Feelings and reality, part 2

In yesterday’s post I posed the following question:

If I spend a lot of time nurturing a character in a computer game, and that character “dies”, is my feeling of loss fundamentally different from my feeling of loss if a person in my life dies?

For me the answer is yes. As I mentioned yesterday, I was surprised to learn that not everyone agrees.

I see the fundamental difference as this: In the former case, I am the only mind to consider. Yet in the latter case, I am dealing with an entire other sentient being, one with feelings toward me that more or less match my own. I have lost a reciprocal relationship.

Surely there must be a fundamental difference between the loss of such a connection, and, say, the loss of a favorite wristwatch. I claim the two situations are very different. But perhaps someone has a good argument for why the two situations are fundamentally the same.

2 thoughts on “Feelings and reality, part 2”

  1. I think it is more similar to when a child has a pet butterfly that dies. The butterfly didn’t feel anything towards the child, but the child imagined that the butterfly did. The relationship is all in the head of the child.
    I suppose it could be like the feeling we get when a celebrity dies, if the character was well-scripted enough.

  2. Consider the reality of a ‘mind’ as a projection. You are operating under the fundamental assumption that what you perceive to be another human is therefore guaranteed to be sentient and thus capable of entering in a reciprocal relationship with you.

    I think the question–and our divide in thinking–lies not in the superficial difference between “a character in a computer game” and a real person, but in the mode we perceive reality. I apply the duck test to everything. What is reciprocity but what I perceive it to be? I’ve already given up on trusting myself to differentiate reality and virtual reality, which probably makes me insane. Think about it like the definition of a game–there is no good definition, but you definitely know one when you see one (or do you? Life is a game…).

    I believe the implicit comparison between a wristwatch and a virtual being is actually an erroneous simplification. The original question was something more along the lines of: “can one have a meaningful relationship with a nonhuman?” to which you replied (if I remember correctly) “yes, but only if one is dysfunctional.”

    I must be pretty dysfunctional these days. I haven’t fallen in love with my watch though… yet.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *