Primates in Virtual Worlds: Part 1

No matter how fully-immersed humans are within a virtual world, Digital People are primates at heart (and brain.) You can run from meatspace physiology, and even hide from it, but you can't escape its influence on your consciousness.

The sense of being embedded in an external virtual world can only be experienced through the internal processes of our neurobiology. As far as your neurons are concerned, there is no substantive difference between seeing a human on earth and viewing an avatar in Second Life.

I ran across a fascinating lecture this weekend on "The Neurobiology of Primate Sexuality" by Professor Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University. I usually think about virtual life from a psychological or sociological perspective, so it was refreshing to think about how biological systems impact human life in virtual worlds. I'll hold my additional comments until next time, to give you a chance to view the video. (The second video's aspect ratio is wrong, but audio is good.)

Part 1:

Part 2: