Keyword: ‘E-dentity’ (Keith)
DEFINITION (inc. source):
‘E-dentity’, online identity, and digital identity were not found in any reputable dictionaries I consulted. These are the definitions I found that address the term I’m calling ‘e-dentity’
Digital identity - The electronic representation of a real-world entity. The term is usually taken to mean the online equivalent of an individual human being, which participates in electronic transactions on behalf of the person in question. However, a broader definition also assigns digital identities to organizations, companies, and even individual electronic devices.
Digital identity refers to the aspect of digital technology that is concerned with the mediation of people's experience of their own identity and the identity of other people and things. Digital identity also has another common usage as the digital representation of a set of claims made by one digital subject about itself or another digital subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_identity
Online identity is a social identity that network users establish in online communities. Although some people prefer to use their real names online, most Internet users prefer to identify themselves by means of pseudonyms, which reveal varying amounts of personally identifiable information.
In some online contexts, including Internet forums, MUDs, instant messaging, and massively multiplayer online games, users can represent themselves visually by choosing an avatar, an icon-sized graphic image. As other users interact with an established online identity, it acquires a reputation, which enables them to decide whether the identity is worthy of trust.
Here is the challenge of E-identity!
Say we were to consider E-identity an externalization of subjectivity. As the ultimate goal of one's subjectivity is performativity, affecting change and action and fulfillments of real life needs and desires... to what extent can the Nietzschean ideal of Overman ('Uber mensch') be fulfilled through the existence of E-identity, 'living' in the (e)-world devoid of morals of its own?
What happens when the E-identity blurs with the real world?
Is E-identity a performance? According to Schechner, performances are recognized as having beginnings, middles and endings. Where does the performance of E-identity begin and end?
What are its boundaries?
Our response:
We think that the (e)-world is capable of fulfilling the ideal of Overman, however, achieving this ideal is not a result of an environment that is void of morals. Your point about the absence of morals doesn’t strike us as an accurate description of the (e)-world. While it may differ from the ‘real world,’ virtual reality is firstly, reflective or informed by the real world. In addition, it generates its own restrictive elements: conventions, codes of behavior, etc., which structure both the emergence of one’s E-dentity and the manner in which that extension of the self is performed.
Your third challenge seems to indicate that digital identity is not one of infinite possibilites after all because there are clear boundaries in the sense that, if we were to see it as a performance, it begins with you logging on, registering an account perhaps and choosing what to display, and ends when you log off. There is also the option of ending the performance by deleting said identity and editing it (costumes, props, characters).
We find it a lot more difficult to respond to your second challenge because, really, a number of things could happen when the boundary between the two worlds is blurred. There might be individuals who are so immersed in their E-dentities and want to retreat from the ‘real world,’ but we feel that the conditions that exist in the ‘real world’ are not completely escapable e.g. physical need for sustenance, sleep, technology failing you, etc.
Comment
We think that in responses above people were concentrating on how our lives are being intergated with virtual reality and how virutal reality becomes more real then the actual reality.
What this discussion opened up for us was the realization that nowadays technology brings us out of the small dark room attached to our computers, and our virtual realities. We are now entering the physical world, hand-in-hand with, but not always aware of virtual reality. For example, there are now surveillance cameras around every corner, space is augmented by chips, GPS and mobile phone technology, and we are asked to carry our student number with us wherever we go.
Now, without question, we carry our e-dentities with us in the actual physical world, as opposed to being bound to them in a virtual space, via our computers.
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