Thinking about the virtual

Lévy asserts that reality ‘implies a material embodiment, a tangible presence’, that is an entity exists with clearly defined limits (Lévy 1998:23,34). In other words, it is ‘the material objectivity of the world, the reality ‘which everybody can clearly see’’.

However, he views this as dynamic and implies that imagination produces a subjective reality that is socially constructed (Lévy 2001 a:1). Lévy emphasises a reconstitution of reality, created collectively and based on electronic networks: ‘ We are all in the process of thinking within the same network’ (Lévy 2001 a:3).

In etymological terms, the word ‘virtual’ can be traced to ‘virtualis’, which evolved from ‘virtus’, meaning power or strength (Lévy 1998:23). According to Shields, conceptions of the virtual have a long and often bloody history, inextricably tied to interpretations of reality, including theological conflict pivoting on an exegesis of the Christian Eucharist, a dichotomy arising from whether transubstantiation of bread ‘into a piece of the body of Christ occurred literally’, a real phenomena or was rooted in symbolism, a virtual phenomena (Shields 2003:1,5-6).

According to Shields, dictionary definitions of ‘virtual’ embrace everyday understandings of the term, as ‘that which is so in essence but not actually so’, implying a reality, but not one that is ‘concrete’. Another strand of ‘virtual’ relates to ‘virtue’, a personal (Shields 2003:2-3) embodiment of the ‘power of operative influence inherent in a supernatural or divine being’ (Oxford English Dictionary cited in Shields 2003:3). This implies a differential between the potential morality of an individual’s ‘actual existence’ and the realisation of this in relation to a moral ideal (Shields 2003:3).

A tripartite division of conceptual views can be seen vis-à-vis the virtual and CMC.

Rheingold appears to believe that the virtual is an extension of reality. In a sense, this is exemplified by his reflection that the ‘screen became a kind of reality, an extension of my mind’ (Rheingold 1998:1). However, he implies that this extension is an ‘illusion’ by describing a virtual reality system as an immersion ‘in an artificial world’ (Rheingold 1991:16). He asserts that

Nobody mistakes virtual life for real life, even though it has an emotional reality to many’ and ‘[p]eople in virtual communities do just about everything people do in real life, but we leave our bodies behind (Rheingold 1994:3,16).

This appears to reinforce his view that virtual life is an extension of reality, highlighting an emotional connection with reality.

Another view of the virtual seemingly dismisses any notion of this extension. Stoll describes the virtual as a ‘poor substitute’ for real life, an ‘unreal universe, a soluble tissue of nothingness’, a ‘nonplace’ (Stoll 1995:4). Slouka echoes this with a similarly pessimistic vision and talks of a ‘virtual dream’ (Slouka 1995:22).

In sharp contrast, Lévy offers another perspective that conceptualises the virtual as inseparable from reality. He asserts that

The virtual, strictly defined, has little relationship to that which is false, illusory, or imaginary. The virtual is by no means the opposite of the real. On the contrary, it is a fecund and powerful mode of being that expands the process of creation, opens up the future, injects a core of meaning beneath the platitude of immediate physical presence (Lévy 1998:16).

From Lévy’s philosophical standpoint, the virtual means potential existence rather than ‘actual’ existence. He offers a biological example, asserting that ‘a tree is virtually present in its seed’. ‘Actualisation’ is the growth from seed to tree, that is, the process of virtual to actual. So, Lévy views virtuality and actuality as ‘nothing more than two different modes of reality’ (Lévy 2001 b:29-30). Thus, counterintuitively, rather than the virtual signifying ‘unreality’, expressed in the diametric of virtual and real, his typology polarises the virtual with the actual (ibid. 2001 b:29).

Lévy refers to Serres and identifies one aspect of the virtual as ‘not-there’. That is to say, dissociation with ‘there’, the ‘here and now’ of the actual (Lévy 1998:179). ‘Not-there’ is exemplified by the cyberspace which mediates a telephone conversation. The virtual also includes memory, imagination, knowledge and religion (ibid. 1998:28), ‘real ideations’ that are intangible and virtual. Shields asserts that the ‘virtual is always real’, but is only actualised through human intervention which transposes the virtual to a ‘tangible’ thing (Shields 2003:38-39).

Lévy describes the virtual as a ‘problematic complex’, a suspended cluster of potential outcomes that ‘accompanies a situation, event, object, or entity’, which in turn brings about a process of actualisation, that is resolution of this ‘knot of tendencies’ into actual, concrete terms (Lévy 1998:24,179). For example, a problem for the seed is growth to a tree and during this process the form of the tree will resolve depending upon the seed’s properties and circumstances (Lévy 1998:24). So, actualisation manifests as a solution, exterior to the problem, a new creation, a ‘transformation of ideas, a true becoming that feeds the virtual in turn’. The reciprocation to the virtual can be described as ‘virtualisation’, ‘actualization in reverse’ (ibid. 1998:25-26), that is, the process of actual to virtual, a transformation from the act, the ‘here and now’ to a problem (ibid. 1998:174). So, virtualisation is a shift in ‘identity’ of an entity, temporarily and perhaps permanently displacing the actualised solution, in favour of problems redefined, new questions, that is to say, there is a reconsideration of the ‘general question to which [the entity] responds’. In turn, the informed entity is oriented and actualised, ‘redefining the initial actuality’, an evolution. Presumably, for the seed, the nature of growth of the tree (actual identity) is relayed back to its nerve centre (process of virtualisation) and new questions are raised in relation to the original problem, that is growth of seed to tree and in turn, a process of actualisation solidifies the resolutions and the process is repeated (ibid. 1998:26).

To contextualise this, in terms of the web, hypertext is essentially virtual, until actualised through a process of user request and server/client delivery to screen (Lévy 2001 b:55). A digitalised message exchange that is part of a human to human network dialogue can be described as follows. Hypertext is actualised on screen, the text is read through interpretation, continuing actualisation as an appropriation of knowledge (Lévy 1998:47-50). During this process, memory is used, which relates to virtualisation (ibid. 1998:28). To an extent, Shields illustrates this with the assertion that

Thought takes us beyond the present moment of the actual, not only to abstract ideas but to general problematics, to the historical and to the realm of principle, all of which are virtual (Shields 2003:32).

In turn, cognition would output thought to memory, which is actualised into text and virtualised as a form of hypertext, by input to computer and transmission across a network, where it is temporarily suspended, virtually occupying ‘every point in the network’. The message then becomes actualised on the recipient’s screen and the process repeats (Lévy 1998:28,50,56). In this process, individuals’ perceived reality can be seen to change, somehow in parallel with the messages exchanged. That is to say for example, that a virtual community mediates interaction and in turn ‘relations reconfigure themselves’. This appears to be a similar process to a face-to-face dialogue, although the modus operandi differs, for example, geographical space does not form the basis of or limit a virtual community, that is, ‘[s]ynchronisation replaces spatial unity’ (ibid.1998 29-30). As Nip puts it, the Internet’s characteristics of

interconnectivity and interactivity are considered to reconfigure time and space, and in turn this reconfigures the individual and networks of relationships (Nip 2004:410).

So, the difference of modes is primarily characterised as a redistribution of ‘spatiotemporal coordinates’ and in everyday life, there may be both a physical and logical switching of interactive configurations, leaps ‘from network to network, from one system of proximity to the next’ (Lévy 1998:26-27,31).

Community

Words have meanings: some words, however, also have a ‘feel’. The word ‘community’ is one of them (Bauman 2001:1).

Preece discusses the difficulty of defining community, asserting that ‘for years, sociologists have defined and redefined the concept’ (Preece 2000:14). She refers to Abercrombie who asserts that the term ‘is one of the most illusive in sociology’ (ibid. 2000:175). Baym agrees and refers to Fernback who asserts that

Community is a term which seems readily definable to the general public but is infinitely complex and amorphous in academic discourse (Baym 1998:35).

Preece asserts that prior to the industrial revolution, space determined communities, which were highly integrated and self-sustaining (Preece 2000:175). Wellman and Gulia assert that with technological development, in the first instance relating to the telephone, aeroplane and automobile, contemporary sociologists have reconceptualised ‘community’, emphasising dispersed social networks rather than geographical proximity (Wellman & Gulia 1999:169), highlighting that individuals satisfy their needs by membership of ‘multiple communities’ (Preece 2000:15).

Network analysis is one way to unfold the notion of community. Here, sociologists study networks of relationships (Preece 2000:173). In this discourse, a ‘group’ is viewed as a network, characterised by a high intensity of interconnection and according to Preece, a group can only be described as a community if its elements ‘share important resources, provide social support, and show reciprocity’. Preece refers to Granovetter and distinguishes between the ‘strong ties’ that weave these meaningful relationships together and ‘weak ties’, characterised by less shared resources and limited interdependence, particularly in emotional terms. She asserts that an individual may have hundreds of weak ties and a few strong ties (ibid. 2000:174).

Baym’s analysis underlines the problematic nature of defining ‘community’ and hence its controversial status in academia, as it is ‘loaded’ with ‘normative and ideological connotations’ (Baym 1998:35-36). Although there appears to be a trend in the literature emphasising strengths of relationships (Preece 2000:18), Baym refers to Doheny-Farina who contradicts this and in doing so illustrates the complexity of definition. He asserts that

A community is bound by place, which always includes complex social and environmental necessities. It is not something you can easily join. You can’t subscribe to a community as you subscribe to a discussion group on the net. It must be lived. It is entwined, contradictory, and involves all our senses (Baym 1998:37).

Rheingold refers to Oldenburg and asserts that there are three essential places in an individual’s life: home, work and places to ‘gather for conviviality’. He asserts that many of the ‘third places’ in contemporary society, such as cafes, pubs and town squares, have been superseded by shopping malls and fast food outlets for example and with this the ‘social fabric of existing communities’ has eroded (Rheingold 1994:25).

Another perspective concentrates on ‘imagined community’. Feenberg and Bakardjieva refer to Andersen, discuss the imaginary and assert that the virtual is a normal feature of community, ‘regardless of the nature of the medium on which it relies’. They assert that the ‘great sacred communities of the past’ were mediated by and imagined through text and language and they trace the emergence of imagined communities of ‘nations’ to the newspaper and novel (Feenberg & Bakardjieva 2004:37-38). Poster agrees and asserts that ‘old media’ such as newspapers, united a nation by weaving a common thread through it and in asserting this, indicates that the ‘imaginary’ is fundamental to any community (Poster 1995:7). Feenberg and Bakardjieva refer to Mcluhan and Maffesoli respectively and assert that broadcasting reconfigured the imaginary and a trend towards customisation and demassification has promoted a diversity of subcultures or ‘neo-tribes’. The latest development is imagined communities underpinned by hypertext exchange (Feenberg & Bakardjieva 2004:37-38). Poster contends that discussion of ‘virtual communities’ often interpret their success as a signal of the demise of ‘real’ communities and although this may be the case, in considering ‘virtual’ or online communities, ‘the opposition “virtual” and “real” community contains serious difficulties’ (Poster 1995:7).