New Technology and its relationship to the Skandhas

[Allan Briggs]

This article was pointed out to me by a good friend. The reason I post it here is because what immediately came to mind for me was the perception of self and specifically the Skandhas. http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/vr-goggles-and.html

One thing that struck me was that "we feel that our self is located where the eyes are."

I have read Caroline's book 'Buddhist Psychology' (thank you Caroline!) and I believe I have some limited understanding on this topic. I want to sit and think through the connections involved here.

The skandhas will most certainly be a starting point for my next meditation sessions. I will report back what I find.Perhaps people with more experience in these matters could share their insights. It would be very useful.

The reason I post this here in the counseling and psychotherapy discussion forum is its relationship to avatars in online games. Recently games such as World of Warcraft and others have gotten a lot of media attention. I wonder if practicing therapists have run into people fighting to overcome such problems. I'd like to hear experiences related to that as well.

[caroline brazier]

The senses are known as the uncontrollables. Our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind all grasp at experience 'with minds of their own'. So yes, the eye has its own agenda and latches onto experience. This is the first stage in the creation of identity. In the skandhas it is linked to the perceptual object, rupa. (If we look at the cycle of Dependent Origination, which maps onto the Skandhas, the senses fall between rupa and vedana) This means our view and our sense of self are very closely linked.

War games can be very compulsive in this respect, feeding an aspect of self-formation - the negative aspect of vedana (hate reactions) so we create may identities conditioned by anger, aggression etc. The whole thing is complex, but basically our mentality results from wat we expose our minds to.

[Tan Jit Kiat]

'basically our mentality results from wat we expose our minds to'

True. Nowadays I don't even dare to turn on television (the TV shows in Singapore are already very conservative). I also warned my colleague who likes to watch horror movies that all the scenes are going to haunt him at the moment of death. If one is interested in Buddhist analysis of mind, the Mahayana Yogacara (Mind only, Consciousness only) school has very comprehensive and analytical explanation.

[Allan Briggs]

Thank you Caroline for your insight on this.

In the article they have basically moved the 'eye sense' to a new location and then observed what happened. So if I'm understanding what you're saying and what I see in the Dependent Origination diagram (p182 of your book) the natural reaction of moving the 'eye sense' is new invested contact with the world...basically the cycle would begin its process from this new viewpoint.

That's a very interesting idea because again I am thinking about the idea of an avatar. In many of these online games today I think are at a level beyond TV because the user is in control of what they look at. Perhaps the same way a cameraman is in control of her camera. Being able to control the camera and to have some interaction with the virtual worlds (and other real people who are in them) I can see would definitely lead to the creation of an identity.

I wonder how different the creation of the 'avatar' identity would be from the 'real life' identity a person builds and what the factors involved would be? What I mean is that all these virtual worlds being created online have certain parameters of operation. Perhaps your character can fly in this virtual world and take on some super hero adventures but it may be beyond the avatars ability to do something as simple as have a cup of tea or coffee. How would such a world affect the identity built in it? What happens when a person is spending more time in that virtual world than in the 'real world'?

For example this one online game that is played by 11 million people is said to have some people spending more 40-60 hours a week in it. Is there a point where the 'avatar' identity becomes stronger than the 'real life' identity?

[Kaspalita]

Just read an article about this in one of the therapy journals (it was on Caroline's desk, but it looks like she's tidied up, so I don't have the reference to hand)

The article was suggesting it can go one of two ways, either the person uses the online world, to escape from the real world, or they can use it to help explore different aspects of themselves. One case study looked at a woman in a same sex relationship who wanted to explore the possibility of relationships with men, for example. Another student counsillor took her online life, into her sessions with her own therapist, and they used the material from both the online, and material worlds in their sessions.

Of course we do have different 'sub-personalities' if you like, already, we might be quite different with our family, to at work, or with friends on a night out, are these different selves?

Actors take on different personalities for a while, and from my own experience on the stage, I know that you can't always keep the role completely separate from you 'usual self'. Mind is conditioned by it's objects, after all...

Perhaps a healthy response is to be able to move fluidly between these - and develop some sense of which are more wholesome - These sub personalities feed off each other - if we spend time pretending to be a Nazi general....it affects us.

Allan Briggs said:

Thank you Caroline for your insight on this.

In the article they have basically moved the 'eye sense' to a new location and then observed what happened. So if I'm understanding what you're saying and what I see in the Dependent Origination diagram (p182 of your book) the natural reaction of moving the 'eye sense' is new invested contact with the world...basically the cycle would begin its process from this new viewpoint.

That's a very interesting idea because again I am thinking about the idea of an avatar. In many of these online games today I think are at a level beyond TV because the user is in control of what they look at. Perhaps the same way a cameraman is in control of her camera. Being able to control the camera and to have some interaction with the virtual worlds (and other real people who are in them) I can see would definitely lead to the creation of an identity.

I wonder how different the creation of the 'avatar' identity would be from the 'real life' identity a person builds and what the factors involved would be? What I mean is that all these virtual worlds being created online have certain parameters of operation. Perhaps your character can fly in this virtual world and take on some super hero adventures but it may be beyond the avatars ability to do something as simple as have a cup of tea or coffee. How would such a world affect the identity built in it? What happens when a person is spending more time in that virtual world than in the 'real world'?

For example this one online game that is played by 11 million people is said to have some people spending more 40-60 hours a week in it. Is there a point where the 'avatar' identity becomes stronger than the 'real life' identity?

[caroline brazier]

It is a fascinating topic. I was thinking about this this morning in relation to writing. I was thinking about how in writing my new book, Guilt, in which I was exploring the theme by looking at the lives of a group of completely fictitious characters, by the end I felt very emotionally involved with them - as if they were good friends, and I didn't really want to finish writing. I think most people will recognise this emotional attachment we feel to people whom we know rationally do not exist - like our feelings for the characters in a play or a book.

Yet as I reflected, on the one hand, the characters did have a reality. They are fictional, but no doubt their characteristics came from somewhere, qualities gleaned from different relationships over the years. And, on the other hand, I never really see other people as they really are - there are always layers of my assumptions and expectations. Yet through it all, something speaks to us of the other.

So, I think in the avatars and so on, one does perceive somethng real as well as something false. Your points Kaspa are very interestng and I'm sure the article is right, though I think it is probably a spectrum between exploring is an insight producing way and dulling experience through the game.