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When a body falls in a forest: The hodological habitus of the Cartesian subject in Sword Art Online
Or more simply;
Can we really be immersed in VR?
Can we really be immersed in VR?
In a society containing the scientific knowledge to provide ‘full dive’ technology capable of blocking and overriding information from bodies, the ontology of immersion is itself a question. In SAO, the characters become ensnared under the absolute authority of the world’s creator Akihiko Kayaba. The passive subjection in the story is exaggerated to become a life or death situation making the character’s avatars a new body that they must protect. The disavowment of the real body in favour of a new virtual prosthesis complicates the question of hodological space and thus raises issues in determining the location of immersion. A division between the space being experienced by the body and the space being experienced by the mind grants the interaction a Cartesian twist.
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Yet, without being able to download a version of the subject, the mind remains still attached to its body and dependent on it for its survival. The Cartesian subject is immersed by the illusion but the material instantiation of the subject is still very much tied to the physical realm of ordinary life. The posthumanist tone of the situation exemplifies the prioritising of informational patterning, the ‘sensory’ inputs provided by the nerve gear, over the physical reactions caused by our millions of information receptors from skin to snout. When Asuna questions Kirito on his lazing around saying “Everyday we waste in here is a day lost in the real world” he replies “But Aincrad is where we live right now”…”See? The wind and sunlight feel so good” (Sword Art Online, 2015. Ep.5 3:25-4:20). Kirito’s sentiment implies the phenomenology of interactions is more important than the veracity of them. For him, the simulation may as well be real, where he lives is right now. Kirito seems indifferent to his body and its sensory feedback allowing easier acceptance and immersion in the code. The resulting separation reduces his body to nothing more than a biological machine engaged in an endless cycle of consumption and digestion (one concisely equated by the band Slipknot) until it eventually decays or is terminated by external agents.
The interruptions of the body’s natural nerves, however, imposes a beneficial situation for the continued immersion of the players. Whilst their deaths are real, the players experience no pain within the game world diminishing the forceful interactions that can soo easily shift our attention. Experiencing no physical toll or exertion, their new bodies are relentless and can be healed from any amount of injury, even unto death. All the while the real body, permanent home of the subject, is no longer included in their sensory space but, I shall argue, is still very much relevant and maintained in their hodological space. The implication of Asuna’s phrase “Everyday, we waste in here” calls back the state of the body in the real world. She is telling Kirito that they are wasting, their bodies increasing in decay as all things naturally do. For Asuna then, the unfelt body, the material instantiation she has inhabited her whole life still very much is included in her hodological space by way of its existential property, its own physicality. She experiences her detachment as wasting, the world of Aincrad is not real. The immersion of her mind is not enough to create an experience of reality, Asuna’s hodological space is broader than that of Kirito who only lives 'right now' in his perceived space. Asuna is an anti-posthumanist thinker, she favours the material, the physical and realness of the external world. Her concern is that the real world decays, it wastes, this expands the dimensions of her hodological space to include that of time something Kirito’s ‘right now’ approach loses sight of. Her fear of the ever-marching influence of entropy is what gives the world its value, its ‘aura’ in Benjamin’s diction. In opposition, the VR world suffers no decay or degradation, Asuna questions “Don’t we always get the same weather?” alluding to the predetermined and infinitely repeatable code of Aincrad’s weather. Kirito replies “If you’d lie down for a bit you’d understand” the irony prevails onto the situation of their actual bodies. For every moment they have spent within the game, their bodies have been laying down. But what Kirito is asking is that she surrender her focus to her perceptions and not her habitus.
What keeps the body alive and relevant in my opinion is the habitus; traditions of bodily disavowment, of taboos, of gender and traits both masculine and feminine, of voyeurism and exhibitionism all exist and impede upon our immersive space simultaneously. More than any location or dimension can, our mental constructs immerse us with greater effect than any other thing. How we relate, interpret and feel about all our senses, ideas and emotions doesn’t stem from physical or conscious attention but from limitations, dependencies and procedures that construct our individual psyches. Where we inhabit either physically or mentally does not seem to indicate a type of immersion that one may call definitive even in ‘full dive’ VR. The question will remain that so long as there exists a physical manifestation there will exist the hodological immersion of that body within the mental habitus. A special type of immersion where the body itself is no longer an essential property of the being. In essence, it is my view that technology can never provide immersion, true immersion, until it is able to entirely separate the mind from its physical inhabitation within a society.