Thinking with my hands

I’ve been tempted several times to write here about the idea of a virtual world. I’ve imagined that the Sims or Second Life are more than games. Our world is full and they are providing new digital frontiers and the freedom that comes with them. These online communities offer opportunities for the adventurous to build rooms, houses, cities— even characters and identities for themselves. Spaces open up online and relieve some of the stress of physical and social constraints that surround us.

Still, I have never actually entered this world. I’ve been tempted intellectually by the idea, but not the reality. There is something about creating a virtual world in the image of the one we live in that continues to leave me unimpressed. It’s too literal and seems almost unnecessary. Yes, the rapid rise of these worlds amazes me. Commerce, entertainment, communication, relationships all occur now in these digital spaces. But, I can’t help but wonder if the appeal of an alternate digital world comes at the cost of diminishing our own. The depth and success of the simulated world can be measured best by one’s own detachment from this one.

I’m not interested in predicting the path of Second Life or how much of our time we will spend in digital worlds as they become more established and further linked to people and products in this one. I’d rather try to get at what about this vision of the internet feels limited to me and whether there are others that push further.

Though imperfect and dated, the first time I opened Google Earth I felt like I had been given a gift— in this case a colorful ball that I could toss and spin and whose scale was slippery. It was all encompassing at one moment and intimate at another. I loved it how it could be grabbed with the mouse and rotated and how it would spin just past where you let it go, suggesting physical laws mirroring those in this world. It enforced the idea that its interface needed not to be seen as a screen. It could be a ball. It was a continuous and smooth surface. Not something distant to be controlled by clicking on arrows or by remote control, but an object apparently close and able to be directly affected by the movement of my hands on the mouse.

As infants we learn how we can with our hands and voice make an impact on the world around us. Materials give at our touch if they are soft, press back if they are hard. A flame feels hot and yet can be extinguished with a breath. I need to use childlike imagery to describe my experience with Google Earth and I think its the this quality of regression that marks the sophistication of the program and my hopes for digital technology.

There is a scene in Spielberg’s Minority Report in which the police officer played by Tom Cruise stands in front of a glass screen and thinks with his hands, grabbing information, sorting through it, repositioning it. His eyes move as quickly as his hands. He’s searching for something and the balance of command and uncertainty is masterful. It was mesmerizing even as it was really a superfluous moment in the movie. More a physical retelling of the Sorcerer's Apprentice than a vision of the dystopian future. But the attraction of this theme is worth paying attention to— and the Youtube videos that pair scenes from Minority report and advances in computer interfaces suggest that many are. I’m attuned to the the idea that we can use our bodies to aid our minds in understanding the world. Finding ways of organizing and using the information available to us is, maybe, an extended infancy— one we are only beginning to get used to.

The idea that thinking is something that could be given a shape, and that we could someday “think with our hands” as easily as we now talk with them, is rich. The potential of the internet and its ultimate integration into daily life seem to be here more about illustrating the extent of our own inner life than in creating ever expanding virtual simulacra of the world outside.

(Note: I’ve used Google Earth for years now and really wanted this post to be a lead-in to an amazing product from Microsoft call Photosynth, but the post veered in another direction. I’ll come back to it.)