Virtually Real: Being In Cyberspace By Morgan Leigh A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Tasmania November, 2014 1 Statement of Originality This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of the my knowledge and belief no material previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any material that infringes copyright. Statement of Ethical Conduct The research associated with this thesis abides by the international and Australian codes on human and animal experimentation, the guidelines by the Australian Government's Office of the Gene Technology Regulator and the rulings of the Safety, Ethics and Institutional Biosafety Committees of the University. Morgan Leigh 7/11/2014 Authority of Access This thesis is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. You are free to: • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material • for any purpose, even commercially. • The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms: • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. • ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. • No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. 2 Acknowledgements This thesis would never have been started, let alone come to fruition, without the endless supply of hardware, support, debates, encouragement, arguments, sheer programming brilliance and the inconceivably amazing attention to detail I was fortunate to be the beneficiary of from my partner, Tim Serong. It is to him that I dedicate this thesis. I am indebted to the members of the communities I studied for agreeing to take part in this project. I owe especial thanks to the Pharaoh for his permission to undertake this research in his sims, to the oracle for constantly keeping me up to date with the latest gossip, and to the tailor for his mediating skills. I first found out about Second Life from Dr. Helen Farley when I was at the University of Queensland. Her guidance when I was first coming to know the world assisted me with my first steps into that virtual domain, and I thank her for it. I am obliged to Associate Professor Douglas Ezzy for agreeing to take over the supervision of this thesis when I moved to Tasmania. Thanks to Dr. Max Travers for his help as my associate supervisor. I also greatly appreciate the assistance provided by Denise Jones in the school office. 3 4 Abstract This thesis is an autoethnographic account of my search for the sacred in cyberspace. The research was conducted in the virtual world Second Life, and in particular in two role play communities set in Ancient Egypt. Virtual worlds are often criticised as unreal, as just games. Here I explore the ontological status of virtual worlds, recognising the priority for their inhabitants of lived experience over purely rational assessments. This research is unique and important as no monograph of role play communities in Second Life has yet been published, and yet tens of millions of people spend an increasing amount of time in virtual and game worlds, often preferring them to the meatspace world. I recount my experiences with ritual in cyberspace, describing sacred virtual space, and its relationship to sacred meatspace from a Pagan perspective. I compare two initiation rituals, and describe how one produced the perception of sacred space, in both meatspace and the virtual world, while the other remained only a role play. Finally I analyse an opening of the mouth ritual to reveal the way we make sense of our own realities by building on and remixing what came before us, and to argue that there are many truths and that objectivity is impossible in the human condition. This is the story of how I became one with my avatar, despite my best efforts not to do so. Themes of the fun economy, remix culture, and copyright inform the analysis in the thesis. I explore Castronova's concept of the fun economy, the amalgam of work, play and education which characterises twenty first century life in the developed world. Freedom and fun are the motivators for the inhabitants of virtual worlds and the bounds of these are defined by copyright. This issue is examined through the lens of the Second Life permissions system and the work of Lessig and his concept of remix culture. I argue that remix culture has permeated the entirety of human history, giving examples from ancient Egypt through to the present day, and consider the implications for human culture if restrictive copyright laws continue to dominate legal frameworks, despite their failure to achieve their desired ends. Exploring our future in cyberspace though Kurzweil's concept of the singularity, I consider the possibilities of his predicted combination of the worlds of meatspace and the virtual. 5 Table of Contents 1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................9 Encountering A New World.....................................................................................................19 Virtual Worlds: Definition And History...................................................................................21 Games In The World.................................................................................................................29 Representations Of The World..................................................................................................34 Ethics In The World..................................................................................................................37 Being In The World..................................................................................................................39 Free Culture: Libre And Gratis.................................................................................................46 Welcome...................................................................................................................................55 2. The Mechanics Of The World Of Second Life..........................................................................57 How It Works............................................................................................................................62 Prims.........................................................................................................................................64 Textures.....................................................................................................................................67 Inventory Loss...........................................................................................................................67 Avatars......................................................................................................................................70 Clothing.....................................................................................................................................71 Land..........................................................................................................................................72 Scripting....................................................................................................................................74 Examples Of What Is Possible..................................................................................................76 Doors....................................................................................................................................77 New Kingdom Chariot With Horses....................................................................................78 Why Are Residents So Driven To Create?...............................................................................80 3. My Life In Ancient Egypt..........................................................................................................87 Dramatis Personae.....................................................................................................................87 Amon....................................................................................................................................87 Berenike................................................................................................................................89 Horemheb.............................................................................................................................96 How I Came To Ancient Egypt...............................................................................................101 Notecard - Anachronistic Lands Ptolemaic Egypt Application.........................................106 Ptolemaic Egypt Rules............................................................................................................106