing their ability to discriminate. Or perhaps instead, sharpening this ability. By operating with signs we do in fact evolve a heightened sense of reality, thanks to our increased capacity to deal with multiple possibility, because we are constantly required to discern between various levels of reality.
And that is the positive perspective offered by digitalization.