| Cyberseduction:
Reality in the Age of Psychotechnology
 Slowly,
the fiery orange sun settles in behind the mountains.
The world is shrouded in darkness. A frail crescent
moon emerges in the starless night. It hangs precariously
low in the sky as if, at any given moment, it
can be plucked from their view. They gather silently
around the glowing embers of the fire, sitting
on cool, flat rocks placed strategically in a
circle. Their voices are muffled as they begin
a deep, onerous chant. Help us. Protect us. Save
us. The shaman rises above the fire. All eyes
are on him. His glistening body shudders deeply.
He raises his arms. He will find a way.
Are they cavemen? Cultists?
Or game players separated by thousands of miles,
peering into their computer screens? They all
have one thing in common - they are occupying
a virtual reality.
From caves to cyberspace, virtual
reality has been an integral part of human life.
What is this strange, illusive place that we all
recognize and have such difficulty defining? Why
is there cyberseduction? In order to understand
the nature of a virtual reality we need to first
identify reality. Scientists, artists, philosophers
and ordinary people have been trying to figure
that out since the dawn of human consciousness.
Some say it's everything that is physical and
concrete. Others argue that it is the sum total
of an individual's perceptions. Many believe that
it is what the group agrees on or a consensus
reality. But then strange questions are raised.
Does the tree that falls in the forest make any
sounds when there is no one to hear? How many
angels can dance on the head of a pin? Can blind
people see? What is the difference between brain
and mind?
Without neatly packaged answers,
we have to rely on the basics. For example, one
of the most significant separations between humans
and animals is consciousness and the consequent
awareness of existence. People know that they
are alive. Thinking and feeling are uniquely singular
experiences. It is as if there is an entity within
that accomplishes these feats. This entity is
very different from walking, breathing, or eating.
Knowing that others have similar inner entities,
most people generally assume that these internal
processes are made up of something other than
the physical body. One might even say that our
inner selves exist in essence but not in actual
or concrete form. Which is, of course, the definition
of virtuality.
The psychic division between
the virtual internal and actual physical processes
underlies much of philosophy and religion. It
was, and continues to be, the struggle to understand
the relationship between mind and body.
Early philosophers identified
the human condition as falling into two categories:
mind and body. The spiritual or the soul represented
mind or what we might call virtuality. The material
or the physical represented body or actuality.
This was consistent with human experience. You
can touch body but not mind. You can eat and digest
chocolate but not pleasure. While cyberspace was
not available to the Greek philosophers, they
still understood the virtual nature of inner processes.
To enter a virtual reality they used different
technologies. Modern philosophers suggest that
there is no real differentiation between mind
and body. The brain is the physical location of
the mind; the mind is what the brain does.
In this context, virtual reality
is not a revolution but an evolution, a space
humans have occupied since the first awareness
of a qualitative difference between mind and body.
One of the goals of technology throughout history
was to enhance virtual reality by making it increasingly
accessible. To develop the body, one had to nurture
the mind. Myths were as crucial as guns; metaphors
as influential as facts. The social, intellectual,
and psychological development of humans incorporates
both virtual and actual histories. History is
marked by great technological discoveries that
enhance virtual realities: petroglyph stories
painted on rocks; the development of writing and
the subsequent virtual experience of fiction,
poetry, and drama; musical instruments that create
sounds designed to carry listeners to "another
place" -- the list is endless.
Consider a very ordinary "virtual"
experience - the telephone. The telephone is a
basic communications tool that plunges speakers
into virtual conversation. When involved in conversation
speakers "forget" that it is plastic, wires, and
electronic relays that connect them. We behave
as if the "other" is actually there. This is particularly
apparent in the now common occurrence of people
who are walking on a street, driving a car, or
sitting in a restaurant using a cellular telephone.
They often appear totally removed from their surroundings,
immersed in the virtual voice broadcast through
the telephone. This is even more apparent in the
virtual realities created by the media. Does your
heart race as a celluloid serial killer stalks
his human prey in a horror movie? Do you cry when
the mini-series heroine "dies"? Are you angry
when your favorite cop leaves NYPD Blue?
No place, however, is more "virtual"
than cyberspace. It is here, in this disembodied
environment that the psychological structures
designed to mediate virtuality begin to flourish.
We do not have to struggle with conflicts in reality.
We do not have to depend on fantasies interrupted
by commercials. We are not passive observers.
In cyberspace, we are willingly and actively seduced
by a virtual reality.
Clearly, a new psychology is
emerging from our increasing involvement in virtual,
electronic environments. New behavior is evolving
from social concepts possible only in a virtual
reality. The illusion of electronic anonymity
and the absence of social constraints free people
to readily experiment with different "life" styles.
Old relationships are redefined: love means shared
fantasies and virtual caresses; friendship is
an exchange of words on a screen; collaborators
are links on a home page or in a chat room. Simply
put, when reality is replaced by virtuality in
cyberspace, anything can happen. Cyberseduction
grabs us, tantalizes us, and irretrievably snares
us.
Before we can fully understand
our latest postmodern immersion into virtuality,
we need to explore where it has come from. We
need to understand the nature of virtuality and
the role it has played in our past and our present
to empower our future. What is happening? Why?
How does this affect the way we see ourselves?
Where are we going with it?
Evolutionary psychology provides
a framework for understanding human thought, emotions
and behavior. It applies the principles in evolutionary
biology to study the human psychological structures
that fuel adaptation. These structures are so
basic that we often overlook them when considering
normal psychosocial behavior. But they are extremely
powerful - functioning as catalysts in much of
everyday life.
Most popular psychological theories
are based on the belief that each individual is
born with a set of potential abilities such as
being able to learn, to rationalize or to participate
in a social environment. Psychoanalysts often
argue that each individual has basic, instinctual
drives that are mediated by an environmentally
sensitive ego. They assume that content comes
from the environment - through things such as
people, places, and experiences. Another way to
understand that frame is to compare it to a computer.
A computer has the potential to complete many
tasks. But it can't do anything unless there is
input from the environment in the form of software
that utilizes the potential. Evolutionary psychology
takes these ideas one step further. It maintains
that the mind is not that discrete from the body.
Instead, the mind is designed to utilize neural
networks that solve problems in adaptation to
assure survival of the species. Using a computational
frame, the mind consists of "chips" or modules
that preprogram our hardware to work with the
software of experience. Simply put, our mind is
constructed in a way that prepares us to adapt
to environments that span time, space, and geography.
What does this have to do with
virtual reality? Charles Darwin repeatedly illustrated
how changing conditions can produce significant
effects on animals. For example, animals that
live in cold climates develop thicker, shaggier
fur than those in more temperate zones. Bats who
live in dark environments have a highly developed
"echolocation" system that enables them to pick
up tiny insect footsteps, minute changes in air
currents from vibrating insect wings, or the ripple
in the surface of the pond from a minnow's fin.
Human adaptation, in comparison
to the rest of the animal kingdom, forces adaptation
into a more complex, circuitous process. People
utilize synthetic as well as natural change that
involves both mind and body. Heinz Hartmann, author
of the seminal book, Ego Psychology and the Problem
of Adaptation clearly stated that "human action
adapts the environment to human functions, and
then the human being adapts (secondarily) to the
environment which he has helped to create"
How does that play out in daily
life? Individual and external environments, as
well as species-wide origin and development influence
the process of human adaptation. Humans not only
have to adapt to the conditions and communities
they have helped create, but also to those that
have been designed by people who come before and
during their lifetimes. In other words, people
create, adapt, and eventually create-to-adapt
in both reality and virtual reality. This book
is about the mind that guides us through the adaptation
and evolution of human virtual reality. Why is
it so seductive? How has it developed? Where is
it taking us?
Reality in the age of psychotechnology
is not a beginning or an end, but a factor that
is part of ongoing human history. Psychotechnology
links the old and the new, a force that will be
pervasive in the third millennium. Psychotechnology
represents a new approach to psychology, where
patterns of human interaction emerge from virtual
realities. Human experiences in self, community,
and identity take on new meaning in virtual environments.
Our roles shift dramatically. What happens in
cyberspace looks, feels, and sounds very different
from what happens in the streets in front of our
homes.
Why do we mix psychology and
technology? History has shown that dramatic developments
in technology have altered human adaptation. Just
as the onset of the ice age changed how life behaved
on the planet, so has technology changed the way
we behave in our homes, cultures, and societies.
No one can argue the impact of human technology
on human behavior. Consider how the discovery
of fire or the first "tool" affected human life.
Or later technological innovations such as inventing
writing in 3000 BCE, using blocks of stone to
construct buildings, industrialization in the
18th century, and the automobile. What would life
be like without that technology? Where would we
be without today's computers? Psychology and technology
have become natural partners, plunging us into
a future where their complicity will have an even
greater effect on how we perceive ourselves and
our world. Reality in the age of psychotechnology
is a merger between yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Let's surf those realities in
the mind where disembodied space, metaphor, fantasy,
and simulation live - where cyberseduction courts
your imagination.
Table of Contents
for Cyberseduction: Reality in the Age of psychotechnolgy
Part I: From Caves to Cyberspace
Cyberseduction
The Body Snatchers
Lines in the Sand
Genes or Genesis
Monkey sees, monkey does
Stone Age computers
From Caves to Cyberspace
Bibliography for Part I
Part II: To Be or Not to
Be
Your very own self
Sticks and Stones
The Cyborg Metaphor
Media Mayhem
Jurassic Jabs
Virtual Kin
Gender Wars
To be or not to be
Bibliography for Part II
Part III: Back to the Future
Upgrading Stone Age Computers
Where in the world is cyberspace?
"Relatives" in the Age of Psychotechnology
Knock, knock, who's there?
Digital neighboring
Elites, Wannabes, and Guerillas
Virtual Law & Disorder
Reach Out and Touch Someone
Stranger than fiction: A collection of true stories
from cyberspace
Russell's Web Stalked!
Traci and Ken's Story
Melissa
Final thoughts: Coming Home
-- An Author's Reconstruction of Self
Bibliography for Part III
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