Virtualization of Reality as a Cultural Universal

Pinskaya Margarita Vladimirovna PhD in Cultural Studies Associate Professor; Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education 'Russian State Social University' 353440, Russia, Krasnodar Territory, Anapa, Turgenev str., 261, room 307 pinskayamv@mail.ru

Sviridova Irina Dmitrievna Director; Branch of the Russian State Social University in Anapa 261 Turgenev str., office 211, Anapa, Krasnodar Territory, 353440, Russia SviridovaID@rgsu.net

Introduction

The relevance of addressing the topic of virtualization of reality as a cultural universal, manifested directly in socio-cultural processes, is due to the need to focus on the heuristic limitations of reducing the virtualization of processes in culture solely to the influence of digital technologies. The trend of such reduction developing in theoretical discourse ^[1-4], in our opinion, displaces to the periphery of theoretical reflection the centuries-old experience of understanding the causality (i.e. functions) of culture, the problems of personality culture, the ability of the individual and society to design and implement a positive image of the future.

The subject of the research in the presented article is the cultural practice of virtualization of reality in the mechanism of socio-cultural reflection, stimulating certain vectors of development of socio-cultural processes. The object of consideration, accordingly, is the mechanism of socio—cultural reflection - the objective process of society's reaction to changes in the environment and its own development, including understanding reality in historical cultural categories and concepts accessible to its time.

The purpose of the study is to pose the problem of a comprehensive study of the virtualization of reality in socio-cultural processes as a cultural universal, as a typical aspect of life inherent in any societies in the foreseeable historical perspective ^[5] and a condition for the historical development of culture into a system of supra-biological life programs ^[6].

The research methodology is based on the principle of dialectical unity of the real and virtual in culture, which allows us to observe certain patterns in the objectification of virtual experience both at the individual and collective levels of socio-cultural reflection. Hermeneutical and systemic analysis of the phenomenon of reality virtualization forms the instrumental foundation for solving a complex of scientific and cognitive research tasks, including:

1. To clarify the conceptual and terminological apparatus of the study by designating a representative range of cultural concepts that allows us to observe the virtualization of reality in socio-cultural processes as a cultural universal.

2. Consider the examples of virtualization of reality in socio-cultural processes studied by theorists.

3. To identify individual patterns of reality virtualization in socio-cultural processes as a field for further interdisciplinary research and theoretical discussions.

The generalization of the results of cultural analysis is carried out within the framework of cultural typologization ^[7] virtualization of reality as a cultural universal.

The research material was a body of special literature devoted to the theoretical discussion about the nature of the virtual, the selection of which was carried out on the basis of a cross-thematic sample.

The real and the virtual in culture

Increasingly, cultural scientists quite reasonably note that the reduction of the virtual exclusively to the area of influence on the socio-cultural processes of computer technology ^[8] does not fundamentally exhaust the problem of virtualization of reality ^{[9; 10]}. To understand this position, it is necessary to compare the engineering interpretation of the concept of virtualization ("placing some process in an autonomous digital environment (in virtual reality) for its automation and completion without human participation" ^{[9, p. 267]}) with the broader context of contrasting the real and the possible, the conceivable ^{[11, pp. 39-40]}.

As N. S. writes. Egorov and some colleagues (V. A. Emelin, V. A. Germashova, P. V. Ragin, D. O. Usanova, B. M. Galeev) agree that in the history of philosophy Plato was one of the first to propose the concept of virtuality of the world of things around a person, in which the illusory nature of the visible is opposed to the reality of the world of ideas, although most theorists believe that only Aristotelian "entelechy" acquires sufficient signs of a virtual process, and therefore, it was his ideas that served as the basis for further understanding of the virtual by thinkers of the Middle Ages and a time less distant from us ^{[11, p. 39]}. But despite the millennial discussion, Egorov concludes: "there is no well-established definition of virtuality, which suggests the possibility for further conceptualization of the concept" ^{[11, p. 40]}. Of course, it is difficult to disagree with his position. But the question can be posed in another way: for what reason did such a long process of understanding this phenomenon not bring results in the form of a stable theoretical definition?

In this formulation of the question, it is impossible not to take into account the valuable observation first made by A. Bergson ^{[12, p. 926]} and developed in the theoretical constructs of the socio-cultural and epistemological frontiers of Russian scientists ^{[9; 14-17]}. Bergson noted that there is a contradiction between dynamic reality and attempts to describe it in static categories, due to which theoretical concepts of reality always remain approximate as images of reality that are not identical to it (i.e. virtual). Russian cultural scientists note that there is a whole class of phenomena of the cultural life of society, the theoretical concepts of which are given by various concepts about the same object, including mutually exclusive ones, which leads to a frontier (mobility) of the idea of an object, which can be safely opposed to any of the established theoretical concepts about it: the object itself should then be attributed to the socio-cultural frontier ^[14-17], and the unstable idea of it should be identified as an epistemological frontier extending between two or more concepts ^{[9, p. 270]}. Moreover, the frontiarity of both the object itself (its socio-cultural existence) and the idea of the extent and instability of its borders in the form of an epistemological frontier does not exclude this volatile part of reality from cultural practices, but on the contrary, indicates its active development by society ^{[14; 15]}.

Perhaps the virtual, as well as its derivatives "virtuality" and "virtualization", are not expressed in stable definitions due to their active development by society. On the one hand, theoretical reflection may not keep pace with the implicit practice of mastering reality by a person, including with the help of virtual means. On the other hand, it is possible that mobility and instability constitute an immanent property, an essential characteristic of the cultural phenomenon of reality virtualization. In both cases, the concepts of Plato and Aristotle can be considered as a reflection of the same phenomenon as the limiting values of the epistemological frontier describing a mobile phenomenon.

It is not difficult to see the post-non-classical intention of epistemological relativization in the conceptualization of the constructs of the socio-cultural and epistemological frontier, which expand the systemic concepts of socio-cultural reflection, of which theoretical discourse remains only a part. Culture is not limited and has never been limited by theoretical ideas about it. Moreover, any form of socio-cultural reflection, be it religious experience or aesthetic exploration of reality in artistic creation, along with theoretical, is based on the property of human consciousness to transfer ideas about reality into an autonomous environment of thinking, where real processes are analyzed and predicted with the help of imagination, which allows a person to overcome the static categories of describing reality in the dynamics of real life.

Therefore, the virtual (conceivable) It does not oppose the real, but provides the human ability to navigate in the environment. Virtual and real are not only mutually defined as binary semantic elements that make it possible to distinguish one from the other, but are also dialectically interrelated: virtualization of reality, as placing some real process in an autonomous environment of imagination to simulate its completion outside reality itself, is close to an engineering concept. However, if programmed machine logic assumes the unambiguity of the planned result of an autonomous process, then the results of human imagination need practical approbation and objectification by spreading successful cultural practices in society.

Virtualization can be contrasted with the process of objectification, but it is not identical to subjectification.

When we consider the psychology of an individual's thought processes, the subjectivation of reality presupposes the determination of cultural behavior by meaningful subjective representations, motives and goals. Virtualization is not necessarily accompanied by comprehension: the achievement of a goal may be due to an unintelligent (intuitive-instinctive) copying of a pattern of collective behavior, a cultural norm, or the "revelation" of an unconventional (innovative) form of cultural behavior. It is not the meaningfulness of the action that is important, but its result; it does not matter whether virtualization or subjectification of reality has become a decisive factor in achieving the goal.

At the same time, the concepts of imagination and virtualization should not be equated. The imaginary world is wider and more multifaceted than the virtual one. The concept of imagination is broader than virtualization, since it does not exclude the regularity (algorithm) of achieving a goal in reality, but it is not limited to this expedient utilitarian setting. Imagination does not necessarily model the cause-and-effect relationships of elements of the imaginary world pre-established by experience, while the virtual world is based on them. Virtualization involves the transfer of cultural norms pre-established in reality causal relationships into the imagination; accordingly, virtualization can be described by theoretical procedures of modeling, analogy and explication, taking into account that these procedures can be carried out implicitly without self-reflection of the subject.

This difference between virtualization and subjectification of reality is most pronounced in rituals. In particular, the most common form of education and upbringing based on one's own example is based on ritualism of behavior: first, the educated person copies the form of culturally normalized behavior or production technology and only later turns out to be able to logically explain the reason for his behavior (link ideas with motives and goals).

A striking example of a virtual, in addition to a ritual, is a game in which, according to J. Huizinga, culture is produced and constantly reproduced ^{[17, p. 67]}. The game always remains in its own part of the space-time continuum, isolated from external influences: in an autonomous environment of preset conditions (rules) of the game. But the collective gaming experience is not isolated from the outside world, but is a way of orientation in it. According to the methods of orientation in the environment, differentiation and identification of one's own and another's, human and non-human, cultural, foreign cultural, uncultured occurs. Mental traits and cultural identity develop in a set of common games, i.e. they are initially developed in a common virtual reality. And since the common virtual experience becomes a condition for the ability to collective purposeful behavior, and therefore to more productive activities, virtual reality and the forms of its organization are sacralized by society, endowed with the significance of the highest value that requires protection, up to individual or collective self-sacrifice. Thus, virtualization of reality, as an individual's ability to speculatively model the natural course of real processes, is one of the basic factors of social self-organization and cultural reproduction.

Let us also pay attention to how the conceptual optics of A. van Gennep allows us to point out the regularity of the virtual reality-mediated practice of the transition of an individual or society from one state to another (from one world to another) both in physical and socio-cultural senses ^{[18, pp. 43-70]}. Van Gennep describes how the practice of initiation, while remaining a game (virtual), acquires the importance of a cultural institution, in the service of which the whole society is involved to one degree or another. For a part of society, providing the functionality of a common virtual reality or even a multitude of them becomes a public vocation and profession. The high social status of this kind of employment underlies the social hierarchy and stratification of society (priest, leader, teacher, mentor, priest, idol, etc.).

In rituals, rituals, and games, a person's ability to place reality in an autonomous environment of imagination acquires the status of a social action conditioned by virtual reality. Virtualization of reality in socio—cultural processes, therefore, is an implicit mechanism of socio-cultural reflection on changes occurring in society and the environment surrounding society, based on the dissemination of similar patterns of behavior developed in virtual reality - social reactions to repetitive or similar living conditions.

The virtual world, while remaining imaginary, does not lose touch with reality due to the assumption of the probability of converting virtual experience into real under certain conditions. These conditions are formed by real experience, normalized by culture and are not only markers of the connection of the virtual model with reality, but also triggers for the objectification of virtual experience in a real situation when identical or similar conditions are repeated in reality. The practices of virtual reality reconstruction by the individual and society eventually scale up to the level of stable ideologies: traditionalism or libertarianism, paganism, monotheism or atheism, scientific paradigms, theories or pseudoscientific scientism, etc. Fragmentation and defragmentation of virtual reality (thought as possible) are now used in PR and marketing technologies, in politics, pedagogy, in corporate management, artistic creation, and even flirting.

It is necessary to raise a couple of questions arising from the extreme expansion of the concept of virtualization of reality to the level of cultural universality that we have undertaken.

Is culture possible in principle without virtualization of reality?

Where is the line between virtual and real in socio-cultural processes?

The typology of virtualization in socio-cultural processes

The assumption that the virtualization of reality is a specific way of orienting a person and society with the help of culture in the surrounding reality excludes the possibility of the existence of a society without autonomous and non-deterministic space—time continuums common to each culture - virtual realities. The principle of autonomy of the process is observed in the environment due to the fragmentation of reality, segmentation of its integrity into a set of interconnected objects. Actually, the naming of various objects of reality is already the result of the virtualization of their properties and evidence of the development of reality through its virtualization. The quality of virtual processes and models is determined by the degree of rationality of applying virtual experience in real practice.

At the dawn of mankind, irrationality of behavior inevitably led to the death of an individual or community. That in the conditions of syncretism of thinking determined the selection and consolidation of exclusively cultural practices of virtualization (others led to the death of society), which, according to B. Malinovsky, provided the advantage of the individual and society in mastering the surrounding reality, whether it was manifestations of the natural or supernatural ^{[19, pp. 32-33]}.

Virtual experience shapes an individual's attitude to reality. The shared virtual experience forms a unified attitude of society towards reality. And in this general cultural experience, as evidenced by anthropological research, along with religious cult practices of worship (submission to external circumstances in order to adapt to the external environment), the practice of magical intervention in reality (adaptation of the surrounding reality to one's own needs) are consolidated.

Accordingly, the magical and religious virtualization of reality is not identical in terms of the experience fixed in virtual practices. Analyzing the types of communication, Yu. M. Lotman drew attention to the differences between magical and religious, in particular, structurally describing the logic of virtual message transmission processes ^{[20, pp. 163-178]}. Religious virtualization of reality leads to the deification (cult) of sociality, to the unconditional subordination of the individual to society as a manifestation of the divine will, based on the unconditional Gift of all will and the productive ability of the individual to work as a virtual personification of cultural dominance. The magical virtualization of reality is based on the relationship of the equivalent exchange of will and productive capacity for the activities of an individual, group or society as a whole for public goods and cultural values, which constructs a completely different virtual model.

It is difficult to say unequivocally which of the virtual models of reality (religious or magical) is historically primary, since the most archaic forms of social hierarchy (chiefdom, shamanism, priesthood, etc.) are based on the regulation and tabooing of magical models by culture for part of the community. Most likely, these models of reality virtualization have historically developed simultaneously, since their absolutization (elevation to the level of the only possible non-alternative cultural model with the complete exclusion of alternatives) is possible exclusively in an imaginary virtual reality, completely unaffected by external factors of influence. As soon as we introduce into any of the two limiting types of virtual reality models the factor of external determination of the approbation of virtual experience in real activity, and it has always been present in the form of natural laws and changes in the natural environment, then magic without religion, as well as religion without magic, turn out to be less adaptive virtual models, as to changes in the natural environment, so it leads to a collision with a different culture than the models in which the magical and religious dialectically coexist. The dialectic of magical and religious virtualization of reality, thus, forms systems of supra-biological programs of society's vital activity that are more resistant to external influences, i.e. they significantly enhance the adaptive properties of culture.

The patterns observed as a result of the typology of the two designated limits of the frontier of reality virtualization are characteristic of any historical time, any culture. Historically, the typological differentiation of static and dynamic models of reality virtualization, based on the different dynamics of the relationship between religious and magical modeling, has a more significant heuristic potential.

The development of static models is facilitated by stable natural and climatic conditions of the life of a society geographically isolated from foreign socio-cultural influence. The ratio of magical and religious modeling can be different: Eastern despotists sought to establish the value dominant of the religious norm, accompanied by the isolationism of the political elite (for example, the priests and pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, the caste system of Ancient India, etc.), which monopolized the practice of magical virtualization of reality to control the masses; small island and geographically isolated northern peoples did without despotism, practicing ordinary magic, disposing of a complex social hierarchy, while remaining faithful to very utilitarian religious and mystical practices.

Static models of virtualization of social reality are based on a cyclical time continuum, assuming the identity of the past and the future, i.e. the repeatability of the past in the present and the future. The predictability of the future eliminates the need to adapt to new living conditions, accordingly, the static model of reality virtualization is perceived as an unchangeable cultural norm peculiar not only to the habitable social environment, but to the universe as a whole. Any innovation in static reality virtualization practices is tabooed as a threat that requires decisive action to eliminate it. Static models of reality virtualization should be considered primary in the historical development of societies. They are a sign of traditional cultures, the mechanism of reproduction of which is designed to transfer experience from generation to generation. Static models continue to dominate in modern societies as simplified stereotypes of social reflection.

Dynamic models of virtualization of social reality become possible in conditions of synthesis of cyclic and linear perception of time and adaptation of rites of passage (practices of virtualization of social reality) to various time continuums. Let us emphasize that it is not the linearity of the time continuum itself, assuming Alpha and Omega (the Beginning and the End of time), that becomes a factor in the dynamics of the ratio of religious and magical practices of reality virtualization, but the possibility of developing variable (dynamic) models in virtual models and consolidating them in real activity. The static model of reality virtualization based on the linear perception of time, absolutized in monotheism (religious type of virtualization), represents a dead end of social development for a geographically and socioculturally isolated society, excluding the ability to adapt to changing external conditions (Apocalypse). In societies involved in the ongoing historical process of socio-cultural integration, the idea of the finiteness of time is transformed into the idea of a phase transition from some models of reality virtualization (for example, religious) to others (magical) and back depending on the type of collective activity.

Vivid examples of dynamic models of virtualization of social reality are theoretical concepts of understanding the patterns of social development based on criticism of static models. From these positions, not only the virtual models of Plato and Aristotle should be taken into account, but also Socrates' fundamental refusal to claim the truth of a written judgment, which in any case remains static, and therefore, according to Plato's teacher, initially false. As you know, the Athenians condemned Socrates on charges of molesting young people, to whom in dialogues he instilled the virtue of critical (dynamic) thinking, questioning the irresistibility of the will of the gods (the static nature of the religious model of virtualization of social reality) and the rationality of archaic traditions (the static nature of magical models). The idea of personal autonomy of the individual (culture, rights and freedoms of the individual, which are based on the skills of dynamic reassembly of virtual models and adaptation to them) has long been persecuted by society in all cultures. Nevertheless, only an individual is capable of thinking not reflexively, but productively and prospectively outside of sociocultural processes within the framework of subjectivation and virtualization of reality (poet, artist). Accordingly, the measure of the real and virtual in sociocultural processes is a creative personality, for whom overcoming social automatism becomes the goal of realizing virtual experience.

Conclusion

The typological distinction between magical and religious, static and dynamic virtualization of reality in socio-cultural processes reveals certain heuristic prospects not only for the systemic expansion of the concept of virtualization, but also for rethinking the role of the virtual in cultural genesis. Understanding virtualization as a specific way of orientation of a person and society through culture in the surrounding reality excludes the possibility of self-organization of society and reproduction of culture without virtual realities common to people. And since only an individual, the subject of reality virtualization, is capable of thinking non—reflexively outside of socio-cultural processes, the line between virtual and real in culture always remains mobile and can be described exclusively as a socio-cultural frontier - a dynamic part of cultural life that escapes static definition. Consequently, the problem of a comprehensive systematic study of the virtualization of reality in socio-cultural processes requires the expansion of research optics, including through dynamic theoretical constructs of the socio-cultural and epistemological frontiers.

Technical (digital) virtualization, the creation of autonomous and augmented automated environments through the latest technologies, of course, also requires theoretical attention. But it is not something unique in the historical and cultural context. Only the theoretical tendency of reducing virtual processes to their computer modeling seems to be unique, the observed trend of significantly limiting the theoretical perspective of perception of reality solely through the formation of a scientific picture of the world by convergent technologies.