The Internet has become the buzz-word and buzz-reality of the nineties. Touted as the way of the future, growing numbers of businesses, from multinational giants to local one-man stores, are keen to be found on the "World Wide Web". The "Information Super Highway" is enthusiastically presented as the new road to travel in education. "Websites" are set up covering interests of all kinds and powerful "search engines" comb the web to present the web "surfer" with appropriate "links". Personal "homepages" are an increasingly popular form of postmodern self-expression. Our language has grown to encorporate cyberjargon. Throughout the world the internet is altering the ways in which we work, play, and speak.
But more than this, the Internet is affecting the way that we think about reality. The virtual world of cyberspace intersects with space-time reality and each reality merges into the other. We discover the internet alters our perceptions of the world around us and redefines our sense of community. Our neighbours are no longer simply those living next-door, our local village, city or state. Communities become defined by our own special interests. Mailing lists link us to others with similar interests across the globe. I may never meet my neighbour who lives across the street yet I may spend hours each day conversing with a friend in Moscow who shares my interest in Briards, swapping recipes with a Norwegian housewife or discussing the intricacies of some textual exegesis with scholars of differing persuasions from around the globe.
In times of a crisis, more immediate practical assistance may still be sought locally, but much-needed moral support is frequently drawn from further afield. Those who best understand us are not so much those who connect with our space as those who connect with our minds. And even practical assistance may be faster over the net. Emergency medical advice may arrive via email much faster than the local doctor, and cross-cultural community networking not only provides faster information, it can also provide practical aid that bypasses the beaurocracy of conventional community channels. Frequently, the virtual communities of the internet can have very real effects on the non-virtual lives of their members.
As the Internet redefines community, so it redefines our concept of self. In a reality that is largely textually based, we are called to accept others on the basis of who they claim to be. Physical appearance is not directly relevent, speech impediments or physical disabilities need not be disclosed. Even race, age and gender may escape attention. Within the virtual communities across the world of the internet, preconceptions often become limited to use of language.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and similar textually-based, real-time communication programs provide us with the nearest thing to a disembodied existence. At first glance we may see such programs as creating a virtual world where minds engage verbally with minds. Our bodies may be seen as mere tools that we use to physically generate our minds' dictations. At a superficial level, allusions can be made to spiritual states such as certain conceptions of "heaven" where are individuals are believed to exist unhindered by physical constraints or needs.
But any sense of disembodiment in virtual reality is an illusion. The mind may use the body as a tool in the same way that my mind is consciously directing my fingers to type these words, but the mind itself is not an independent entity; our minds are generated by our bodies. Without a body there is no mind to direct, no memories to call upon and no thoughts to communicate.
Rather than simulating a state of disembodiment, virtual reality affirms our physical essence. When minds engage with minds across a textually-based medium, non-verbal forms of communication (ie: body language, vocal intonations, even pheromones) that are so readily taken for granted in other mediums, become noticable by their absence. We are forced to search for words and other symbols to communicate such physical expressions of self and we become acutely aware of how imperfectly mere symbols convey these deeper aspects of our selves.
For those who think in words, many ideas may readily lend themselves to verbal expression but even the most skillful wordsmiths can struggle to convey the fullness of their emotions. The physical reality of our emotions becomes evident in our choice of words. Verbal expressions of emotion such as "gut-wrenching", "a lump in the throat", "heart-racing", "jumping for joy", etc would be meaningless in a non-physical world. Even if we were to posit a mind independent of our bodies we are called to question whether any emotion is possible, let alone expressable, in a disembodied existence. The powerful affirmation of the physical essence of our being, as it is realised in the virtual world, raises serious questions for theology.
