Viritual Relationships

Thank you all. Your different views are appreciated. It's one of the things I like about this place.

I wasn't thinking of viritual as a means of communicating with some one you know in the physical world but it terms of relationships which in all reality you may never meet the person.

While I like many people here and feel friendly toward them I having never met them and may never meet them is awarkward for me.

I wonder if many other folks feel the same way?

Rickie ...

The point I was illustrating earlier is that the relationship with a real, living person is never virtual. There are no such people as "internet" people - who only exist in your computer. This is something that I have insisted upon, especially with my apprentices, but with some others as well : people are not apps. We may use the internet as a primary means of communication, but it isn't the only one -- just the fastest and easiest. And, it's everywhere. That doesn't mean that the people we are talking to are fast, easy and everywhere though. Chances are, they go places, do things, know other people and are just as neurotic as we are ...

Of course, one has to be just as careful about the people one meets on the internet as those one meets anywhere else ; someone I've just met and suddenly I'm her/his best friend or other, then I'm going to hear alarms going off.

If the possibility exists of 'going to see someone' (and thus putting up with their insanity as well as what we like about them on-line), then you can think of it as a real relation. Real relationships wither in about the same ways too : you just don't see someone on-line as often is totally homologous to those friends (and sometimes lovers) that you see less and less often until someday they are just people you run into occasionally and don't know what to say that is even going to matter to them in the slightest.

Not morose here, just human ... Life is like that.

To expand slightly on Alexandre's point, when we divide relationships into "real" and "virtual", we're dividing people into "real" and "virtual" as well. This causes a number of problems.

If we don't see the people on the other end of our virtual interactions as "real" people, we're less likely to invest in them, leaving our relationships to wither. We're less likely to empathize with them, leading us to be more harsh with them than we ought. We're less likely to be patient with them, since the medium of communication is so instant. We're more likely to take advantage of them, since they're "always" at our fingertips.

By saying a relationship is a "virtual" relationship, one ignores the very real human connectivity involved. This distinction--that people online are just "online people" and not real, breathing, thinking, feeling, hurting, laughing human beings--is part of what's causing the disconnection of the Information Age. We've never had this level of interconnectivity before in the history of our species, and rather than using it as an extension of our normal conversations, we're choosing to use it in ways that dehumanize the other people using it.

I'm not expresing myself accuratly. I choose the word virtual and it may not be the right word. Communication over the internet (virtually) is no different than any other form of communication. I don't mean to imply people on the internet are not human or are less than human. That would be horrible.

I'll use you two as example if you don't mind?

I like you, we communicate well but I'm never going to meet you both in all likelihood? I'm finding that a little awkward, surreal but not in a neg sense.

Rickie wrote: I like you, we communicate well but I'm never going to meet you both in all likelihood? I'm finding that a little awkward, surreal but not in a neg sense.

That is a rather odd state. It's something humanity is learning to cope with. Prior to the Internet, we had telephone calls (but you had to know the number of the person you were trying to reach.) Before that, we had telegraph (where you'd have to be able to locate the telegraph office in the town they were in.) And before that, we had letters (which had to be addressed to someone you had some knowledge of).

The common factor here is that, prior to the Internet, almost all human interaction that took place at a distance required you to at least passably know (or be able to find, physically) the person you were trying to contact. Millions of years of evolution have not prepared us for the last thirty, in which we can run into people we'd otherwise never known exist.

That's what is happening here ...

Okay --

"Internet" or "digital" does not coincide with "virtual". Sure, it can ... but it is not systematic ; it does not follow from that this is the internet that our interactions are "virtual".

"Virtual" simply means 'possessing some of the properties of' (or 'some of the virtues of'). Say, a 'virtual' visit to somewhere is where you have photos and some other (maybe) qualia of the place without actually going there. That doesn't have to be via internet, but can be by a magazine -- or a map, even. All that could be considered "virtual".

We are not communicating "virtually". And we are not "surreal" either. Now, what we may be communicating may take a surreal turn -- especially when talking with Steamboat (just teasing ! ) But we are very real (not surreal) people, who know one another, have seen one another on video (it wasn't CGI - it was really us) and have had some pretty interesting discussions - and even a few arguments - just like if it were by telephone, or carrier pigeon.

(That would be one really tired pigeon.)

But all around, he's right ... millions of years of evolution hasn't prepared us to be in a nearly planetary information-space where we can meet, talk to - and to a large extent, get to know well - someone who lives on the other side of the Earth. It was already the case, even before the internet, that in just about any aeroport or train station, we could cross paths with (not necessarily "meeting", per se) more 'other' human beings than many of our ancestors saw in their entire lifetimes ... Our population is now such that we are about one-sixth of the number of human beings that have ever lived on the planet. That is an interesting figure, given that we've been around for a while.

There is, to my mind, so much that evolution has not prepared us for that "virtual" may need to take on a whole new meaning as we discover what "virtues" we are actually imitating.

Just something to ponder ...

Here's another way of comparing it :

Say you get a letter from the bank telling you that you are seriously overdrawn (whether you really are or not ; accidents happen) and they'll be closing your account and getting you into court ... Now, this letter was probably not drafted by a human being - it was most likely computer generated. The signature on the bottom was just somebody's scanned signature that doesn't know you and that you may never meet. Nevertheless, you probably wouldn't consider that to be "virtual".

Okay -- suppose you've been talking to some people in the other corners of the world for some time and have come to know them to various degrees, and it just so happens that you can talk to them about your worries and they actually care.

Which comes off in this scenario as more "virtual" ?

Get it ?

I actually had to close the curtain on an internet friendship of seven years today, so this topic comes very close to home for me. Suffice it to say the friendship had become toxic, or I have changed to where it was no longer acceptable (she always had a sense of humor that made me very uncomfortable however). I'll probably write about it in my journal, thought I won't go into too much specificity, save that all temporal things naturally have an end.

Also my ex started as an online relationship, he ended up not being the person I thought he was. But then, so did I. I'm working on trying to do a better job of picking my friends these days. I'm glad I found the Temple.

Rickie wrote: Thank you all. Your different views are appreciated. It's one of the things I like about this place.

I wasn't thinking of viritual as a means of communicating with some one you know in the physical world but it terms of relationships which in all reality you may never meet the person.

While I like many people here and feel friendly toward them I having never met them and may never meet them is awarkward for me.

I wonder if many other folks feel the same way?

Dear Rickie,

This temple is as an second family for me. Though a very big family to.. Internet gives us a way to connect with each other. Makes us connect in our solitude, makes us bold in our shyness, makes us happy in our sadness and bond in our loneliness. But what is important? What is acceptable? I feel that I shall never meet others, until I will be older. Meeting people without an computer gives an new experience, this may be worse or better. Depending on how persons normally act.

What is the reason behind live? What is the reason behind life? One letter in makes one question different, that letter makes it an other story.. for me not meeting people is not awkward; not understanding how internet makes a person different, does make it awkward for me.

What viritual means seems to be subjective and is different for me thatn many here and that is OK. I don't see how you can get to know some very well unless you meet them. Weither it is electronic communication or pen pals. I don't think you know the person well until you meet them. Until then you only know what they have communicated to you. For some relationships, like a biz transaction, you don't need to know anything much. Friendships (and there are varring degrees of friendship) for me seem incomplete via viritual/electronic communication.

Being in the business world we can communicate many ways that can be considered virtural. Some deals can close that way but the really important ones are done face to face.

I guess what it is boiling down to for me is the best way to meet and get to know a person is in person and thing less seems incomplete experience.

And I wonder how many people feel that way or is it just me. :woohoo: :laugh: