On Cyberspace and Being: Identity, Self and Hyperreality1

Lucas D. Introna
Department of Information Systems, London School of Economics & Political Science
Tel: 0171-9556032 ; E-mail: l.introna@lse.ac.uk

Abstract
Does it make sense to talk about cyberspace as an alternative social reality? Is cyberspace the new
frontier for the realization of the postmodern self? For philosophers Taylor and Saarinen, and the
psychologist Turkle cyberspace is the practical manifestation of a postmodern reality, or rather
hyperreality (Baudrillard). In hyperreal cyberspace, they argue, identity becomes plastic, ‘I can
change my self as easily as I change my clothes.’ I will argue using Martin Heidegger that our
being is being-in-the-world. To be-in-the-world means to be involved in the world; to have an
involvement whole that is the always already present significance of what I do. Furthermore, that
the making or choosing of self is only existentially meaningful in a horizon of significance, an
involvement whole. I will argue that identity is tied to community, and community involves
accepting some level of already there thrownness. Every cyber-traveler will eventually have to
deal with the fact of being, always already, in-the-world.

Introduction
Whither are we moving?
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We
have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers. ... Whither are we moving?...God is dead. God remains dead.
And we have killed him....What was the holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death
under our knives: who will wipe the blood off us?..."
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too were silent and stared at him in
astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke and went out. "I come too early," he said then;
"my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way...--it has not yet reached the ears of man.”
Nietzsche
With this dramatic passage Nietzsche (1974, p.125) declares the end of all metaphysical
foundations and meta-narratives. Nothing is, and we can know nothing. The Western
philosophical tradition has exhausted all its options. Reason turned on itself with devastating
results. All foundations for knowing, whether on the field of experience, or on the field of reason
have been subjected to devastating critique.
Derrida (1982) with his method of deconstruction exorcised every major philosophical text of
any pretence of foundation or ultimate referent. Without an ultimate referent all texts are fictional;
texts referring to other texts in an endless regression. Lyotard (1986) using Wittgenstein argued all
language games are situated and therefore incommensurable, consequently there can be no
legitimating meta-narrative only an endless proliferation of local narratives. Foucault (1977) with
his genealogical method argued that the hermeneutic quest for deep and hidden meaning merely
uncovers more interpretation, ―as everything is already interpretation.‖ Each institution or society
―has its ‗regime‘ of truth, its ‗general politics‘ of truth‖ (p. 133) Truth, knowledge and politics are
bound together in a chain that renders separation impossible.
We have entered the age of the postmodern. The modern epoch with its subject-object duality
has proved to be untenable. The sacred categories of the modern age: essence, substance, truth,
real, self, science, and so forth, are all on the philosophical trash heap along with Philosophy (with
a capital ‗P‘). Postmodern society hangs precariously suspended over the abyss of nihilism. How
should it understand itself, how should it react?

1
Published in Philosophy in the Contemporary World, Vol. 4, 1&2, pp.1-10.
 More specifically, on a personal and practical level, how should we understand and think about
our existence, our identity, our ‗self‘, whatever that may be? How should we make sense of the
postmorden arguments that speak of the fragmentation of the unified self into multiple ‗windows‘
of self? Furthermore, can we relate this new fragmented ‗self‘ to the rapidly unfolding of new
‗worlds‘, new frontiers, such as cyberspace and virtual reality? To some these new worlds seem to
exemplify what the postmodern ‗self‘ is all about (Poster, 1990). They are worlds cut lose from
their time and space limitations. They seem to create new possibilities for social interaction based
on multiple and plastic identitiesa new contemporary form of being social. Indeed, the concepts
‗cyberspace‘, ‗virtual reality‘, ‗world-wide-web‘, ‗Internet‘, ‗virtual communities‘, and so forth,
have become part of the everyday lingua franca, exciting and seemingly unlimited possibilities
awaits the cyber-traveller.
One could embrace these brave new worlds, dive right into the abyss and produce a self, a
future, a life! This is the view of Jean Baudrillard (1983; 1993). For Baudrillard the ‗real‘ is
dead, it never existed, it was, and is, just a staging, a simulation. We have to face this and rid
ourselves of the modernistic baggage. Baudrillard sees the transcendence of nihilism in what
Nietzsche called ‗absolute nihilism‘, or maybe he would prefer ‗hyper-nihilism‘. In hyper-nihilism
we are free to produce the reality that we desire. It seems that this view of realityas
hyperrealityestablishes the philosophical basis for a wholesale acceptance of cyberspace as
hyperspace. In cyberspace the praxis of hyper-nihilism can be made real. In the hyperreal of
cyberspace ―I can change my self as easily as I change my clothes. Identity becomes infinitely
plastic in a play of images that knows no end.‖ The attractiveness of this sort of reality is clear, its
excess, its promise, is very lucrative. But is this hyperreality, meaningful, sensible? Can I merely
disengage myself from my being-in and dive into an eternal becoming? Am I not always already in
the world in a way that bounds me in such ways that make ‗changing my self as easily as I change
my clothes‘ a meaningless utopia?
In contrast to Baudrillard Martin Heidegger (1962; 1984; 1988) argues that the real is before
representation, it is a world that I am always already in. If the real is only that which can be
represented then Baudrillard may be right. However, this view is based on the metaphysics of
humanism, it has an anthropocentric basis. Humanity through Descartes‘ cogito ergo sum
ordained itself as the foundation that defines ‗what is‘ and ‗what is not‘. In this worldview what
‗is‘ becomes that which can be brought before (represented to) the thinking subject. Against this
view Heidegger argues that we have to understand Being in its own ‗suchness‘, on its own home
ground. Thus, for Heidegger the real is not ‗dead‘. The crisis of representation does not simply
imply an end of the real. The Western philosophical tradition has drifted astrayforgot its
forgettingand need to return to the most fundamental question: the Being of being. It is in
remembering being that the real can be retrieved. A first step to this remembering is to retrieve
Dasein as a clearing for being, as being-in-the-world.
It is my contention that Baudrillard‘s notion of hyperreality and Heidegger‘s Dasein as being-in-
the-world creates the philosophical backdrop for exploring the social reality of cyberspace.1 The
claim that cyberspace represents a legitimate alternative social reality is embedded, and made
significant in this larger debate about the Being of beinga discourse on the future of the real or
maybe the real of the future.

Purpose and structure of the paper

With the proliferation of information technology in all domains of society a reflection on the
ontological status of this ‗alternative‘ reality seems desirable. Electronic mediation stands poised
to enter every domain of human endeavor: virtual universities in education; virtual shopping malls
using e-money in electronic commerce; virtual identities engaging in cyber-affairs on the level of
interpersonal relationships; and so forth. Furthermore, the merging of internet technology with
virtual reality, as bandwidth increases, will turn the now mainly text-based interaction into three
dimensional encounters that will, it seems, only be limited by the imagination of the participants.
With this in mind it seems that there is an increasingly urgent need to reflect on the possibilities
and potential challenges of such an emerging alternative hyperreality.
To make the issue more corporeal let us briefly explore an example. If an individual cyber-
traveller claims to have been raped in cyberspace (Dibbell, 1994), what does such a claim mean?
What will the police officer say if the victim enters the local police station and tries to charge the
other virtual person who raped her? What sense will such a claim have? What will the social
institutional background be that will make such a claim sensible to the point that the police officer
can and will investigate it? In Heideggerian terms, what will be the involvement whole that makes
such a report socially meaningful?2
It is my supposition that such a claim will not make sense, since it does not make sense to talk of
being-in cyberspace. The supposedly plasticity of the self and identity, in cyberspace, is already
bound to the involvement whole that Dasein is always already in. I will argue, using the work of
Heidegger, that we are always already in-the-world. That cyberspace is for the most part a trivial
mode of ‗existence‘ which may be ‗entered‘ into from time to time but, after I have MUDed,
travelled cyberspace, and had cyber-sex, I will have to switch off my computer and cope in
everyday life. Do the things that ordinary people do as mothers, employees, judges, drivers, and so
forth. To state it simply: it does not make existential sense to talk about notions of existence,
identity and self in cyberspace!
Having said this I must emphasis that this paper is at most some first and rather broad lines
towards a process to articulate and understand the ontological status of electronically mediated
realities such as cyberspace. It is by no means exhaustive, nor, I suspect, entirely convincing. Yet,
it is my belief that these are urgent matters and that this paper will hopefully raise a number of
issues that will facilitate a philosophical discourse about this emerging ‗reality‘ that is rapidly
becoming part of our contemporary world.
In developing my arguments I will structure the paper in four sections. First, I will discuss
Heidegger‘s notion of being-in-the-world. This discussion will show how Dasein‘s being-in-the-
world implies a referential whole that always already endows things and actions with meaning and
significance. This discussion will form the basis for a critical discussion of being-in cyberspace.
Second, I will discuss Baudrillard‘s notion of hyperreality. Hyperreality provides the philosophical
basis for the eventual focus of the paper viz. the idea of constructing identity and self in
cyberspace. Third, I will discuss the construction of identity and self in cyberspace as presented in
the work of the psychologist Sherry Turkle. Finally, I will critically evaluate the meaningfulness
of the notion of constructing a self, or being-in, cyberspace.

Heidegger and being-in-the-world

What does it mean to be-in something? Clearly we are in the world in a different way than a table
is ‗in‘ a room. Heidegger argues that we normally refer to the concept of inclusion when we use
‗in‘: such as ‗she is in the house‘. This ontic use of ‗in‘ is, however, dependent on a more
primordial (and forgotten) sense of ‗in‘; such as ‗he is in love‘ or ‗she is in thought‘. This is not
mere metaphorical language, Heidegger argues, it refers to an existential sense of ‗in‘. In this
ontological form of ‗in‘ the sense of involvement, or concerned absorption, is implied.
In its most primordial ontological mode of existence Dasein (a human being) is always already
involved concernedly absorbedin the world.3 The ontic mode of existence is a derived mode
that presupposes the former. It is therefore not a mode of existence that Dasein sometimes selects,
and sometimes not. Dasein ―is never ‗primarily‘ a being which is, so to speak, free from being-in,
but which sometimes has the inclination to take up a ‗relationship‘ toward the world. Taking up
relationships toward the world is possible only because Dasein, as being-in-the-world, is as it is‖
(Heidegger, 1962, p.84). Dasein exists in the world by dwelling in it. When we ―inhabit or dwell
in something it is no longer an object for us but becomes part of us and pervades our relation to
other objects in the world.‖ (Dreyfus, 1991, p.45). Our immersion in the world emerges tacitly
through our concerned involvement in the world.
In being-in the world Dasein does not merely float around in-the-world (in a way that it might
appear to observer a fish does). We are directed in our being-in-the-world; we comport (Verhalten)
ourselves towards beings. ―Comportments have the structure of directing-oneself-toward, of being
directed-toward‖ (Heidegger, 1988, p.58). Thus every comportment-towards has a specific
‗towards‘ as its directedness. Dasein as comported is always already engagedwhen Dasein
finds itself it is as already engaged.
How does Dasein comport itself towards beings? Dasein interacts with that which is nearest, the
things of our everyday. The way we interact with them is in using them. Thus ―our primordial
relationship with the world is to use it: i.e., the world, for us, is available (zuhanden)‖ (Heidegger,
1962, p.56). Heidegger calls these near things, which we use in our engagements, equipment
(Zeug)4. Dasein uses equipment in-order-to do practical everyday things (Heidegger, 1962, p.97)
such as using a pen to write. However the pen does not have sense as a decontextualised object 5.
The pen has a sense in its referring to paper in-order-to write on, which has its sense in referring to
desk in-order-to support the writing on, and so forth. The pen is part of an equipmental whole, a
network of mutually referring in-order-to‘s in which the using of the pen as Zeuga writing-
thingmakes sense. We may view the equipmental whole as an extending field of equipment that
we are familiar withthat is dwell inand in which specific equipment, from time to time
emerges, becomes available, in order to function as part of our doing things in the world. In
seizing hold of the equipment, the equipment will, as it were, withdraw. Only when equipment has
withdrawn will it be available authentically (Heidegger, 1962, p.99). Hence our primordial
relationship with equipment is in using it in everyday involvements to the point that it becomes
unthought. However, we do find that sometimes equipment does seem to ‗jump out‘ of its
equipmental whole so that we become explicitly confronted with it as an object before our
consciousness. When the referential whole fragments, things become occurrent (vorhanden)6
(Heidegger, 1962, p.107). It is at this point that traditional intentionality comes into play. When
the referential whole is brokena breakdown occursthe equipment ‗leaps out‘ and becomes an
object placed in front of a subject. For example, when typing on a keyboard a particular key
continuously gets stuck (or produces an unexpected character on the screen) then the individual
key, as a broken key, becomes an object of reflection.
As Dasein we do not merely use tools for their own sake, we use tools in pursuit of practical
purposes, for-the-sake-of getting something done. To function as useful things, equipment must fit
into a context of meaningful everyday activity. Heidegger calls this fitting in involvement. I use a
pen to write a letter for-the-sake-of informing the customer, for-the-sake-of being a good customer
relations manager, and so forth. Therefore Dasein’s practical directedness in everyday using of
equipment (within an equipmental whole) makes sense because it is part of a network of for-the-
sake-of‘s that mutually refer to each other, the involvement whole. In using things (Zeug) to pursue
practical comportments Dasein understands its everyday world as ‗hanging together‘ in a way that
makes sense, as possibilities for using or doing. To understand is to be comported towards
possibilities within the involvement whole. Hence, understanding, rooted in-the-world, has the
structure of projection (p.184/5). Projection means that understanding makes the possibilities
within the referential whole stand out, become visible as things that makes sense to use or do7.
Practical involvement only makes sense because Dasein has as its being a world. This world is
not the sum of all entities in three-dimensional space that we sense with our senses and then add
together. Nor is it merely existential, in the sense of the ―business world‖ or the ―fashion world‖?
Heidegger argues that it is more ontological than any of these: ―(the) world is not something
subsequent that we calculate as the result from the sum of all beings. The world comes not
afterward but beforehand, in the strict sense of the word. Beforehand: that which is unveiled and
understood already in advance in every existent Dasein before any apprehending of this or that
being, beforehand as that which stands forth as always already unveiled to us‖ (Heidegger, 1988).
Kockelmans (1972) refers to this ‗world‘ as the primordial praxis. The primordial praxis is prior
to equipment or involvement. It is what enables Dasein to discern the referential whole in the first
place. In the primordial praxis ―a certain whole is also given as that in which each concrete thing
can appear as meaningful. This whole of relationships, within which things mutually refer to one
another and can manifest themselves as meaningful is called ‗world‘‖ (Kockelmans, 1972, p.12).
It is this world that Dasein is always already in, that provides the horizon for things to be used as
available tools in pursuit of practical purposes.
The discussion above described concerned involvement in the practical everyday. It shows that
the ‗worldliness‘ of the world can not be separated from Dasein‘s way of being. As being-in-the-
world Dasein dwells in a world that Dasein understands as significant possibilitiesalso as
possibilities for making and choosing identity. In the involvement whole practical everyday
activities and possibilities show up as significant; hang together as meaningful. For Dasein, to be
is to be-in-the-world. It is this always already ‗being-in‘ within a horizon of significancean
involvement wholethat makes the everyday world real or meaningful for and to Dasein. To
conclude: It is my contention that it is the always already there being-in-the-world, the already
there thrownness, and the possibilities within it, that creates the horizon of significance, the
significant next steps, in doing and making, that Dasein cannot merely undo. To disengage it
would be to destroy the possibility for existential meaning. To try and step out of it would turn
making and choosing into a frivolous sort of making and doing that is ‗flat‘ and without meaning.

Baudrillard and the Simulacrum

The real for Baudrillard (1983) is dead; it is not merely dead it never existed. The assumed
relationship between the real and the representation was itself an imagethere is no sense in the
distinction between:
 the map and the territory;
 the copy and the original;
 the fictional and the factual;
 the simulation and the real.
Baudrillard (1983, p.2) concludes: ―Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the
mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance.
It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyper real. The territory no
longer precedes the map. Nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory –
PRECESSION OF SIMULACRA – it is the map that engenders the territory...‖
There are no foundations, no ultimate referent, everything is always already interpretation,
always already simulation. Without a foundation that can act as the guiding principle – the judge
as it were – of what is real or imitation, true or false, genuine or counterfeit, all distinctions
become arbitrary. Baudrillard (1983, p.5) confirms: ―Strictly speaking, nothing remains for us to
base anything on. All that remains for us is theoretical violence – speculation to the death, whose
only method is the radicalisation of hypotheses.‖ Distinctions now become the outcome of the
microphysics of power, local language games, regimes of truth, intersubjective agreements; and at
the end of this spectrum Baudrillard‘s total anarchism. All distinctions must be made plastic by
self-referentiality. This is the ―logic of simulation which has nothing to do with a logic of facts
and an order of reasons. Simulation is characterised by a precession of the model, of all models
around the merest fact—the models come first, and their orbital circulation constitutes the genuine
magnetic field of events‖ (Baudrillard, 1983, p.31). All are simulations; the models ‗create‘ the
facts. Facts have no sense of their own, they circulate the models in an infinite regression.
The real, simulation and hyperreality
To understand Baudrillard‘s argument one could expand his successive phases of the image –
maybe one can also call it the biography of reality – as in Table 1 (Baudrillard, 1983, p.11).
I will start the discussion in
phase three. Baudrillard argues
Successive phases of the Image ‘Reality’
that the real is fabricated by
1. it is the reflection of a basic essence, substance staging its negative. For
2. it masks and perverts a basic ‗there‘
reality but example, he explains that
3. it masks the absence of a basic is
reality fabricated
inaccessible Disneyland is staged so that we
4. it bears no relation to any self-referential
reality can say Disneyland is ‗make
reality simulation believe‘ (imaginary) and the
Table 1: The successive phases of the image
world that surrounds Disneyland
(Los Angeles and the rest of America) is real. In a similar manner we stage criminality so that we
can fabricate a system of justice that is seen as legitimate. In staging the negative we fabricate (or
make sensible) distinctions such as real and imaginary, true and false, right and wrong. As
Baudrillard (1983, p.25) argues: ―The Disneyland imaginary is neither true nor false; it is a
deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real‖ (my emphasis).
In the face of the postmodern nihilism the modern society is becoming desperate in its efforts to
preserve the real. This is seen in the proliferation of the staging of the negative. The proving of
the real by staging the imaginary is now exploding the proving of the truth through scandal; the
proving of the law by transgression; proving work by strike, etc.
In the final phase of the image any pretence to the real is lost as the system becomes self-
referential and a law onto itself. This is the stage of the hyperreal: ―the collapse of reality into
hyperrealism, the meticulous reduplication of the real, preferably through another reproductive
medium such as advertising or photography [or cyberspace and virtual reality]. Through
reproduction from one medium into another the real becomes volatile, it becomes the allegory of
death, but it also draws strength from its own destruction, becoming the real for its own sake, a
fetishism of the lost object which is no longer the object of representation, but the ecstasy of
denigration and its own ritual extermination: the hyperreal.‖ (1993 , p.72) In the hyperreal the
crisis of representation that have occupied the modern mind for so long is overcome with the real
sealed off in an infinite circle of pure repetition.
In the epoch of the hyperreal the real is now ―that which it is possible to provide an equivalent
reproduction... At the end of the process of reproducibility, the real is not only that which can be
reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced: the hyperreal‖ (Baudrillard, 1993, p.73).
It is clear from the above brief analysis that there is an infinite regress in the logic of Baudrillard.
We stage the imaginary to fabricate (simulate) the real. The simulation becomes a simulation of a
simulation that accelerates us into the dimension of the hyperreal. In the hyperreal everything is
already simulation; everything is always already reproduction.

Simcult (Simulacrum)
Considering the ideas of Baudrillard, Taylor and Saarinen (1994) developed a media philosophy
they call Imagology. In their book (which is thoroughly postmodern) Taylor and Saarinen apply
the ideas of Baudrillard to media and more specifically to information technology. What sort of
world is the world of the hyperreal? This is the world of the Simcult, as they call it. It is a world of
excess, outrage and anarchy. The following phrases from their book provide a glimpse of this
world of the simulacrum, the simcult:
 in simcult, excess becomes excessive (2:2) 8;
 to survive in simcult, one must learn to live the impossibility of dis-illusionment;
 in the culture of the simulacrum, everything becomes current and only the current is ―real‖
(2:4);
  the threat of simcult is that outrage becomes unfashionable;
 simcult presupposes the commodification of commodification;
 simcult is a culture of instrumentality and nothing but instrumentality (2:6);
 when every foundation is imaginary, alienation becomes impossible (2:8);
 the register of the imaginary is anarchic (2:9);
 in simcult, we have no intellectually secure foundation for anything (10:10);
 Disneyworld is the porodic embodiment of simcult (9:2).
Simcult is the vision, almost a type of prototype, of the world that the simulacrum engenders. It is
the world that is more real than real; it is hyperreal (see also discussion by (Chayko, 1993)). The
‗place‘ of the simcult is ―the electronetwork that mediaizes the real...the mediatrix‖ (1:5). It is the
world of code. When reality is in binary code it can be infinitely reproduced; it enters the realm of
the hyperreal. An archetype for the simcult (the ―mediatrix‖) is what has become known as
cyberspace. The electonetwork of the Internet, the World Wide Web, telecommunications
networks, corporate and state administration databases, multi-user dungeons (MUDs), electronic
mail, electronic meeting systems (EMS), video conferencing, computer supported co-operative
work (CSCW), electronic banking systems, electronic commerce, electronic markets, and so forth.
Through electronic representation and mediation reality can be infinitely reproduced; it enters the
realm of the hyperreal. Gone are the days of the original, the territory, the factual, the real?

Cyberspace and Self and Identity

Cyberspace?
If one scans the literature (academic and popular) there is a whole ―cyber‖ vocabulary evolving
such as cyber-punks, cyber-sex, cyber-self, cyber-state, cyber-shopping, etc. But what is this
cyberspace? William Gibson (1984) in his novel Neuromancer coined the word cyberspace. He
described it as follows: ―Cyberspace: a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of
legitimate operators, in every nation. A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of
every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the
nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights receding‖ (Rheingold,
1991, p.16). Also: ―Cyberspace is a consensual hallucination that these people have created. It is
like, with this equipment, you can agree to share the same hallucinations. In effect they‘re creating
a world‖ (Rucker, 1992, p.78).
There are others who think of cyberspace as occurring even before computer networks viz. in
telecommunications networks: ―Cyberspace is the ‗place‘ where a telephone conversation appears
to occur. Not inside your actual phone, the plastic device on your desk. Not inside the other
person‘s phone, in some other city. The place between phones. The unidentified place out there,
where two of you, human beings, actually meet and communicate (Sterling, 1992). Rheingold in
his book on virtual communities describe cyberspace as ―a conceptual ‗spaceless place‘ where
words, human relationships, data, wealth, status and power are made manifest by people using
computer-mediated communication technology‖ (Rheingold, 1993). In a more philosophical vein
Michael Heim defines cyberspace as ―Platonism as a working product. The cybernaut seated
before us, strapped into sensory-input devices, appears to be, and is indeed lost to this world.
Suspended in computer space, the cybernaut leaves the prison of the body and emerges in a world
of digital sensation‖ (Heim, 1993, p.89)
Cyberspace is a ‗space‘ or a ‗world‘9 implemented via electronic mediation, a world of
representation. Cyberspace is ‗where‘ your money is kept in the bank, ‗where‘ you have telephone
conversations, ‗where‘ your e-mail travels, etc. Through systems of representation and electronic
mediation time and space limitations are eliminated. As a representational reality cyberspace is the
obvious archetype of hyperreality. Once I become a cybernaut all references to the real can be
abandoned, I can become anybody. This is Taylor and Saarinen‘s vision: ―In Cyberspace, I can
change my self as easily as I change my clothes. Identity becomes infinitely plastic in a play of
images that knows no end‖ (23:1).
When talking about being-in cyberspace the most obvious place to look is multi-user dungeons
(or MUDs as they are called). MUDs are ―imaginary worlds in computer databases where people
use word and programming languages to improvise melodramas, build worlds and all objects in
them, solve puzzles, invent amusements and tools, compete for prestige and power, gain wisdom,
seek revenge, indulge greed and lust and violent impulses‖ (Rheingold, 1993,p. 144). MUDding is
more than just a computer game; it is hyperreality in full force.
MUDs started in 1980 in England. In 1992 there were one hundred and seventy different multi-
user games available on the Internet. Some of the more popular ones have a few thousand users.
The power of the MUDs according to Rheingold (1993) is the possibility to dissolve identity:
―Similar to the way previous media dissolved social boundaries related to time and space, the latest
computer-mediated communications media seems to dissolve boundaries of identity as well... I
know a respectable computer scientist who spends hours as an imaginary ensign aboard a virtual
strarship full of other real people around the world who pretend they are characters in a Star Trek
adventure. I have three or four personae myself, in different virtual communities around the
Net...The grammar of CMC media involves a syntax of identity play: new identities, false
identities, multiple identities, exploratory identities, are available in different manifestations of the
medium.‖ (p.147).
When you enter a MUD you must create an identity for yourself. You can be a man, a woman,
or neither. Whatever you define your identity to be, will be what is displayed to anybody that
―looks‖ at you (that is execute a ―look‖ command). Once you are ‗in‘ you can create a room for
yourself. You can communicate with other players directly or by sending private e-mails. There is
a whole repertoire of ways to speak privately or publicly to another citizen or to all the citizens of
the MUD. Since the participants are all users in different countries with varying time zones there
may always be somebody active to interact with. Some users spend many hours in the MUD.
Rheingold reports cases of college students spending 40 to 70 hours a week MUDing.
MUDs and the construction of identity and self
Sherry Turkle the Freudian psychologist from MIT studied the MUDing phenomena in some detail
(Turkle, 1996). She maintains that MUDing is fundamentally different phenomena to, for
example, role-playing. It is a whole new social hyperreality. Therefore ―when it comes to thinking
about identity in a culture of simulation, the citizens of MUDs are our pioneers‖ (Turkle, 1996, p.
157).
When you are in such an environment what or who are you? One of Turkle‘s research subjects
responds: ―I‘m not one thing, I am many things. Each part gets to be more fully expressed in
MUDs that in the real world. So even though I play more than one self on MUDs, I feel more like
―myself‖ when I‘m MUDing‖ (Turkle, 1996, p. 157). In the MUD the representation (my chosen
character) gets reproduced in my interaction with others. There is no crisis of representation since
the character is sealed off in the MUD in a circle of pure repetition. Identity becomes completely
plastic. It undermines ―our traditional notions of identity, for so long tied to notions of
authenticity, which simulation actively subverts...MUDs make possible the construction of an
identity that is so fluid and multiple that it strains the very limits of the notion. People become
masters of self–presentation and self–creation. There is an unparalleled opportunity to play with
one‘s identity and to ‗try out‘ new ones. The very notion of an inner, ‗true self‘ is called into
question.‖ (Turkle, 1996, p.158). In the game you are in no way tied to your given historical and
physical conditions. Hence, ―the obese can be slender, the beautiful can be plain. The ‗nerdy‘ can
be elegant. The anonymity of MUDs (you are known only by the name you gave your characters)
provides ample room for individuals to express unexplored ―aspects of the self‖ (Turkle, 1996,
p.158).
 Based on what we have already said one can rightly ask: ―so what is the issue?‖ Can I not do all
this in the local amateur theatre. What is the difference between MUDing and strait forward role-
playing? Turkle responds: ―In role-playing games, one steps in and out of a character. MUD‘s
offer something more: a parallel life.‖ This is a fundamental claim. MUDs can provide one with a
‗parallel life‘. Thus, they are such that you can be in them. They are substantive realities that
allow me to exist in them in a similar way that I exist in my ‗real‘ world 10. They are as real as my
real live. I can now have a portfolio of lives in which my real life is but one; as one player
confirms:‖ RL [real life] is just one more window, and it‘s not usually my best one‖ (Turkle, 1996,
p. 159). Turkle concludes: ―Experiences in cyberspace carry the notion of decentred and multiple
ideas about the self‖.
What should we conclude from this work by Turkle? Are we are speeding towards a new
alternative reality? It seems as if the MUDers in Turkle‘s studies are engaging in a sort of
alternative reality, a hyperreality where they play with self and identity in ways that do indeed
challenge our traditional notion of self and identity. Can we make sense of this Baudrillardian
world of hyperreality? How real is this hyperreal? I will argue that it is not existentially real. I
will contest that we are always already in-the-world. Hence, that the hyperreal world of
cyberspace is mostly a trivial and potentially inauthentic mode of existence that may be ‗entered‘
into from time to time. However, after I have MUDed, travelled cyberspace and had cyber-sex, the
hyper-I will have to switch off the computer and do the things that ordinary people do. Cyberspace
as hyper-space is a flatland that does not contain its own horizon of significance. To state it
simply: it does not make sense to talk of identity and self in cyberspace, to be-in-cyberspace!

Being-in-cyberspace?
In the previous section Turkle, supported by Taylor and Saarinen, argued that MUDs could provide
one with a ―parallel life‖. Thus, MUDs are such that you can be in them ―as just another window‖.
They are as ‗real‘ as my real live.11
For social interaction in cyberspace to be meaningful it needs an involvement whole, a horizon
of significance. If cyberspace is a reality in which one can construct an ―identity that is so fluid an
multiple that it strains the very limits of the notion‖, where ―I can change my self as easily as I
change my clothes‖, then cyberspace is the world of the infinitely possible. Whatever I can
choose, I can be. Taylor (1991) argues that situations in which choice becomes absolute, choice
become trivial. Choice is only significant if there is an externally existing horizon of important
questionsIf not, then choosing becomes ‗eni meni miny mo’, that is trivial. The ―agent seeking
significance in life, trying to define him- or herself meaningfully, has to exist in a horizon of
important questions‖ (Taylor, 1991, p.40). If all characters in the MUDs are pretend characters
doing pretend things, what is the horizon of important questions that will make their doing
meaningful?
The plasticity of identity and self in the MUD, renders choice and action trivial. It is our
already there ‗rootedness‘, in an involvement whole, that make our actions show up as meaningful,
it is our being ‗thrown‘ into a world. Our thrownness locates us in a horizon of significance, an
involvement whole that are pregnant with important questions. Most important of these are the
ethical questions of ‗ought I‘ do this or that. In the anonymity of the MUD the ‗I ought to‘
becomes trivialised as ‗I desire to‘. Furthermore, if the hyper-I do get confronted by a horizon of
important questions in the MUD, and do not like it, I can merely ‗get out‘, or switch off. In
‗getting out‘, choice again becomes trivialised, the involvement whole breaks and significance
dissipates. What about identity in such an environment where significance continually dissipates?
Cyberspace, self and identity
Dasein’s identity is always already grounded in its horizon of significance called being-in-the-
world. Does it make sense to argue that we can ―try out‖ a new identity or aspects of my identity
in a MUD? Obviously identity is not something we ‗are‘ but something we become. It is of our
own making. This making, however, is not a construction in isolation. It needs a horizon of
significance as argued above. Turkle reports of an eleven year old girl that has a room (―condo‖)
in a MUD where she ―chats, orders pizza, and flirts.‖ Now if she would start flirting in-the-world
would it be appropriate? Would it make sense within the involvement whole that she is already in?
In the-world the action of ‗flirting‘ will show up as something an eleven year old ‗ought‘ or ‗ought
not‘in the pretend world of the MUD it does not really matter. What is the use of trying out
new dimensions of identity when it may be wholly inappropriate within my being-in-the-world, the
already there horizon of significance? Turkle seems to be working with the assumption that
significance of actions can be detached from their involvement whole. Thus, that identity is
representations in our heads that we can ‗develop‘ in the cyberspace ―identity workshops‖ and then
ahistorically, in a decontextualised manner, transfer to our real life. Heidegger clearly indicated
that the meaning of things and actions are always already wrapped up and tied to a referential
whole. A referential whole that is its possibilities but also its boundaries. Possibilities and
boundaries render each other meaningful.
In consideration of the above line of thought I would argue that my identity is intimately tied to
community. In community with significant others my identity becomes validated as significant
and meaningful (Taylor, 1991). Community means a shared history. A shared history requires a
sense of continuity in which possibilities and boundaries are acknowledged. As we create our
identity in community we ―resolutely‖ and ―repeatedly (re)choose the self [we have] started to be,
choosing that self again and again in the face of many diversions...‖ (Harvey, 1997). If every
move is made as if there is no history, no community, then every move becomes trivial. As Taylor
remarked: ―If my self-exploration takes the form of such serial and in principle temporary
relationships [as found in the MUDs], then it is not my identity that I am exploring, but some
modality of enjoyment‖ (Taylor, 1991, p.53).
There are electronic communities (such as the Well12) which might be significant horizons for
the creation of identity. They are however surprisingly similar to ‗everyday life‘. They do have
actors who share histories and that treat the other as a significant other. I would not expect the
participants of the Well to say that real life is ―just another window‖, and that they participate in
the Well because they can change their self‘s as easily as their clothes.
I would also not challenge the possibility of using MUDs as a therapeutic tool in a way that one
could use role-playing acts within a counselling involvement. However, this sort of use of
cyberspace is made significant by the involvement whole of a patient and a psychologist and a
counselling session, mental health, etc. The involvement whole always already designates it for
what it is. However, to suggest that one can have a ―parallel life‖ (and identity) in cyberspace;
even more that one can have a whole portfolio of ‗selves‘ of which the real one is ―just one more
window‖, does not make Heideggerian sense. This sort of thinking is clearly ontic and utopian. It
is the sort of thinking that says: ‗get a life; plug in.‘

Conclusion
…[I]t is within the horizon of Dasein’s temporal constitution that we must approach the
ontological clarification of the ‘connectedness of life’ (Being and Time, p.427)

If cyberspace as hyperreality is infinitely plastic, as suggested, then it will be an insignificant

existential flatland, ‗a modality of enjoyment‘. If it is to be significant then it is made so by an
already there being-in-the-worlda to be accepted degree of thrownness. Cyberspace as
hyperreality does not carry with it a horizon of significance, an involvement whole. To what
community will the victim of cyber-rape, or the man who must compete with his wife‘s cyber-
lover turn to for appeal? Should they be told that it is all merely a simulation, that their desire to
make sense of it is merely ―a fetishism of the lost object which is no longer the object of
representation‖?
In arguing against cyberspace as a significant alternative social reality I am not saying
cyberspace is bad and real life is good. I am not saying all social interactions in cyberspace are
trivial and inauthentic. I am merely arguing that it is inappropriate to suggest that cyberspace is a
substantive alternative reality that can significantly extend our sense of identity in ways that
disregard that we, as human beings, always already find ourselves in the midst of a horizon of
significant questionsas beings-involved-in-a-world. Self and identity to be meaningful must
have a horizon of significance. To have a horizon of significance is to choose to accept one‘s
thrownness as beings-in-the-world, to accept the possibilities within the already there
boundariescontested as they may be. You can not have the one without the other. The cyber-
traveller cannot gain significance without ‗paying‘ for it in thrownness. It seems that the
alternative of an infinitely plastic Baudrillardian hyperreality as proposed by Rheingold, Turkle,
and others is nothing more than a form of escapist entertainment, an existential flatland. If my
arguments are valid then it would seem to be unethical to hold up a ‗flat‘ existentially insignificant
reality as something significant and real without considering the cost. I stand to be corrected.13

End Notes

1
The discussion on cyberspace will limit itself mostly to that domain of cyberspace where
social interaction is primary such as the MUD environments.
2
Clearly the incident may have personal significance to the person that experienced it. The
issue for our discussion is whether this incident can be made significant in a larger social system
within which it wants to embed itself. One can think of many more examples here. What does it
mean to say I am married to someone in cyberspace. Will the Internal Revenue Service accept it
for tax purposes, or your employer for claiming benefits?
3
For an information technology discussion refer to Winograd, T., & Flores, F. (1987)
Understanding Computers and Cognition. Addison-Wesley: Massachusetts..
4
Dreyfus translates Zeug as equipment. It can also be translated as tools or useful things, or
merely things. The important notion here is the idea of things that we use to do practical things
with. If asked what a particular thing ‗is‘ we would typically respond that it is ‗a thing to open a
can with‘ or it is ‗a thing that you use to make a hole in the wall with‘. It is this sense of ‗thing‘
that is involved here; thing that has its sense in its use. The dilemma of using ‗thing‘ as a
translation is that it is a very general and rather vague notion. Tool or equipment, on the other
hand, already carries the sense of object that Heidegger wants to avoid.
5
Heidegger argues that the situated use of equipment is in some sense prior to just looking at
things, and that what is revealed by use is ontologically more fundamental that the substances with
determinate, context-free properties revealed by detached contemplation (Dreyfus, H. L. (1991)
Being-in-the-world: a commentary on Heidegger's Being and time, division I. MIT Press:
Cambridge, Mass; Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1987) The Tree of Knowledge: The biological
roots of human understanding. Shambhala: Boston). Therefore the being of those beings which
we encounter as closest to us can be exhibited not as ―bare perceptual cognition‖ but rather
through ―that kind of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use‖, in-order-to do
something Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time. (John Macquarrie,Edward Robinson, Trans.)
Basil Blackwell: London..
6
Vorhanden is also, at times, translated as present-at-hand.
 7
An example from the SPCW conference may help to clarify the discussion. While resting at a
beautiful spot in the Rocky Mountains on a hike with Holmes Rolston, the environmental
philosopher, Richard Cohen described his experience as a sense of being ‗alienated‘. For Holmes,
involved in the conservation of the area, the experience, I guess, must have being one of ‗being at
home‘, being-in-nature. For Holmes the surrounding nature made sense, he understood it. It was an
involvement whole of possibilities. For Richard (who later confessed his preference for French
street cafe‘s) it was a collection of natural objects that was esthetically beautiful but did not
involve him; he did not dwell in-nature nor did he understand it.
8
Taylor and Saarinen do not use page numbers in their book. They have twenty-five topics or
‗chapters‘. The pages of each topic are separately numbered. I will use the following convention
(n:m) where ‗n‘ refers to the topic number and ‗m‘ refers to the page number within a topic.
9
For a detailed discussion on the notions of how cyberspace can be seen as a space and a world
refer to Coyne Coyne (1996) Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age: from
method to metaphor. MIT Press: London. For papers on a social perspective of cyberspace refer to
Jones, S. G. (1995) CyberSociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Sage:
London; Rushkoff, D. (1994) Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace. Flamingo
(HarperCollins): London.
10
Turkle describes the social lives of the MUD players as follows: ―They create characters
who have casual and romantic sexual encounters, hold jobs, attend rituals and celebrations, fall in
love and get married. To say the least, such goings-on are gripping...‖
11
I will only focus on cyberspace in this section, for an excellent Heideggerain critique of
virtual reality look at Coyne in Coyne (1996) Designing Information Technology in the
Postmodern Age: from method to metaphor. MIT Press: London.
12
Refer to an interesting discussion of the Well in Hafner, K. (1997) The World's most
Influential Online Community. Wired, 5(May), 98.
13
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1997 Annual Conference of the Society
for Philosophy in the Contemporary World (10-17 August 1997 at the YMCA of the Rockies,
Estes Park, Colorado). The insightful comments of the participants contributed to the further
development of this paper. In particular I want to thank Jada Prane, Charles Harvey, Richard
Cohen and Jim Sauer for their very stimulating response to the ideas in the paper.

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