Heimburger - Davis: Ch. 7-8


Erik Davis applies numerous references and passages from many metaphysical and philosophical texts, such as Dante's Inferno or Steganographia, as metaphors and allegories describing how virtual realms have changed human experience. Davis particularly emphasizes the metaphysical and technologically-obsessed patterns of behavior that have emerged from cultures surrounding online computer games and other developing forms of what is essentially virtual reality. Drawing upon his many previous statements regarding the numbing effects that technology has upon the senses, online interactivity seems to somewhat numb the conscious mind by creating a vivid layout of thoughts as a digital, multi-dimensional layout of a world. The process of exploring thought through digital means is a form of escape that can be numbing your sensory perceptions of reality, something illustrated by the structure of J.R.R. Tolkien's widely famous novel The Lord of the Rings. In fact, J.R.R. Tolkien's novel is most likely what caused the creation of role-playing in general, as Tolkien took apart the nebulous, self-contained aspects of traditional fantasy stories and gave the genre structure and focus, expanding its proportions to include epic tales. In many ways, his other acclaimed novel, The Hobbit, is similar to The Lord of the Rings’s structure in that it not only tells the story of what Joseph Campbell termed the "hero's journey," but it also teaches the reader about its story structure and progression as well as how to construct a similar world that influences its characters’ behaviors and motivations. This, in turn, created the format upon which role-playing games would base themselves. The ways in which players explore landscapes and interact with one another one some of the early MUDs is similar, especially tonally and stylistically, to how Dante explored and interacted with the hellish environment he found himself in. The combination of digital exploration along with the typical gaming tropes of fighting monsters and deformed creatures has led to a unique culture surrounding online role-playing games that, for the most part, have only advanced graphically. Davis continues to discuss how disillusion with the self seems to be leading towards creating subcultures and ways of thought around ridiculous concepts such as UFO sightings, which is why I think online role-playing games may be a more productive means of figuring things out for oneself. The lack of any consequences or stakes, however, is what leads to it as a form of escape that drains the energy out of the player.

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