November 18, 2008

Brandon Crisp was devastated when his parents took his Xbox
away. The 15 year-old Ontario youth had become totally
immersed in a virtual world. Without that world, his
parents might just as well have banished him to an arctic
ice flow.

Brandon had cultivated the skills necessary to survive in
the world which he lived for many of his waking hours. The
boundaries of his world were defined by a game titled Call
for Duty: Modern Warfare set in the fictional near-future,
where a radical leader has staged a coup d'état in the
Middle East.

He was so entranced by this virtual reality that the world
outside the box was a pale version of his fantastic life.
The cruel irony was that the adrenalin-pumping world of guns
and action left him ill-equipped for the harsh world which
he finally perished.

Hunters found Brandon's still and lifeless body among some
tall reeds. It appeared that he had collapsed; his clothes
were neat and undisturbed. An autopsy revealed that he had
succumbed to injuries resulting from a fall from a tree.

Brandon's death will not be in vain if we can learn
something from it, particularly game players and their
families.

But before we throw stones at game players, we should
examine our own glass house. If game players can become so
immersed in a completely artificial construct to the
exclusion of another, more real, world then so can we.

Our technology is not benign; it shapes our perception of
reality. Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan
explained: "We shape our tools and afterwards our tools
shape us."

Our view of the "real world" is restricted by the structures
of our technology.

Professor Sajay Samuel urges us to return to common sense.
By common sense, he does not mean our innate, everyday
common knowledge but something quite different.

Earlier civilizations perceived common sense a faculty that
integrated our five senses. Aristotle claimed that there is
nothing in the intellect that is not first in the senses.

"Common sense is a faculty that synthesizes separate
sensations. It forges a whole from what you see, hear and
touch," Samuel told CBC radio.

For example, I hold an object in my hand. It projects its
qualities to me. It is shiny red sphere of medium weight;
it is aromatic and delicious when I bite into it. My
common sense synthesizes these inputs and I conclude that it
is an apple.

Common sense extends beyond my simple example to concepts
such as ethics and justice. "Thus all ideas are reflection
of this original grasping of the world," Samuel adds,
"Without common sense, ideas become unhinged and not rooted
in the world."

Science teaches us the opposite; that the sensory inputs are
inferior compared to the true reality determined by what I
can't see through science and mathematics.

Consequently, the greater reality of an apple is defined by
the wavelengths of light reflected from its surface, its
unseen genetic makeup, and the nutritional constituents that
are revealed only by chemical analysis.

Sadly, we live in world in which our common sense has
atrophied through willful neglect.

Einstein summed up the modern disregard: "Common sense is
the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

We are encouraged to distrust our senses and rely on
abstract mathematical models which are beyond the
comprehension of most people. Therefore, true vision is
possessed by a relative few and all others just have to
trust them.

Without full use of our faculties, we are limited. No
wonder that the pollution of our water and air seem like
abstract concepts. Climate change and carbon buildup might
as well be taking place on Mars. We live in an artificial
technological bubble which we are convinced is the "real
world."

We have become uprooted and unhinged from the sensual world.
When viewed through the lens of our truncated perception,
climate change and the mass extinction of species don't
affect us because we have no visceral connection to them.

We ignore the sensual world at our peril. Degradation of
our natural world is not an artificial construct. They have
a basis in reality and we can survive only if we can get our
heads out of technological bubbles and allow our bodies back
into the sensual world.

When Mother Nature takes our Xbox away, how prepared will we
be for a world which we only dimly perceive?
 

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

go back to my Columns in the