Ross A. Laird

Second Life, Facebook and similar virtual worlds enable the fantasy reconstruction of personal identity. For those with psychological themes involving belonging and community, such activities are highly appealing.

The motto of Second Life is Your World. Your imagination. The implication is that personal reality is an imaginal construct. For those with a tendency to dissociate, to create inner worlds of safety and solace (and spirituality, often), such worlds can be more real and more engaging than this world.

Second Life promotes the principle (similar to The Secret) that fantasy worlds have their own reality. This is similar to the branch of philosophy known as solipsism, explored by George Orwell in 1984, promoted by the Matrix movies, and examined in great depth by the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.

Philip K. Dick -- or PKD, as his meme is known -- was a prolific writer with an intense psychological focus. His works, which have been widely adapted into films (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, etc.) explore the promises and perils of technology. Even though PKD died in 1982 (soon after a visit to Vancouver in which he sought treatment for his stimulant addiction), his influence continues to be felt within and beyond the cultures of technology.

In fantasy worlds, one can create whatever is missing from real life.

"Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups...So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing."

PKD