From: Bill9191-AT-aol.com
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 19:00:24 EST
Subject: Re: Becoming Virtual or Collective Intelligence?


Thanks for the tips on Pierre Levy. I just increased the value of amazon.com 
stock by buying both online and perhaps has show that signs swirling in 
cyberspace now control captial economy.

  By the way,  what are the major issues and conflicts now shaping up around 
virtual reality?

  For sometime, the issue of telepresence was hot. That is, that my identity 
and sense didn't stop at the keyboard or screen and so I could be considered 
*present* via cyber-connections.   I realize the pomo approach is to 
undermine the game of absense/presence, but how is this playing out 
politically?  That is, presence is still a hot politicial issue, regardless 
of its philosophical status as an illusion.

Another hot issue, what about the Baud - (jez, what is the short version of 
his name?) notion of media ruining our cultural immune system. Has that 
argument been furthered or picked up by anyone? 

Some say that cyber culture is still a little body phobic. That is, everyone 
wants to abandon the body and become virtual. The terms used are ugly, like 
flesh meets, meat, biomass, etc, etc.   Harroway was beginning to develop 
some notions around this as a positive cooperation between the bio-body and 
the cyber-body.   Anyone else have some create interface theories and 
notions? 

what are the other hot issues these days about cyberspace and the upcoming 
world of simulation?  

    -bill9191