From: Aaron Weiss
Date:Mon, 10 jul 1995 22:31
To: Carolyn L Burke
Subject: No.
No, I would not have enjoyed the experience more over electronic media. I mean that.
From: Aaron Weiss
Date:Mon, 10 Jul 1995 22:42
To: Carolyn L Burke
Subject: Re: No.
> Hahaaaa... I'm really glad to hear that!! Mrrrrrr
Good. I don't know what "Mrrrrr" is, but good anyway.
> ps. I really like the article idea. VERY much, plus ta (Don't reply to this, not that there's much to reply to, I am
going into bed now. To stare at the ceiling -- talk about your
rorschach.)
From: Aaron Weiss Good morning,
I thought I would elaborate a little on the reason that I took mild umbrage
(I've never used that word before!) at your suggestion about preferring
electronic media. Hey, at the least it'll give you a short break from HTML.
<TITLE> The Reality Page </TITLE>
:-) Just having some early morning fun. Anyway, seriously now...
Someway during the mid-point of my Internet geekdom, I was leading an
extremely virutal life. The combination of someone who is withdrawn around
other people, yet has the same desire for human contact as anyone else, and
a massive and non-threatening medium such as the Internet can be potent, and
scary. And addictive. Any stint on IRC will tell you that.
In the course of net time, I -- embarassed as I am to say this -- hit
upon two "net relationships." One being somewhat more intense than
the other. In a local sense, both of these were bad experiences, although
in the greater picture of my life they are/were important and positive in
getting me to where I am now. At the time, however, they were bad. And where
did they go bad? Exactly at that interface between the net and physical
reality. It was evident, to both parties I believe, that the net was
not fully representing the three-dimensional package that makes us, well,
us. What elements were missing and in what array is more difficult to
determine, but _something_ was missing.
The net also removes a certain amount of the challenge out of relating to
other people. And it's not that I want that challenge for the mere sake of
it, but the total lack of is somewhat artificial and probably misleading. If
you have a good brain, one that is quick at room temperature, and a decent
grip of language, you can easily be very clever and suave on the net. I
found this to be true, and the temptation is great, for someone who tends to
be so sheltered, to have this world where they can walk around and
be Mr. Cool who impresses everyone. But ultimately, it's an illusion to them
which may or may not be revealed, and more importantly, it's an illusion to
oneself.
So now I'm onto this "real life" thinking, feeling, experiencing human-ness
kick. To some degree that involves less-than-perfect social situations, and
it also involves very nice social situations, but both taking place in
non-electronic media. But you know, perfection isn't the goal -- that is far
too boring anyway. It's in the imperfections where a lot of interesting
things are wedged. I essentially don't do any socializing on the net
anymore, at least with people I don't know. Of course I communicate with
pre-existing friends, and obviously I write to you, but I don't see that as
socializing-as-such becuase I am trying to construct those relationships as
existing primarily in the physical world, whereas the net then is just an
additional means of communication, but not the source of illusion.
I think I've said my piece. Piece be with you. Ha -- so funny and only
9;24 in the morning!
-Aaron
From: Carolyn L Burke !!
Why thank you for explaining. You have an enlightened position on this.
Unusual. Sounds like you have explored the medium very thoroughly to
arrive at this conclusion. I've experienced the net illusion first hand
too a couple of times.
However, I wonder if it is an illusion as much as you represent. Through
different media, different skills become more or less relevant. in
person, a friendly smile is more powerful than good eloquent locution
(or spelling!). Over electronic media, weaving imagery and allusion to
other sources of textual and visual concepts becomes selected for - by
people with standards for quality. It is this push that has to a large
extent pushed me to become literate in output as well as input.
Why is one set of skills and the persona they create for each of us less
real than another set? Certainly, we evolved more in one of these
environments than inthe other, the electronic one. But I suspect that it
is *because* the electronic environment offers a differenet range of
people social contact that it has ended up satisfying muchof what we
evolved to find satisfying. That's not to clear. Let me try again.
Because some of us were not as easily satisfied inthe "normal"
environment, we built another that weeded out some of the inhibitors,
and added in emphasizers of our strengths. Just as ina MUD, the people
who can program have more power and flexibility than those who do not
have this knowledge. Just as in a literary circle, those with the more
refined, trained, practiced, or polished verbal powers excel on the
Internet. They gather more respect, they meet friends oflike minds, and
they are as a consequence respected at large int his medium more than
they would be in the "normal" one.
I can't find this to be mere illusion, or even in part illusion.
But I said earlier that I have suffered from the net illusion bug too.
Here's what I meant. While first learning the skills ofthe happy net
traveller, I substituted some of my in person skills - from the real world
- for skills using language more subtly. I flirted with a few people
who interested me, developing relations on the net based more on the
idea that they would be entirely consistent throughout their skill sets.
An eloquent person on the net would be eloquent in person. A net ox
would be an ox in person, and so on.
Meeting these people in person helped cure me of this mistake, and it
put in perspective how the two worlds and the personas in them should be
taken for what they are. Since I know that the net and the people I meet
there can satisfy some of my social desires - extremely - I value these
relationships as much as my in person ones when they develop to be as
strong.
Both are necessary to me and for me to be happy. I can dance
electronically with a certain grace nowadays, and in person I do an
entirely different dance. When I know a person in both media, I tend to
treat them as two different persons with whom two different interactions
occur, but with whom nevertheless there is a strong joiningness or
richness that could not be had if only one of the media were tranversed.
So I cannot take my comment to be as much of an insult as you can. But
I do regret that innuendo that you took me up on.
I am going to connect your writings in after my comment and let you
speak for yourself electronically. :)
Carolyn
From: Aaron Weiss > !!
!! You have a fetish of some sort of exclamation points. !!
Because I'm in the mood I will stumble yet more on this topic in response to
your (much appreciated) comments.
Considering your interpretation of "illusion," you are correct -- that's my
extremely relativistic answer. What I mean by "illusion," is probably
more accurately called skewed representation. Fallacious correlation. Creamy
Carnation Instant Breakfast. The problem can best be illustrated by
the professor-pizza scenario. You have a certain professor Mr. X, whom
you see every morning for class. He lectures on and on about precambrian
rocks or whatever, and after a semester you begin to see Mr. X
as the embodiment of precambrian rocks. He loses dimensionality as your
experience with him remains narrow and reinforced as such. Thus, one day you
go into Little Joe's and order a pizza and see Mr. X sitting in line in
front of you. And you might be weirded out -- "Mr. X eats pizza, too? I
didn't even think he ate."
You see this more pronounced among grade-school children when encountering
their teachers in non-scholastic situations. But you get the idea. You begin
to overextend a trait over the wireframe of a given individual. On the net,
I find this to be a much easier trap to fall into than in person. It is
true, as you say, that the net selects for those traits which we happen to
be better suited to. In my own personal case, in fact, it works out very
well because the net is so strongly based on the written word, and I know
that is something I am good at. And I also know that some people have really
thought I was something super-special. But I have difficulty being
accomplice to that ILLUSION, because I know that I'm not. It's just that my
holes are in other places. Now, we reach an important distinction:
In "real life," I find that with increased exposure, the wireframe fills in
with increased accuracy. I may be, for example, socially slow with someone
who I'm meeting initially in a non-written medium, but that erodes over
time. The fuller spectrum comes out, and both the holes and the solid areas
will come through. I know this to be true. On the net, I find this much more
difficult. I don't know that I've found the net to allow the latitude for
the wireframe to fill-in. Perhaps the pace is just much slower because the
cage is narrower.
> Why is one set of skills and the persona they
create for each of us less real than another set?
They're not any more or less real, but they are more or less
representative. Why am I so stuck on this issue of representation? I
don't know right now, let me think dammit! :-) I'll have to work more on
that one.
> They gather more respect, they meet friends
oflike minds, and they are as a consequence respected at large int his
medium more than they would be in the "normal" one.
> I can't find this to be mere illusion, or even
in part illusion.
You said something about the weight of a smile, but I couldn't find it again
to clip it in. But anyway, you said it. I guess one of my sticking points
is in where you say "of like minds." It draws upon the "brains-in-a-jar"
idea. I used to be very attracted to that concept, but here's the problem
(IMHO :-):
It assumes the brain to be only a rational structure. For a long time I
glorified anything that stressed the "mental nature" over more
"superificial" characteristics. For the most part I still agree with that --
after all, I'm clearly a mental person and I like and enjoy that (double
entendre included for free, next time it'll cost you). However, there are
more layers to human-ness than rationality, and the medium of the net
selects highly for rationality (well, except in talk.politics). This is
where I think the smile idea hooks in nicely. Because it represents another
layer of mental-ness that is not entirely predicated on logic and order. And
as much as I love logic, ration, and so on, I'm discovering that there are
other parts of my brain, too, and that they can be a source of some
satisfaction. (Thus my arguments are not an attack on the net as much as
they are an attack on myself).
> When I know a person in both media, I tend to
treat them as two different persons with whom two different interactions
occur, but with whom nevertheless there is a strong joiningness or
richness that could not be had if only one of the media were
tranversed.
Since my overarching theme here is about the three-dimensional totality of
the mind, and everything I just went on about above, I can't come down
against combined media to interact with a given person. In fact, that may be
a great thing. But because I think the net more limiting than "real life,"
even if more attractive at the outset for misfits -- er, people like us, it
doesn't suffice as a medium in and of itself for relationships to me.
Having said all that, I might totally change my mind tomorrow and retract
everything I've said. Then I'd have an entirely new set of rationalizations
to explain that position. I do not see such as inconsistency so much as
evolution, which is not necessarily directed or progressive.
> So I cannot take my comment to be as much of
an insult as you can.
How convenient for you. :-) Ha, more humor.
> I am going to connect your writings in after my
comment and let you speak for yourself electronically. :)
Yeah you do that, I am person hear me roar. Actually, in regards to
mis-representation, I have been feeling a little submissive lately which is
why I jumped all over your comment about the electronic media. What I mean
is that because I don't have much experience around here I've tended to be
very "You choose everything" in terms of when we've done stuff. However, I
actually tend to be a fair bit more aggressive/leading than that when I know
the parameters of my world, so I've felt a little misrepresented with my
whining about "You choose a place," and so on. Is that one of the dimensions
that's more likely brought out over time in the real world than on the net?
I don't know, and I'm too hungry to think about.
Time to satisfy another portion of my brain entirely. Mmmmm brain.
-me, obviously
Date:Tue, 11 Jul 1995 09:28
To: Carolyn L Burke
Subject: Why no
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 1995 09:48
To: Aaron Weiss
Subject: neat
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 1995 10:25
To: Carolyn L Burke
Subject: Re: neat