Virtual objects - just as emotionally or symbolically valuable as physical things in the world?

[Ganelon Darkfold]

I see what you're saying Randall, but I do kind of prefer RL books in some cases for the aesthetic appeal.  On the other hand, how many books printed with the poor quality paper and cheap binding practices of the past few decades will survive to be around in a century?  Probably none, while via copying into digital those words and ideas need not be lost. 

Yes, things need to be backed up and stored in more than one place to have a good chance for survival in digital form, but then that chance at least exists.  If in 100 yrs or more, it is the only way that a written work or whatever survived, then the digital is also too valuable to just disregard.

 

Janelle, I suppose it depends on what you like, but I've found the autoharp to be great fun to play.  Yes, mouseclicks or tapping notes on a computer keyboard just aren't the same as real instruments.  But if they are all someone has, I'd say it'd be better than not playing.  Part of the problem also is that musical instruments in SL mostly are either props or toys.  It would not be impossible for SL to be able to handle at least something like interfacing with a midi keyboard to drive some samples, but it's really just not *there*.  At least not yet.  Maybe someday.  There's the potential, though,  and one can dream of new instruments with new sounds in SL that might be unique enough to make actually creating music on pixel instruments maybe at least some fun. 

Back to the "value" topic, though.  The very first time i ever put cash money from my pocket into SL was to be able to afford a piano I liked.  To get it with full perms ran me something like 800L$, but I wanted full perms so I could put a script in it to play at least a brief bit of music I wrote in RL.  As an idea, that was valuable enough to me to warrant buying some L$.  I felt it was beyond my capability at the time to make it myself (at least with a decent prim count), so it was worth it.  Even with the somewhat painful process of resampling down to a sound quality that SL can handle and cutting it into 10 second bits so it could be uploaded and put into the SL instrument with some scripting, I still feel it was money well spent.  Beyond the money, there was risking a piece of music I wrote in a digital place where I don't really know how secure it is and etc.  But it was only a short piece, so I take that risk.

In real life, though, I can't afford a nice grand piano, and wouldn't have space for one if I could.  The music itself was written with a midi keyboard driving a gigasample grand piano.  I don't feel I *could* have played it with mouseclicks or trying to tap the notes on a typing keyboard.  But getting the piece into SL so I could show it off to a few friends was worth spending a few SL dollars to get a prop instrument I coukld feel good about putting it into. 

I also became more aware of the limitations of SL instruments for doing much of anything like actual music on, though.  LOL  So now I don't bother with scripts or uploading the music, I just use the voice/speak channel for it and the SL instrument only needs to be a prop.  The sound quality leaves a good bit to be desired, but with a reasonable studio mic and a mixer and some signal processing gear, it's at least ok for when a friend or two is over.  Most of the pixel instruments I have don't mean a lot to me.  They're just a symbol for someone to see when I play.  The one I made and ones I worked on at least a bit myself are a bit more important to me, but I agree that I'm not nearly as attached to them as my RL instruments.

[Melita Magic]

This is almost exactly like the other thread in this forum in which  you want to know if we want to be remembered when we die and give our stuff to other people or not. 

Don't you think people would be thinking about their real life and sorting those things instead of some pixels? 

You said in the other thread that you are "the academic" - but didn't post any references, any information about your study, why you want to know, what the purpose is, or anything else. 

It's OK to just be curious or nosey, but just say so. 

 

[MargieG]

Hi - I should have put in my research project details again. I started posting back in November-December last year where I put in my contact information. I teach and research at Griffith University in Australia in the School of Humanities. My name is Margaret Gibson (email: Margaret.Gibson@griffith.edu.au) and this is a research project registered through my home university. I published a book in 2008 titled Objects of the Dead: mourning and memory in everyday life. This book was partly based on my own bereavement but also had interviews from other people about how they remember and mourn their loved ones through ordinary, everyday 'things'. This book was about different kinds of value - memory value, symbolic value and market value and how sometimes the most economically 'worthless' object can have enormous memory value. So I was looking at how other questions of value can displace and subvert the sphere of economics, monetary value, as an over-riding determinant of value in modern life. So this gives you some idea of where I am coming from. Now virtual property and objects is an interesting shift I think in contemporary life around what we value and what we might want to pass on to loved ones or what they might want to keep or know about in terms of what is meaningful to us.  

[Ceka Cianci]

---

MargieG wrote:

Hi - I should have put in my research project details again. I started posting back in November-December last year where I put in my contact information. I teach and research at Griffith University in Australia in the School of Humanities. My name is Margaret Gibson (email: Margaret.Gibson@griffith.edu.au) and this is a research project registered through my home university. I published a book in 2008 titled Objects of the Dead: mourning and memory in everyday life. This book was partly based on my own bereavement but also had interviews from other people about how they remember and mourn their loved ones through ordinary, everyday 'things'. This book was about different kinds of value - memory value, symbolic value and market value and how sometimes the most economically 'worthless' object can have enormous memory value. So I was looking at how other questions of value can displace and subvert the sphere of economics, monetary value, as an over-riding determinant of value in modern life. So this gives you some idea of where I am coming from. Now virtual property and objects is an interesting shift I think in contemporary life around what we value and what we might want to pass on to loved ones or what they might want to keep or know about in terms of what is meaningful to us.  

---

i'm not really into being part of a study..so i deleted my post..

i don't come here for those things..