A lonely man in the desert: on the question of the existence in the virtual world

Yurieva Alla Vasil'evna ORCID: 0000-0001-7656-8557 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design 191186, Russia, g. Saint Petersburg, ul. Bol'shaya Morskaya, 18 4alla@bk.ru

Existence in the information society, especially in the conditions of the pandemic of recent years, leads a person to total involvement in the virtual world, requiring him to reorganize life as a whole. These global changes lead to a new attitude and understanding of oneself. In this regard, the problem of loneliness of a person in the world of high technology, his attempts to gain a new existential experience and find himself, is becoming more relevant.

Talking about the virtual world, we inevitably encounter the category of space, which has recently become relevant for a number of different scientific disciplines. Observing such interest, it can be assumed that a spatial "turn" is taking place in the scientific world. In a way, such a process is absolutely natural, because the category of space is universal, and referring to it allows you to see culture as a multidimensional whole. As P. Florensky once rightly remarked: "any culture can be interpreted as an activity of the organization of space" ^{[17, p. 112]}. I would like to agree with these words, but we can develop this idea by clarifying that any culture, being realized in space, itself becomes a spatial phenomenon. As a result, there is a space of culture that can endlessly expand as a space of the existence of meanings.  These ideas in the modern world acquire new facets when we witness a global transition to virtual culture.

Back in the twentieth century, as V. M. Nemchinov notes ^[11], the main technological directions, spheres and tasks of world development were finally determined, which today have not lost their relevance. The author identified seven main areas, or rather interrelated subject areas of technological breakthrough. It is the mastery of time, space, energy, organization, information, communication and vitality. It is worth noting that for a person, as for the incessant creator of the "second" nature, these processes associated with incredible technological speeds require regular reflection. After all, until recently, a person opposed himself to natural space, nature, but today he is immersed not just in an artificially created (symbolic) space, but in virtual reality.

The picture of the world today is based on unconditional faith in the progress of science, the omnipotence of technology and technology in solving any social problems. This leitmotif becomes the ideology of the post-industrial world. Now humanity is witnessing an unprecedented pace of technology development, in a sense - we are an experimental generation, because none of the previous stages of scientific and technological progress led to changes on such a global scale in such a short period of time.And yet, our culture, no matter what term we define it today, is understood as transitional, forming something new, since society is in the process of becoming a virtual worldview. 

Here it should be clarified whether the virtual world is the only one of the parallel worlds in a person's life? Is this reality really not known to us before? R. A. Nurullin believes that in the new virtual world there are a lot of old and familiar things for people, because we can include the subjective world of any person, his spiritual and artistic practice ^[12]. Using the terminology of E. Kassirer, a person, being a symbolic being, easily passes from a physical space into a cultural one filled with a symbolic structure. The individual is at the mercy of aesthetic landscapes, travels to those spaces where he meets with the feelings and thoughts of other people (painting, music, texts). It is characteristic of him to complement even this already built-up reality, to build his own personal territory inside it, sometimes understandable only to the individual himself.

It can be said that an individual is accustomed to exist in an artificial (superstructured) reality, he has such an experience. Nevertheless, there is something special peculiar to the virtual world – dependence on technological progress. After all, at the present stage of development, virtual reality is overgrown with exceptional capabilities that allow you to create realistic visual effects (VR glasses), and the whole world is frozen in anticipation of a breakthrough that will bring us new ways to experience even more vivid sensations.

High–tech innovations today are already a requirement of the time, allowing you to be at the top of various socio-political and cultural processes. Therefore, the transformative activity of a person becomes the basis of socio-cultural formations. According to E. Y. Shakirova, "innovation processes ... acquire an unusual character: on the one hand, innovations are possible as a result of human activity, on the other hand, the resulting innovations, which have become a socio-cultural given, have a further impact on socio-cultural processes" ^{[19, p. 16]}. This idea gives us the opportunity to understand how deeply technology and technology are changing society, culture, history, and the person himself.

It makes sense to look at this process from another point of view. For example, the famous German philosopher-neotomist F. Dessauer ^[1] believed that the discovery of a second, man–made world is always a gift revealed to people.  He considered technology not only as a part of nature, obeying its laws, but also as a "transcendental essence" that transcends human knowledge and penetrates into the realm of the supernatural (at the same time, the function of man is the realization of his "divine destiny"). Dessauer believed that the three books of Kant needed to add a quadruple – a critique of technical activity.

In turn, L. Mumford, studied the technique outside the religious context, called for paying attention to any technical phenomenon from the point of view of its origin, both psychological and practical. The author insists that a person, having a special dependence on technical culture, is still not determined by it, although he is practically unable to exist without it. However, he further notes that "never before, if we start with the era of the pyramids, such significant physical changes have not been carried out in such a short period. Each of these changes alternately caused transformations in the human personality, and if this process continues with relentless speed and uncontrollably, then the contours of more radical transformations are already emerging" ^{[9, p. 145]}. Both authors, and F. Dessauer and L. Mumford, incline to the fact that the consequences of the interaction of man and technology can be irreversible. What can these consequences be, and most importantly – how does a person who is in such close contact with technology see himself?

In fact, we can observe the construction of a myth about a virtual person as a new anthropological formation, which is characterized by disembodied and infinite options for self-identification. One can even say that this new formation coexists with a person permanently, because he "wears" his digital personality as a kind of shell and in the ordinary space of his being.  In the world of the Internet, the subject builds his living space, which becomes a means of self-realization for him.

Does the individual fully live his being in the virtual space? Is he really connected by strong enough social ties with the world, or is it an attempt to stay among people, but at the same time to be alone? Is it possible to say that the existential space of virtuality is an existential space of loneliness? These are the questions that require reflection. Therefore, it is worth considering the concept of loneliness as an existential problem.

From a philosophical point of view, loneliness is the result of a person's awareness of the finiteness of his being, as well as an active creative state, a source of strength, a favorable opportunity for communication with himself. A. Camus understands loneliness as an obligatory component of human essence. S. Kierkegaard has the idea of loneliness as a central element of the inner nature of the individual. His loneliness is a closed world of inner self–consciousness, not opened by anyone except God.

From a religious point of view, there are curious arguments by A. Surozhsky about conscious withdrawal from society in order to gain spiritual experience. It is known that in Scripture loneliness acquires a deep symbolic meaning. He writes as follows: "one must be aware that the concept of a desert embraces not just a geographical place, but a spiritual position… we see people, men and women, who experienced real hunger and who, realizing that the world around them does not allow them to be sated to the end, to be filled to the brim, went into the desert, so that everything that could distract them from this search disappeared, everything that could interfere, everything that could weaken them aspiration, everything that could draw them into doing that had nothing to do with this aspiration of their thirsty soul. They were different people, but they all experienced the same hunger" ^{[10, p. 532]}. And also, "it can be any other place where there is nothing but you: you are on earth, the sky is above you, and all the loneliness, and sometimes fears, and sometimes rejoicing of the earth and sky" ^{[10, p. 533]}. Based on these words, a person at certain moments of life longs for a saving and cleansing solitude, a place of his detachment, in which he finds himself. Going into the physical space of emptiness / desert is associated with the desire to maximize your presence in the world, to find the silence so necessary for genuine thinking and self-knowledge.

Of course, one can give examples of loneliness of a different kind, conscious, unrelated to the thirst for spiritual experience, for example, people suffering from agoraphobia. Dutch artist Dick Ket (1902-1940), who voluntarily isolated himself in his parents' house during his blooming youth, suffered from this ailment. The fear of open spaces, doors and open windows, as well as a large crowd of people, pushed the young man to complete self-isolation.  Looking at his paintings, you become an observer of a special space, for the description of which you can choose an epithet - "everyday revelation". This world is surprisingly rich, deep and interesting, and most importantly – integral, although on the canvas you see the simplest objects, uncomplicated decor, elementary composition. The direction in which Ket worked is called magical realism, that is, in reality we are dealing not just with a still life or a self-portrait. We can say that together with the author we comprehend the essence of things, we look for the relationship between the elements of his microcosm, no matter how limited it is at the moment. The artist is trying to find his place among these everyday entities, to understand who he is. This is very similar to the creation of a second reality, a virtual one, into which Dick Ket plunges as into a saving universe.  It would seem that the illness forced the painter to hide from the world, reducing communication with him as much as possible, but even in these circumstances we observe a person "searching", abandoned into existence, experiencing suffering, fear and loneliness, all that is characteristic of any of us.

Here it is appropriate to recall F. Nietzsche, who describes loneliness as "home", he also uses the metaphor of the desert, and this desert allows a person to find the self that he loses by living in society. Therefore, I would like to follow the philosopher and try to comprehend the space of virtuality through the metaphor of the desert. How can one describe the existential experience gained by a person plunging into a new virtual world? First of all, a person gets into an absolutely unlimited boundless space in which there is everything, but at the same time there is nothing. Further, the subject sends a request to the desert of virtuality (a written post, using a search engine, reading news), like a voice, which he turns into a great void, sometimes without expecting any response. We find him again in the desert, alone with his feelings, in this existential experience he is absolutely transparent, open and not protected, although he experiences the illusion of closeness/intimacy of his stay in virtuality.

In this regard, there has already been some reflection in world culture, revealing the main problem points of a given topic. As an illustration, a number of examples can be given that reveal the full relevance of the issue of human-computer interaction.

In 2021, a large-scale exhibition of works by the famous Russian art group Recycle, which includes two artists Andrei Blokhin and Georgy Kuznetsov, was held in St. Petersburg in the Manege. The creativity of these authors is built around the connection of a person with the virtual world, the consciousness of an individual and the consciousness of a machine. It is worth noting that without using a smartphone (it requires the installation of a special application through which the content of many objects is clarified), it will not be possible to really immerse yourself in the artists' idea.

The entrance to the exhibition was initially decided as an invitation to a critical understanding of the modern anthropology of virtuality. The installation depicted people in VR glasses connected by a single wire, which created a feeling of artificially created ("not social") unity of people. Immersed in augmented reality, consciously moving away from the habitual (physical) world, a person finds himself in an infinite space of personal loneliness, despite being connected with individuals like him ("loneliness").

The installation "Garden of Diverging Stones" is declared by the authors as a dynamic reflection on place and time. On a sandy desert space, several stones are slowly moving, leaving a trace. Here I would like to develop the artistic idea of Recycle and try to present this space not only as a place of our stay in the network, but also as an opportunity to realize the elusive time. Metaphorically speaking, we can say that our digital personality, like a lonely stone block, wanders in a virtual desert, leaving a digital footprint and imperceptibly wasting precious minutes of real life. These works show us the seriousness and depth of a person's entry into a new existential experience of virtuality, but they leave a feeling of some concern of the authors about the future of humanity.

It is interesting to note that the metaphor of the desert is also found in the already textbook film trilogy about cyberspace "Matrix", although here it is used to denote the real world, not the virtual one. The story told by Morpheus makes it clear that the "desertification" of life was the result of the total enslavement of man by a machine, his complete immersion in a colorful illusion. The truth turned out to be so unsightly that the operator of the ship "Nebuchadnezzar" Cypher decides to return to the Matrix, after nine years of living in reality. Nevertheless, Neo seeks to return the real flourishing world to man and overthrow the power of machines. Here, of course, the idea is born that the true desert is where there is no real life, because no matter how beautiful the illusion is, it will not find the depth of real being. Remembering Plato's Cave, one can compare the main character with a philosopher eager to shed light on the minds of erring people. It is obvious that the film touches on many philosophical questions (what is reality, consciousness, dualism of soul and body, and others), which were raised much earlier than the emergence of cyberspace, but it is now that they acquire a special sound.

By analogy with the Matrix, where reality rhymes with the desert, I would like to mention the annual Burning Man festival, held in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. According to the organizers, the theme of the festival in 2020 was "Multiverse". In the real desert, many universes, worlds, invented and realized by people themselves, "unfold". These spaces exist parallel to each other, as a superstructured reality of human illusions, and there is an opportunity to get into each of them. Such a virtual metropolis in the style of cyberpunk is "born" only for one week. Many objects of this multiverse were accessible using a special smartphone application. However, as a result of the restrictions associated with the pandemic, the festival was partially moved to an online format, which eventually harmoniously combined with its multiverse concept. And already in 2021, it took place completely in virtual reality and was called "The Great Unknown" ("The Great Unknown"). To participate in this festival, you could stay at home, be connected to the Internet and use VR glasses.

Based on these examples, I would like to make some summary: by refracting oneself in virtual space, a person strives to go beyond his existential boundaries (to feel more, to see brighter), in other words, he tries to comprehend himself in new coordinates of existence. An interesting idea was expressed by M. Chaim. According to him, "cyberspace is a mental map of information landscapes in computer memory in combination with software; it is a way to anthropologize information, give it topological certainty so that a person can operate with data as things in a familiar way, but at a hyperfunctional level comparable to magic; virtual reality and cyberspace should awaken the imagination and make it possible to overcome existential limitation of reality: to go beyond death, time and anxiety; to annul one's abandonment and finiteness, to achieve security and holiness" ^{[3, p. 23]}. 

Talking about virtual space, we cannot ignore the problem of virtual time. Recalling M. Heidegger, we can say that being as a presence is directly related to the concept of time, it is determined by it. Being is thought of as an event: "before philosophy, starting from being, thought of being as an idea, as energy, as will, and now – one might think – as an event" ^{[18, p. 128]}. What is the time in the virtual space? It's still the same event in the virtual world. Therefore, the existence in the virtual space is associated with the experience of a person of certain events. However, if his being takes place in the real world between birth and death and is not determined by the person himself, then in the digital field a person is free to decide for himself when the flow of events will be finished, the time of his presence in virtuality will stop. That is, we can conclude that virtual space acts as a relationship between two spaces: internal and external, associated with the experience of an event. And at the same time, this flow of events is controlled by the subject himself.

Do not forget that virtual reality is becoming not just the background of human life, but increasingly replaces real social contacts, making it an element of a certain game. Until recently, humanity was worried about professional gamers, enthusiastic natures, who can be completely absorbed by the virtual space. As a rule, there was a description of the gamer's personality as a loser and his justification of all his social failures by virtual victories. Now, more and more, the virtual "performance" is interfaced with the real "performance", the risks of virtual space are imposed on the risks of real space, and the modern individual falls under the double pressure of modernity.

It can be said that the Internet is a space in which diversification processes are actively underway, caused by the creation of their own fields by various communities. Millions of people go online at the same time, but they do not intersect and do not even have a chance to intersect. As a result, we get not just an infinite space, but the bottomless space of a rabbit hole into which Alice once jumped, with millions of "exits" and "entrances". Such a space ceases to be flat, but becomes multidimensional. Realizing this, the user realizes the futility of his attempt to contain its entire volume, to feel its boundaries, to become a part of it. He feels like a grain of sand in a desert sea.

Hence the origin of the peculiarity of the existential presence of a person in virtuality. It is because of our sociality that we painfully experience being in a society where we are not connected with anyone. Lonely people use the Internet more than those who don't feel like it. Some studies have noted that the feeling of loneliness in lonely people increases after using social networks. In real life, as in virtual life, the feeling of loneliness practically does not depend on the number of people an individual communicates with, but it depends on how much existing communication satisfies his need for affection, and whether he finds meaning in this communication. 

So, we can sum up some results: firstly, modern culture is a space in which there is a radical change in the stereotypes of social interaction due to modern technologies, the attitude to which may vary.

Secondly, due to his sociality, a person is in dire need of contacts or a sense of belonging to a certain community. However, in the virtual space, due to its special characteristics, this need is realized with a certain specificity. Therefore, the author is inclined to the conclusion that the desire to be among people in the virtual world turns into an increased attention of the individual to himself (a constant desire to satisfy his virtual requests). As a result, this leads him to loneliness, isolation on himself, into that very virtual desert.

Thirdly, the desert metaphor used can be useful for describing a person's existential experiences in the Internet space. Comparing the religious context of the desert metaphor with the virtual world, we see that it also hides the context of solitude, withdrawal, to find answers to many questions.  For a person in the virtual world, some freedom of choice and action is planned, he is open to his own experiences, he sees himself through the prism of his request into the virtual void. Of course, this hardly has the right to be called a spiritual experience, rather spiritual mirages, the effect of the desert, but through getting even into virtuality, a person actualizes and finds himself.

Fourthly, in parallel with the comprehension of the problem of space, the phenomenon of virtual time also requires attention, which acquires specific features in the virtual world. A "virtual" person measures his being by events, as in ordinary reality, but it is in his power to regulate time flows, which significantly distinguishes one time from another.

Thus, we can conclude that each epoch builds its own ontology based on its own values and cultural dominants. Modern man has crossed the border of virtuality easily and almost imperceptibly. Before we knew it, we were immersed in the world of high technology. There remains one more rhetorical question, which is certainly worth putting before yourself. Do we need to find our right to get out of this virtual world, or should we learn to live in it, finding ourselves anew, but at some new level.