When we have our brains laced with nano-neural networks (40 years?) we
will eventually be able to experience completely virtual body
sensation, so we can have equal or better quality sex with partners in
virtual reality, or with combinations of virtual reality and material
reality; two real people in a virtual space, a virtual partner in a
real space, two real and one virtual person in a semi-real space,
whatever. Nano-neural networks and new psychophamraceuticals will also
allow us to modify and enhance sexual and emotional experience, to have
orgasms as long and hard as we like, or no orgasms, or to have an
experience of cosmic love and oneness instead of an orgasm, experienced
as a bolt of tingles trough every inch of our body.

lire la suite de From Virtual Sex to No Sex?

For most of human history, shared “entertainment” was couched in the context of a religious celebration and/or social narrative. Even village storytelling was to some extent ritualized and clearly reflected existing social values. Durkheim’s notion of “collective effervescence” was based on the idea that society is founded upon rituals designed to allow us to share interpretive experiences in order to bring us together. The contemporary social sciences interest in the phenomenology of experience also ties to the relationship between our embodied reactions, feelings, sensations, and interpretations of those experiences in a coherent framework co-created by a community.

As new social forms emerge in virtual communities such as MMOs and Second Life is it possible that we are seeking these kinds of shared experiences through these virtual worlds?

L’article complet sur Terra Nova

Research on virtual environments has provided insights into the experience of presence (or being there) and copresence (being there together). Several dimensions of this experience, including the realism of the environment and of the avatar embodiment, have been investigated. At the same time, research on a number of new media has begun to use concepts that are similar to copresence, such as mutual awareness, connected presence, and engagement. Since digital environments can be reconfigured and combined easily, and since an increasing number of such environments are used to connect people in their everyday lives, it is useful to think about the various modalities of connected presence as a continuum – with shared virtual environments in which people are fully immersed as an
end-state. This paper proposes a model for the different modalities of connected presence whereby research on shared virtual environments can be integrated with research on other new media - and vice versa. It is argued that this model can improve our understanding both of the uses of shared virtual environments and of their future development among a variety of media for ‘being there
together’.

Lire l’article de Ralph Schroeder

via pasta and vinegar

Lire l’article de The Register.
via WorldChanging

“Ces deux mondes devaient se rencontrent : les jeux de réalité virtuelle et les blogs. L’expérience vient d’être tentée par Second Life, une plateforme où l’on s’invente une nouvelle vie avec famille, patrimoine et vie sociale. En ligne, le boulanger devient chirurgien, et le prof de banlieue, boxer sans rival. Que fallait-il pour parachever l’illusion de cette seconde vie ? Un blog !

Rendez-vous sur Bloghud système de blogging en ligne qui permet aux abonnés de Second life de tenir leur carnet de bord. Chaque post est agrégé sur la home de Bloghub, en plus d’être géolocalisé sur la planète Second Life. Avec 273 191 inscrits au jeu, il y a là un joli potentiel. “

via Pointblog

“…formal teaching offers the worst retention rate. Immediate use of learning, the best. That’s what SL can do — it can offer a variety of ways to allow you to set up interactive experiences to practise by doing, to make immediate use of learning, and to discuss what is learned”.

A lire: cet article de Second Life insider, et ses nombreux liens intéressants.