A gazillion years of solitude

Shawn Yu 2008 "The Hunger Artist"

Today, the purpose of simulation seems to have shifted more toward entertainment use. As technology advanced, we have come to desire more edgy and stimulating experiences in less physical yet intimate ways. As a result, we started to use simulation as our personal playgrounds. In these final posts of the semester, assuming that we are just about to leave our world for a synthetic one, I would like to try envisioning how the value of solitude might or might not change once computer simulations become real.

Simulation has been traditionally used as try-outs for new ideas and technologies. Generally, simulation takes place in non-real settings to see if the new concepts can be functionalized and optimized in real life. For example, Alan Turning, the ”‘Founder of Computer Science” proposed that it was possible for a computer to simulate all the process of human intelligence, and suggested the “Turning Test” to determine the intelligence of machine. Some clinical psychologists advice  utilizing simulation as a treatment for patients who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. During the treatments, patients confront memories of trauma by imagining and recounting them in detail to desensitize their painful experiences. Additionally in the film, Good Bye Lenin, the protagonist creates a simulated world for his sick mother in which he manages to maintain the illusion that they are still living in the East Berlin under German Democratic Republic.

The most familiar computer simulation experience for many of us could be that of which through social networking services. The cyber communities provide us opportunities to counterfeit ourselves in return for our personal information. By uploading  private pictures and write pieces of our minds in  our own cyber cubicles, we experience our delusional transformation from lifeless world-weary individuals to joyful attractive ones who live far away from the kingdom of loneliness,  however, in fact, we are constantly screaming out laud for human attention and attachment from our little  imaginary world; Look at me with my new car! Look at me holding a cup in a trendy café with my attractive friends! Check out the movie I just saw, aren't I sophisticated? Via online games and forums, we are given even broader freedoms to transform ourselves into alter egos from vampires to warriors. In these particular settings, almost anything seems to be achievable without authentic physical interactions; earning money, shopping, caring animals, dating, having intercourse and even killing.  By any means, our awareness of the privacy has probably increased since the introduction of computer simulations, then again its protection protocol does not seem to be fully functioned as we, on a daily basis, keep voluntarily exposing ourselves in front of some 6,808,100,000 inhabitants of the universe.

Take a documentary film Talhotblond for example. The film explores a real-life homicide case resulted from online simulations and mainly narrated through a confession of a then 47-year-old married man in upstate New York. Out of boredom and loneliness, he starts to pretend to be a 18-year-old marine sniper and have an online affair with a 18-year-old girl in West Virginia, later turns out that she is a 40-something house wife who is also in disguise, pretends to be her own 18-year-old daughter through out the time.   Consequently, the man kills his 22-year-old co-worker who was also having an online relationship with the same woman. The twist in this story is that the man did not aware the true identity of the woman, believed that she was a bona fide Tall Hot and Blond, and vise versa until after his killing  was revealed.  The men later claims, the simulation life got so realistic that in the end, he started having a delusion that he was a real 18-year-old sniper in Iraq who fights for his country and girlfriend. Alternate perspectives of the story remain unavailable as the woman refuses to speak in public and the boy, obviously no longer able to  stand up for himself. This story not only illustrates how simulations can easily forge one's identity but also how quickly and deeply people are submerging themselves into their synthetic world to seal their emptiness. My question here is, did this simulation really help them filling the holes in their hearts? Leastways, the man admits that despite the feeling of brief fulfillment, he currently feels more isolated than he has ever been.

Humans are in general lonely creatures. We often overvalue ourselves that we are capable of living by our own, however, in reality we constantly seek recognitions from external parties. Assuming that my interpretation of Kafka’s Hunger Artist is correct, humans are modern hunger artists, narcissistic exhibitionists who fast for self-satisfaction and winning respect. When we no longer able to find something desire to “eat,” we get depressed and every so often die. As a matter of fact, what do we do today instead of fasting? Broadcast ourselves online and seek for public acceptance. When our view counts wouldn’t reach as we wish, although we may not necessarily go as far as killing ourselves, we get quite devastated and seek for further recognition. As such, regardless of actualization and optimization of computer simulations, in which in the very near future human would possibly become uploadable and downloadable, our quest for self-fulfillment will continue for indefinite period as so does our struggle against loneliness, at least until someone comes up with a vigorous anti-solitude simulation program.

Free E-book "Hunger Artist" by Franz Kafka