Our lives contain two realities in two places. The most obvious reality exists right here. This is our physical reality, the one where we wake up, go to class, exercise and meet up with our peers fromacross campus. Our friends are those we meet in our neighborhoods; our experiences created through physical efforts and chance.

Our second reality we live through a window. This is the computer, the reality where we study, play games and interact with our peers from across the world. In the online world, friends are found throughdeliberate searching of common interests, experiences created by a programmer’s intent.

These realities, although similar, were originally based on completely different rules. In the physical world we operate according to physical conditions. No matter how much we want to, we can’t throwourselves at the ground and miss. However, when online, missing the ground results in flight. Online was created under our control, existing on the whims of our wishes.

But online reality exists not just for our pleasure, because it ultimately serves as an interface for interaction. We collaborate with others to create accurate climate modeling. We play games for hours,racing through cities in fantasy cars, or killing dragons in caves. And when we are done, we turn off the computer and walk away.

But we can never truly walk away. The online reality clings to us and influences our actions in the real world. When we’re online, racing around the streets of L.A., we know that we aren’t really racing aroundthe streets of L.A. But after simulating driving around a curve five times on a Playstation, we must expect our brains to react in the same way when driving in reality.

Although we know that the specific online circumstances do not exist in our physical world, more and more we expect the conditions to translate back and forth. Online, when we fly, we expect the physicalrules to apply. A good game is one that almost makes you forget that you are playing a game at all.

Physical online games have been international for a while, but just recently the social online “Second Life” has entered the world consciousness. Second Life is somewhat like the Sims, in that people control representations of hemselves called avatars. But the point ofthe game is to serve as a fancy instant messaging community. Second Life allows people to interact without the locational restraints of the physical reality. It hosts a myriad of international conferences and exclusive concerts, all interfaced in an online reality so close to the physical one, sometimes you forget you are in a created world.

Although the avatars are not real, the people steering them are. The controllers telling the avatars what to say expect other avatars to react in the way humans do in physical reality. Second Life and similar games have created an online social reality, in the same way other video games created an online physical reality.

Combine these two aspects together and we have a complete blurring of online and physical realities. In both places I tell my avatar what to do, knowing the rules and constraints of the game. The online worlds now emulate what exists in reality: layers and layers of conditional rules, each layer more complex, and each layer more beautiful. With the advancement of technology, 3D imagery and intricate programming, we may be able to feel the handshakes of people across the world, without ever leaving our house. What line will be crossed before we acknowledge the online as reality? A handshake? A meal? A whole new world?

Conversely, the online world may force us to consider our assumptions of this physical world. If the online dog is programmed to wag its tail when our avatar walks into the room, do we say it is happy like a real dog? Or are real dogs different, something besides a product of programming and environment? We all follow certain rules; we must eat, we must breathe, we must sleep.

Right now, we consider humanity to be the center of all species, much like the Romans considered the Earth the center of all the universe. But when we started tracking the movement of other worlds, we discovered that we are third from the sun. This discovery allowed us to see things we were blind to before. Perhaps by tracking the movement of online worlds we will also discover our proper place in this one, and open ourselves up to a new reality.

E-mail Katie at [email protected].