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June 29, 2007, 02:27 PM ET
Richard Dawkins Visits Second Life
Richard Dawkins, the British ethologist and author of The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), reveals in a recent interview with the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, that he has a digital alter ego -- an avatar -- who frequents the virtual world Second Life. Mr. Dawkins sees similarities between his research in artificial intelligence and Second Life.
"I think it's reasonable to say that when you and I think we see the real world ... what we're really seeing in a sense is a simulation in our own head," he says in the interview. "And the evidence for this is the way we see visual illusions, which are just what you would expect to see if we are simulating a virtual reality in our heads, a virtual reality which is steered and guided by the real world through our sense organs."
A lecture by Mr. Dawkin's was video-streamed in Second Life in May. He told The Daily Telegraph that he returned to listen to a rebroadcast of his lecture as an avatar, whose real identity was unknown to other avatars in the audience. So who is Mr. Dawkins's avatar? He doesn't say. Just look for the godless one. --Andrea L. Foster
Categories: Virtual-Worlds
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