Skip to the main content

Socijalna ekologija : časopis za ekološku misao i sociologijska istraživanja okoline, Vol. 12 No. 3-4, 2003.

Original scientific paper

WHOSE WORLDS ARE THERE BEHIND US? VIRTUAL REALITY AND HUMAN IDENTITIES

Krunoslav Nikodem ; Odsjek za sociologiju, Filozofski fakultet, Sveučilište u Zagrebu

Full text: croatian pdf 53.099 Kb

page 211-230

downloads: 1.678

cite

Abstract

Postmodern condition of society, among other things, is characterised by the development of a new interdisciplinary science - cybernetics. It has been, as a science on controlling and communication within the world of living beings and machines, being developed through three periods. The first period, or the so-called "cybernetics of the first order", lasted from 1943 to 1960, and the main issue of the period was homeostasis. The second period ("cybernetics of the second order"), with its main topic - reflexivity, lasted to the beginning of 1980s, when the third period started. The main topic of the third period is virtuality. The author analyses mathematic and cybernetic pre-suppositions of the concept of virtuality, with a special reference to the mathematical theory of information. With the development of computer technology, and integration of mathematical theory of information with cybernetic ideas on a human being as an informational paradigm, possibilities of developing virtual worlds and inhabiting of human beings in these worlds have been opened as possibilities. The basic hypothesis of the paper is that concepts of virtual worlds disturb basic foundations of human identity (human body and consciousness), and open possibilities of developing incorporeal forms of intelligent life. Furthermore, the cybernetic definition of a human organism as an unstable form and network of activities that, with the help of a feedback and data processing, constantly re-forms, on the one side leads to accepting of a multiple human identity, and on the other side, to the annulment of the border line between the human and the non-human, in other words the technological.

Keywords

cyberspace; cybernetics; human identity; mathematical theory of information; virtuality; virtual reality

Hrčak ID:

47898

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/47898

Publication date:

15.12.2003.

Article data in other languages: croatian german

Visits: 5.300 *