Are we going to fail RL?

This is an edited version of my older post. A just added some adidtional thoughts here...

I’m not a scientist, but I love to speculate about different matters in the focus of the science. This pseudo-scientific-emotionally-loaded-speculative essay will shed light over some behaviors demonstrated by the SL residents, which may be considered as irrational.
Futurists often talk about the challenges, which the human race will face during the long journey towards the Space colonization. They predict that these challenges will force a new biological and psychological shift as a response of the extreme physical conditions in the Space. However, there is yet another evolution path for us to walk – virtual world colonization. The 3D Virtual worlds are getting more and more popular these days. They will eventually replace the Web 2.0 hype as a platform for social and business interactions. People will start to look on to the virtual worlds as a new residential place much alike the Americas in past or Space in the future. This journey has already started in long ago, since the presence of APRANET
Second Life is one of the major players in the virtual world scene. It has a number of unique features, however the most significant one is its community driven nature. Second Life is self organizing and changes in result of the community interactions. It is considered as place, where everything may happen - the limit is our imagination. We believe that imagination is just another word for infinity, aren’t we?
There are anthropological studies over the psychological limitations developed in result of characteristics existing in our genotype and phenotype. We tend to develop specific psychological constructs, seen as a direct result from our biological characteristics. These psychological constructs then are manifested as behaviors. For the purpose of this speculation, I will talk about the biological characteristics as biological limitations. We may consider the behaviors influenced by these biological limitations as a rational. We just can’t do it another way!
L'anatomie, c'est le destin!
The phrase means "anatomy is a destiny" and is usually attributed to Freud. The original phrase belongs to Napoleon. We don’t jump from skyscrapers, because we can’t fly. We are afraid as the height goes up because of our flight limitations. We tend to approach a person closer to talk, because our voice is distance limited. We feel jealous, when our intimate partner is approached by another individual, because our reproductive path is treathen.We can’t live in water without equipment. However, there are behaviors, where the relation to specific biological properties is hard to be seen. Sometimes the direct relation is missing just because the biological limitation is already a history. For example adult people may demonstrate behaviors developed during the infancy (when there are biological limitations presented), although the biological limitation is not presented, anymore. Such behaviors may be considered as irrational.
It is quite challenging from a scientific point of view to develop a clear behavior classification based on the rationale-irrational axis in the real life. However, Second Life is still far more limited in terms of possible states. It is still described by a limited number of rules, which allows researchers to operate over them with more formal tools. This makes the rational-irrational behavior classification in Second Life much easier. The “limited number of states” characteristic renders Second Life as a useful scientific playground- the behavioral context is much simple and suitable for formal representations. However, these research possibilities raise a various ethic questions.
Just because, the very soul of Second Life is the human imagination, we may expect to see it expressed in a ways as much as the number of the residents. Residents build places from the past, from the future, from the tales, from movies and so on. Residents build objects, write scripts, perform live, attend to events or just socialize. It seems like there are tons of different expression forms in Second Life – no one is the same.
However, if one spent a little time to watch residents for specific behaviors, he will discover a strange phenomenon. This phenomenon is strange if one believes that human imagination is a true “infinity” synonym. Residents tend to demonstrate repeating irrational behavioral forms in similar situations. They are irrational in the Second Life context, because the underlying biological limitation is just missing in the virtual world. I will try to give some examples:
• Line of Sight
Tons of public events (concerts, theaters, educational classes,presentation) are hosted every day in SL. It is not rare to see folks struggling to take a front place near the stage. In real life we’re doing this, because our effective sight and hearing distance is limited. This tendency is observable into individuals, who know that SL provides instruments to watch around the avatar to a far greater distance.

• Physical Space Distribution
Go to public places in SL and watch people talking. You will see a tendency people to distribute the virtual space based on their feelings and goals toward specific peers. People try to preserve the right distance, when talking with peers. People try to stand in front of the peer as it would be done in RL. People stand aside, when feel uncertain or socially incapable. Avatars may communicate in SL (technically) without using these common social techniques, but people use them.
In RL, we tend to distribute our physical space according to our psychological space. It may be observed easily in closed spaces like rooms. We stand closely to our intimate partners. We stand on a limited distance from unknown people and far from our enemies. We tend to keep a descent distance from formal peers during conversation. We take a place near the corner in unknown and unstructured situations. The distance and place are more likely to reflect our current emotional state, our fear and uncertainty, our goals. There are plenty of local social-cognitive theories, which try to explain the physical space distribution in result of specific psychological properties. We still demonstrate this type of behaviors, although SL provides communication tools, which are distance

• 3D Space Distribution
This one may be considered as yet another Psychological Space Distribution phenomenon. In real life we live closer to the ground. We have skyscrapers and towers, but they are built on the ground. Going higher and higher, the discomfort levels starts raising. While in real life, we may localize specific biological limitations and corresponding psychological constructs, which make the sky inhabiting difficult, in SL it is slightly different. SL world is a true 3D (still virtual) space. Avatars may fly up to 170 m, alone. The maximum height, to which avatar may fly with the help of a vehicle is about 4000m (there are ways to push avatar up to million meters, actually). Buildings do not have to be built on the ground and may hang up in the air up to 650-700 m from the ground. In general SL residents may live high above the ground if they want. They may fully utilize the true 3D space in the virtual world – and it is still a dream in the real life in 21 century. There are a lot of buildings and platforms in SL built high above the ground. However the majority of the population inhabits the ground levels. I see it as a result of our specific psychological constructs formed in the physical world.

• Attribution
Attribution is a social psychology concept. It expresses the tendency people to attach stable traits to events and people. We always try to explain the world around us. We may think of attribution is another word for explanation. When something happens, we make attribution about it and then the attribution influences our behavior. There are various studies over the attribution phenomenon. People tend to attribute taller people as smarter, older people as wiser, men as better drivers, etc.
In RL the physical attractive individuals receive more sexual attention than individuals considered as non-attractive. One possible explanation (biologically inspired) for this tendency is the assumption that the physical attractiveness is an evidence for a biological health and eventually such individual will “produce” healthy off springs. We may think of it like a rational behavior in RL.
Residents in SL may choose their avatars shape. They may look sexy, ugly, scary or whatever they like. Although, there is no direct connection between the actual shape chosen and the individual psychological characteristics behind the avatar (it is not trivial to see it, at least), we tend to make attributions for the individual behind the avatar, based on its virtual appearance. We automatically attribute the attractive avatars as smart, funny, trustful, skillful on first sight, without actually knowing the real individual behind it. We start acting towards the target avatar according to the attributions we’ve made. It’s not hard to find posts in SL forums, which complains about the disappointments from in-world relations. I see them as a reflection of the human attributive capabilities, which are inadequate to the virtual reality characteristics.
From this perspective, being a human means to have irrational psychological limitations which prevent us from being as much effective as the virtual world allows. Being a human means to feel better, when talking eye-to-eye with your partner and be afraid from falling down.

The technology boost in areas like Full-Immersion Virtual Reality, Augmented Virtual Reality and Biotechnologies will increase the potential and the challenges for us as virtual residents. Sensing and acting in virtual worlds will not differ sensing and acting in RL.
Evolutionary psychology claims that the behavioral traits development in the species is based on the same evolution principals as the evolution of the biological properties. It considers the environment as a central driving force behind the evolution process. The increased environment challenges in the virtual space due to the future massive technology advances will trigger human race to evolve new behavioral traits in order to adapt to the virtual space demands.

The intrinsic human psychological properties, which build our identity, will be replaced. We will soon face the new human kind - virtual human, adapted to meet the virtual reality challenges.
Is the virtual human going to fail in RL trying to use its virtually evolved behaviors, then?

Second Life - Week One

I just spent few days in SL(Second Life) dealing with a tons of new situations. It's a kind of culture shock for me: there are new people, new social rules, new economical situation - I got to learn a lot. While dealing with this I've felton the following important SL concepts/phrases:

• Alt
  Alternative account. Many players have more than one account, often free basic accounts, in order to express different parts of their personality through a different character, in order to keep them seperate.
• Alpha
  Textures may be given an 'alpha channel', which is essentially full transparency. This is an advanced Photoshop technique external to Second Life.
• Appearance
  Your avatar's appearance may be changed at any time by a selection of sliders, by right clicking on yourself and choosing "Appearance" from the pie menu.
• AR
  Literally "Abuse Report". When another player is acting inappropriately or harrassing you, selecting this item on the "Help" menu will allow you to file a complaint about their behaviour. This function should, of course, be used sparingly.
• Attachments
  As the name implies, this is any item that can be attached to your avatar. This may take many forms, and there are many attachment points available..
• Auto-return
  When you own land, you can set auto-return so that other people's objects will be returned to them after a set time, to prevent your land getting cluttered. Any items you leave on anyone else's land will be returned to you after the time set.
• Avatar
  The visual representation of a second life resident. Avatar appearance may change all the time (if the resident wish so) - see Appearance.
  
• Basic Account
  A Basic Account is free, and allows you access to more or less everything that Second Life permits, apart from the ability to own land.
• Borked
  Something not working in its intended manner, literally "currently in a non functional state of operation".
• Boxhead
  The art of wearing a wooden box on your head. The skull was the default attachment point for objects, and a common mistake by new players was, instead of opening a box, to 'wear' it from the pie menu. The result of this would be that you would often see bemused newbies on Help Island wandering around desperately trying to figure out how to remove the box from their head.
• Flexiprim
  As the name implies, a "Prim" that is flexible. It is now possible to create prims that have flexible properties, which may be used to create flags that blow in the wind, flowing clothes that move as you do, bouncy hair, and many other possibilities.
• FPS (1) First Person Shooter. Although Second Life does indeed have the facility to act as an FPS, in a rudimentary fashion, it is not intended primarily as a player-v-player combat system. Several groups in-world have, however, created successful combat systems.
• FPS(2) Frames Per Second. This is how fast your computer is updating your display. The higher the FPS, the higher the detail and smoothness of your view. Problems such as lag can reduce your FPS and slow everything down.
• Grey
  Usually heard as "Everything's grey". When downloading data from the server, the vector data is downloaded and rendered first, followed by the texture data. Until textures are downloaded, they are rendered as a default grey, and the world can be a very dull place until this is completed.
• Grid
  The network that Second Life is built on, consisting of thousands of interlinked computers.
• Griefer
  Someone whose sole purpose in Second Life is to irritate other players. Whatever, you do, don't be one!
• Hippo
  The official animal of Second Life.
• Island
  (also Private Island) Users can buy an entire region ($1200 setup fees plus currently $195 a month tier) and build whatever they wish. These can be connected to other regions, and set as open access or private invite only, depending on their intended use.
• IM
  Instant Message. A private way of communicating with another user.
• Inventory
  Your avatar's "storage area", similar to a backpack in other games, where you may store everything you own in-world. Size is not limited, and you may move things to and from your inventory as you wish.
• Lag
  When there is network congestion between you and the server, or the server is overworked, there will be occasional pauses and delays in things happening whilst your computer waits for data to be processed. Virtually all data in Second Life is streamed to and from the servers in real-time.
• Linden Dollar
  The in-world currency unit, usually shown as L$. They may only be exchanged in complete units.
• Lindex
  The "Linden Exchange", an in-world currency trading system where you may buy, or sell, Linden Dollars for real world currency (restricted to the US$ at present, but may of course be converted afterwards to your own currency.
• Link
  One or more prims may be selected and linked together as a group of items. Objects do not affect your prim limit on land, as they are still classed as individual prims.
• LSL
  Literally "Linden Scripting Language". This is the code that is used to write scripts, or programs, in-world to make objects perform tasks or respond in a certain way.
• M
  "Mature" region status classification. Apart from the few global restrictions on intolerance, harrassment and hate speech, pretty much 'anything goes' in Mature regions. See also "PG".
• Mainland
  As expected, the "main continent" of Second Life. This land mass is where the majority of users own land.
• MMORPG
  Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. There has been considerable debate over the years as whether Second Life is indeed an MMORPG - although all conditions are met - or whether it is a development platform, the metaverse, or in fact the future of the internet.
• Newbie
  A new player to Second Life. Also known as a 'noob'. Although this may occasionally be used as a term of contempt, it is usually used in the context of doing something wrong that was such a simple mistake ("that's so noob").
• Object
  One or more prims, when linked, create an Object. Objects do not affect your prim limit, only the individual prims themselves.
• Pie Menu
  When you right click on something in-world, a menu appears which is circular, with different options on each of the segments, giving the appearance of a pie looked at from above.
• PG
  Not literally "Parental Guidance", but one of two classifications for region status within Second Life. Typically, PG regions do not allow public nudity or other 'mature activities'. These are provided for players who do not necessarily wish to see things in-world that they may consider offensive. See also "M".
• Phantom
  Prims or objects may be set as 'phantom', which means that you are able to walk directly through them.
• Physics
  Prims may have physics enabled, which means they will respond to gravity and wind. Although physics implementation is fairly basic, it does have many uses.
• PTP
  (also P2P) Point to Point teleporting. The ability to go directly from one point to another on the grid.
• Premium
  Account A Premium Account costs $9.95 per month, and allows you to own land, which you can then build on.
• Prim
  Short for "Primitive Shape", the basic construction blocks of Second Life - cube, sphere, pyramid etc. More or less everything you see in Second Life is constructed from prims.
• Prim Conservation
  The art of being able to build something without using more prims than necessary, possibly replacing small prims with textures.
• Prim Limit
  When owning land, you are limited by the amount of items you are able to put out on it. Currently a 512 sq m plot allows 117 prims, up to the maximum of 15,000 on a full region. When you hit your limit, an error message will appear and you will not be able to put more things on your land. The only way to get around this limit is to buy more land.
• Prim Torture
  The art of manipulating prims into complex shapes, using cuts, twists and shears, and potentially saving prims in the process.
• Region
  A 'Region' is an area of land consisting of 65,536 square metres. Each region can be owned by one or many people, depending on how the plots of land have been divided up. The Second Life grid consists of thousands of interconnected regions.
• Rez / Rezzing
  A reference from the movie "Tron", this is the act of creating something in the game, either yourself by build or from inventory, or data downloading from the server.
• RL
  Stands for Reak Life - e.g. the real life of the avatar outside of second life
  
• RP
  Short for "Roleplaying". This can take many forms in Second Life, and is made easier by the ability to change your character's appearance at any time. Some players use alts for different roleplay characters to keep them separate.
• Sim
  Short for "Simulator", another name for Region.
• Scripting
  Second Life allows you to write programs using its own language, to perform tasks. This may take many forms. See "LSL".
• Spam
  Junk advertising and other communication within Second Life. Strongly discouraged.
• SL
  Stands for Second life, e.g. the virtual life
  
• Stipend
  A weekly allowance given to various types of account, giving you some spending money. New, basic accounts do not receive a stipend unless they upgrade to Premium.
• Teleport (TP)
  To either travel from one point on the grid to another, or to ask another player to teleport you to their location "TP me".
• Texture
  A graphical image laid over a prim to replace the basic plywood texture. This can allow you to build virtually anything, including photorealistic buildings.
• Tier
  This is the monthly charge for the land that you own in Second Life. Premium Accounts can own 512 sq m of land before additional charges are applied. This increases in allowance blocks up to a full region.
• Watermelon
  The official fruit of Second Life.
• Wednesday
  As a general rule, Wednesdays are the days when server maintenance and client patches/updates are applied to the grid. Sometimes this can run for longer than intended, so it is best not to plan to do anything on a Wednesday until the grid is back up. Players often ask "Is it Wednesday already" when things are not performing as they are expected, as the grid can often be unstable for a little while after maintenance.
• XYZ
  The three axis used in construction. All prims can be stretched and rotated in either axis.
  

most of the phrases delivered via: http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=208450