Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools

How to Philosophize with a Digital Hammer

Stefano Gualeni

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137521781
• Topic: Filosofia
• Subtopic: Filosofia ed etica nella scienza

Who are we in simulated worlds? Will experiencing worlds that are not 'actual' change our ways of structuring thought? Can virtual worlds open up new possibilities to philosophize? Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools tries to answer these questions from a perspective that combines philosophy of technology with videogame design.

1

The Questions Concerning Digital Technology

1.1 What is technology?

In ancient Greece, the word τέχνη (techné) was used largely to indicate the attitude, the methodology, or the skill aimed at the practical creation of a material thing. This practice-oriented concept was later appropriated by the Romans under the umbrella term ars (art) (Fedier, 2001, 12–27). In English, the attitude towards “making” that the Greeks identified with the word techné is commonly translated as “craftsmanship,” “technology,” or “art.”

Martin Heidegger was a German thinker whose pioneering philosophical insights into technology had a foundational role in the structuring and development of the perspectives and ideas discussed in this book. In his 1938 essay “The Age of the World Picture,” Heidegger criticized the modern understanding of techné, finding the interpretation unfaithful to the original meaning. Heidegger explained that, in ancient Greece, the word techné never signified the action of making, but rather indicated an epistemological approach – a perspective capable of revealing the world in a specific “light.” Correspondingly, Heidegger (2008) described works of art as artifacts endowed with the potential to disclose worlds, that is to say, to open up new ways in which reality can “unconceal” itself. Although he never explicated in detail how he thought art could be capable of engendering such disclosure, Heidegger identified experiential influences in the way people structured their relationships with reality (and thus allowed for the emergence of “worlds”) as the sole cultural role of artistic production. In the final phase of Heidegger’s thought, he extended to all things the capability to let “things come into being” and to open up new worlds and worldviews, previously attributed only to artworks (Verbeek, 2005, 89).

Since the word techné was coined, the notions of craftsmanship, technology, and art have gradually developed into separate contexts. These contexts do, however, intersect in multiple ways and combinations. Dutch philosopher Jos De Mul observed that, in Western culture, the creations of craftspeople and artists have always depended on the mastery of specific productive or expressive tools, and contemporary artists are no less reliant on technological tools than were their prehistoric predecessors (De Mul, 2010, 139). The modern dependence of artistic and cultural production on technological mediation appears particularly obvious in the creation of content for digital media. The creative instruments afforded by computers disclose a vast horizon of combinatorial possibilities for expression and interaction – possibilities that are completely dependent on their technological platforms.

The historical shift and fragmentation of the meaning of techné, together with the baffling diversity of the possible interpretations of the word “technology,” inspired Stephen J Kline’s 2003 essay, “What is Technology?” Kline clarified that the term “technology,” rather than representing a single concept, currently refers to a variety of concepts bound together by the common characteristic of creating or employing man-made objects. According to Kline, the depth and intricacy of humankind’s involvement with technology is the reason for the ambiguous nature of the term as it is currently used. To demonstrate this ambiguity, the word “technology” can mean:

•Anything that the natural environment does not generate without human intervention, such as “refrigerators, eyeglasses, atom bombs, paints, automobiles, pianos, paper, rubber, glass, aspirins, penicillin, airplanes, copying machines, furniture, roads, rifles, printing presses, boots, bicycles and on and on” (Kline, 2003, 210).¹

•All the expertise and methodologies employed in the pursuit of a practical task of some kind. This description of “technology” can be identified as the closest to the original meaning of the Greek word.

•All the constituent parts required to produce different types of hardware, “including its inputs: people; machinery; resources; processes; and legal, economic, political, and physical environments” (Kline, 2003, 210, 211).

•The complex social and technical infrastructures through and for which artifacts are made and used, in addition to the techniques used by individuals to produce or employ these artifacts. In this interpretation, a car, for instance, cannot be considered isolated from the machinery that is used in the car’s construction or from the technical limitations of this machinery. The way cars are built also relates to larger, interconnected technological systems such as roads and gas stations, and to traffic rules, laws regarding ownership, and the tastes and needs of the social group(s) for whom they are produced (Van den Berg, 2009, 23). The necessary relationships and dependencies among all these systems constitute the “socio-technical system of use.” When using a car, “[we] use the combined system (the autos plus all the rest) to extend the human capacity for moving ourselves and our possessions about” (Kline, 2003, 211).

•A combination of natural forces conveyed and combined toward certain human purposes. In this conception of technology, the successive stages of technological development can be interpreted as one of the objective externalizations of the historical process of self-understanding (Coolen, 1992, 250–271; De Mul, 2010, 113). In line with this idea, Heidegger’s 1954 essay “The Question Concerning Technology,” discussed the potential of different techniques to unveil different ways of being-in-the-world.

This book explores the role of techné (focusing specifically on its digital manifestation) as an influential factor in socio-cultural change. More specifically, Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools articulates an understanding of virtual worlds as capable both of mediating philosophical thought and of experientially fragmenting and augmenting the ways in which people can think, perceive, and operate, expanding the boundaries beyond the mere “actual” and extending into what is virtually “possible.” In structuring these two intricately related perspectives, I was motivated to adopt an interpretation of “technology” that could embrace interactive, digital worlds as constitutive components of the experience of being human. Also, I found it necessary to adopt an understanding of what “technology” means that would be suitable for encompassing most of the interpretations described above. With these objectives in mind, I drew on De Mul’s work, where technology is defined as “a conglomerate of ... artefacts, specific forms of knowledge and capabilities ... (embraced in their necessary relation with the relative) geographical and social infrastructure, economic interests and societal norms and values” (De Mul, 2002, 30).

1.2 A philosophical task?

In The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Michael Heim maintained that the way computers produce interactive virtual environments and allow smooth and controlled transitions “to the real and back” cannot be satisfactorily framed with models and analogies used to analyze traditional forms of mediation or psychotropic experience. Rather, the profound cognitive, epistemological, and sociological implications of interaction with virtual worlds necessitate philosophical exploration and understanding. In line with Heim, I believe that, in the age of digital mediation, it is hard to imagine a more philosophical task than reflecting on how virtual experiences affect what it is like to be a human being. Another, and more Heideggerian, way to express the core motivation of this book is to phrase the main matter of exploration as a simple question: How can interactive digital technology assist people in “overcoming” the traditional boundaries of human ontologies?

This guiding question may be read by some as a provocative paradox; from a traditional humanistic perspective, the mechanization of the world and the progressive penetration of technology into social processes and practices are not customarily understood as conducive to people overcoming their limitations or being in any way liberated. Collectively, these processes are, in fact, more often dreaded as a force that constantly challenges and threatens the values that make up the fabric of human society. This perspective (known as the technologically deterministic standpoint), often paired with the perception of impending threats inherent in people’s increasing dependence on technology, was popularized by the paradigmatically techno-pessimistic cultural production of the early twentieth century.

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus, is often recognized as a precursor to the use of fictional media to reinforce and spread the ideology that the interference of technology on a favorable balance of natural and social forces will inexorably lead to de-humanizing and tragic consequences for mankind. One example of this later techno-pessimistic cultural production is Edward Morgan Forster’s 1909 novel, The Machine Stops, which highlights the escalating detachment of humankind from the world through a complete and alienating dependence upon technology. In the artificial underground environment of The Machine Stops, machine technology is ubiquitous, inscrutable, indispensable, and revered in a quasi-religious sense. Only upon the final failure of the machine do the characters realize how far removed they have become from the (naively idealized) natural and social order of which they were once a part (Forster, 1985). Another remarkable early twentieth century example of techno-pessimism in cultural production is R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), a theatrical play created in 1920 by Czech playwright Karel Čapek. R.U.R. is often considered a milestone in science-fiction, because the play introduced the term robot (Czech for work) to indicate an electro-mechanical agent capable of pursuing tasks autonomously or semi-autonomously, and because it established the popular culture trope of the deliberate revolt of the machines against their creators.

From the technologically deterministic, techno-pessimistic perspectives outlined above, being human is understood as an involvement with reality that is genuine and irreducible. Technology is, instead, dialectically recognized as an autonomous force striving to dominate rationally a world made of objects, including mankind (Heidegger, 1982; Vattimo, 1991, 40, 41; Richard Villa, 1996, 182; Costa, 2007, 33–47). In this traditional, humanistic approach to the philosophy of technology, no form of technical mediation could be interpreted as contributing to society and culture through the emancipation of humanity from cognitive and operational limitations or, in fact, to the emancipation of humanity in any form. Rather, in this perspective, technical mediation would, instead, manifest itself as the materialization of the will to control and rationally reconstruct the world recorded, for example, in social science-fiction literature or in some of Borges’ fictional writings (Borges, 1994, 2001, 2004; Richard Villa, 1995, 182).

Is technology, then, to be understood as a danger for humanity? If so, what is de-humanizing about technology? Could it not be embraced, instead, as an apical form of humanism? These questions were raised by Heidegger, explicitly in the context of philosophy of technology, starting from 1949. In his writings of that period, Heidegger acknowledged the objectification of both the world and human beings as the supreme danger of advancing mechanization. Along the same line of though, he openly identified technology as the ultimate incarnation of Western thought. (Heidegger, 1982; Vattimo, 1991, 177–179; Richard Villa, 1996, 181–195).

Philosophers and aesthetics scholars of the last century (including Heidegger’s student, Hans Robert Jauss) reacted to the progressive commoditization and alienation of human existence that they observed in the technical mediation of culture. They proposed, instead, the free encounter with art as a means of achieving liberation from the canons and shortcomings of our system of thought by detaching people from their everyday, functional existence and leading them into a freer realm of sensory appreciation. It was before the proliferation of computers that Heidegger, Jauss, Herbert Marcuse, and others developed their ideas concerning the social relevance of art and its salvific potential. Consequently, none of these scholars could fully anticipate the advent and the effects of a techné capable not only of (re)presenting fictional worlds, but also of offering persistent interactions with them.

With the objective of articulating a philosophy of technology that can frame the effects of virtual experiences on human cognition, I draw especially on Heidegger’s pioneering efforts in the field of the philosophy of technology. Following Heim, I recognize in Heidegger’s philosophical understanding of technology a milestone that needs to be considered, used for guidance, and critically re-thematized in the age of digital mediation. Embracing Heidegger’s work as a supporting philosophical framework necessitates the clarification of some of his (notoriously obscure) lexical items that will be used frequently in structuring the arguments in this book:

(1) World

In the philosophical tradition of phenomenology, the term ‘world’ generally indicates a set composed by beings that are understood together with all their (detectable) properties and mutual relationships. More specifically, a world describes the set outlined above as experienced by one of the beings involved in it. To be identified as a world, such experience need to be persistently perceivable and behaviorally consistent for the being experiencing it. Those qualities make that experience emerge as an (intelligible) world for a being within a certain spatial-temporal context. Apart from being very abstract and encompassing, this functional interpretation also establishes a clear distinction between the experiences of virtual worlds and those of dreams or hallucinations. The virtual worlds of simulations and videogames are recognized as worlds precisely because they can be accessed and returned to at will, and because they emerge in ways that are repeatable and relatively stable in their mechanical and aesthetic aspects. Inspired by Heidegger’s existential phenomenology, this definition of world lays the groundwork for the sidestepping of a dualistic perspective of the philosophy of mind. Instead of constructing a system of knowledge based on the theoretical separation between an observer (subject) and the world (object), Heidegger presents their coexisting and being mutually constitutive as necessary and structural aspects of a world. To put it simply, a world indicates the ways in which reality is disclosed to a being (Verbeek, 2005, 108).

(2) Ontology

The way in which a being structures its general understanding of a world is commonly referred to “an ontology”. In analogy to this basic definition, the specific context of Western philosophy defines ontology as the fundamental study of the things that can be said to exist in a world, their qualities, and interrelationships. As discussed in the point above, according to Heidegger, a being (Dasein, German: from da, there, and sein, being) is always involved with a “there”, with a world. In a general sense, I will use the unspecific term ontology to refer to human kinds of ontologies – the rational organization of a specific group of relationships constituted between a (human) being and a world. From this perspective, things in the world make sense within an ontology precisely because, via the mediation of the senses, they become part of a persistent and intelligible system of relationships with an individual being.

(3) Humanism

In his 1947 “Letter on Humanism” (re-edited for publishing in 1949), Heidegger presented an understanding of humanism that did not align with the way in which the term has commonly been used since the days of Ancient Rome. In its conventional meaning, in fact, “humanism” indicates the pursuit and the upholding of what are recognized as traditional human values (culture, art, sciences, human dignity and God) through “scholarship and training in good conduct” (Heidegger, 1998, 244–251). As a reaction to this interpretation, Heidegger explained that the conventional understanding of humanism does not truly cater to the original essence of human beings, but rather “is determined with regard to an already established interpretation of nature, history, world, and ... beings as a whole” (Heidegger, 1998, 245). Heidegger found that this way of understanding humanism was a reductive by-product of the Western tradition of t...