Fantasy vs. Reality

If my avatar is here and a human being is controlling it, and if the dockside club in the image was created by a human being, is Second Life completely fantasy or just an extension of real-life?
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Having been an SL user since 2007, one thing that I have yet to come to a conclusion on is whether or not SL is or isn’t a fantasy world. Here’s why:

The virtual world of Second Life is one that is not tangible. The images are pixels on a screen and information kept in computers. When we view particular images while in-world, we’re viewing that information. We’re viewing the pixels of the information that has been created by someone, somewhere. If we see a house, for instance, the house’s walls cannot be touched, they can’t be set ablaze, they can’t be vandalized, they can’t be torn down.

They can, however, have our avatars “touch” them or lean against them; they can have animated flames set upon them; they can have pixelated spray paint applied to them; they can be removed by having the owner “take” them and put them back into their inventory.

The act of doing such things must be done by human beings—the same human beings behind the avatars. (This is not including robot avatars which have substantially invaded the grid over the last few months.)

As such, can it not be argued that SL must be an extension of real-life, if only because a “real-life” person has undertaken the action in the first place? For example, the grid itself was invented by human beings. Thus, their real-life led to its creation. My avatar’s skin was created by a person, thus making it an extension of that person’s real life. I clicked “wear” to wear the skin, and thus my action caused the avatar to don the skin. Had I not done so, the avatar would not have donned the skin on its own.

When a human being logs in to SL, their avatar becomes “alive” or “awakes” from its state of non-existence. Indeed, it’s not even “slumber” because the avatar doesn’t exist anywhere on the grid until activated. Had no human being logged in, the avatar would not have “lived” on its own. It wouldn’t walk around on its own, nor would it build or shop for merchandise on its own.

Therefore, the argument can be made that SL’s very existence comes from real-life, and more specifically, the people on the other side of the computer screen.

On the other hand, one of the most popular philosophies that I’ve encountered while in SL is the idea that real-life is real-life (behind the computer screen), and Second Life is Second Life. The concept is that they are mutually exclusive and they have nothing to do with each other.

This argument does have weight because the concept of “fantasy” comes into play regularly on the grid. If I’m lounging naked at a nude beach (which is a post for itself, because I’m usually the only one naked at the nude beaches which I’ve visited), am I “really” at a nude beach? Am I not simply projecting an avatar on a computer screen? Is it not simply a collection of pixels which look like humans and sand and water, instead of actually being people, sand, and water?

Thus, it becomes a fantasy world.

This view has actually been upheld legally by the United States Supreme Court. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition and said that broad laws against “virtual child pornography” were unconstitutional. In essence, they said that a pixelated image of a child isn’t actually a tangible victimized child. Germany views it differently, however, and has established jail time for up to three to five years if convicted of having “virtual” child porn.

This post isn’t to debate that ruling or “virtual” porn or porn in general; I’m simply using it as an example. Because of this situation, we see that, again, an argument has been established that forces us to view the situation both ways: the United States views virtual worlds as a fantasy land; Germany looks at the virtual world in terms of what is represented on the screen and in the private messages.

Keeping with that, however, how do we interpret furries, child avatars, zombie avatars, silly avatars, space sims, war sims, sex sims, and everything else in between? If a human avatar has virtual sex with a furry avatar, can or should it be punishable for having committed bestiality? Is it just a fantasy land, or is it an extension and representation of real-life? If a child avatar is spotted on a mature sim (which has been happening too often from what I’ve been reading and hearing), should the use of child avatars there be banned? Should the use of child avatars anywhere on the grid be banned, given that all users supposed to be 18 years-of-age or older? Or do we simply go back to the “it’s just fantasy” argument and support the idea that anything permissible by Linden Lab is what can occur?

I’m tempted to add a comment here about “partnering,” but that should be a post by itself.