Peter Bell

ENG 495E

Dr. Mandell

11/29/01

"I can't define it, but I know it when I see it," has become a standard reply to questions that are hard to answer, now serving as the definition of more than just pornography. Postmodernism seems to at times share this elusive definition. To paraphrase Lyotard, its refusal to take solace in and unified form and conventions are partly responsible for its apparently shapeless definition. Paraphrasing Sherry Turkle, computer culture realizes postmodern concepts, especially a realization of those concepts pertaining to the nature of the self (17-19). For Turkle and others, partaking in chat rooms, creating identities on the computer, and the structure of computer software itself all concretize a previously abstract set of postmodern concepts.

Before summarizing segments of Turkle's Identity in the Age of the Internet, a short background on postmodern concepts of the self is helpful.

Postmodern thought rejects the idea of a deeper self that can be discovered by rationally peeling away surface layers of that self. The idea that truth can be found by this process, on a personal level or in a narrative structure, is a point of contention. As Stephen Frosh says in Social Experience and the Constructed Self, "More generally, postmodernism opposes all tendencies to take refuge in any illusion of wholeness or of received wisdom…" (277). Thus, enlightenment-age scientific approaches to uncover knowledge fall under the "illusion of wholeness and received wisdom." Instead, postmodernism perceives the world through a large network of interconnected but meaningless things and experiences (Frosh, 282).

Frosh's opinion of self and action is also revealing: "…gone is the differentiation between the self and its expression….Meaning does not precede these practices, but is enigmatically created by them…" (280). This is to say that in the writing of a book for example, meaning is produced by the text. The author ceases to be a sort of creator, with a preconceived plan. The book's meaning is transitory, as readers may have several different experiences with a book, regardless of the author's intentions.

Finally comes the idea of the self as a social construct. To make sense of the world around us, some have suggested that the self is created in order to give a reference point for existence. Self-construction gives our lives meaning because it allows us to make sense of what surrounds us. I am me. That house across the street is not me, neither are the people who live in that house. Ten years ago I was a little boy, but now, I'm a big boy. From a postmodern perspective, "…the self is an imaginary construct, produced to make narrative sense of each individual's personal history" (Frosh, 282). Frosh does not believe that this idea means the constructed self is fake; constructed things are real. Buildings are real. Ice cream sundaes are real.

Consider the psychological disorder known as dissociative fugue. The condition is thought to results from trauma or stress in a person's life, and leads persons to suddenly reinvent themselves as new persons, with new lives, who may live in a different place and have a different name. "A person in the midst of a dissociative fugue will suddenly pick up and move to a new place, assume a new identity, and have no memory for his previous identity," (Nolen-Hoeksema, 382). These newly selved people are able to function completely normal, and though they have no memory of past identities, they don't see anything amiss in not being able to remember them (382). Though a rarity, if this condition is taken seriously, it makes a good argument for the self as a construct through which humans deal with their environment. After all, the self that is created in the fugue state is entirely real to those affected by the disorder.

Turning now to Turkle's article, initial impressions of the computer were to think of it as a rational machine, explainable by its parts and the way it mathematically processes information (18). Complex programs can be explained and simplified to the processes that drive them. Of course, this is still the way computers work. But there are surface-oriented programs like Windows that do not emphasize the innards of computers or their language. What one sees on the screen is all that is necessary to use the computer. My reality when typing this paper is that pushing keys creates letters on the screen. I'm told that programming and hardware is what does it, but it might be magic. I don't know.

Turkle points to the development of artificial intelligence as a bridge to a less rational concept of the computer. When computers can be affected by their environment to the point that they make meaningful decisions based upon it, such as humans do, then they will cease to be explainable by only hardware and programs. They will become to a certain degree unpredictable. In humans, biology, existence and interaction create meaning and serve as the cause for effects. "One's identity emerges from whom one knows, one's associations and connections" (Turkle 258). A meaningful existence is created through interactions, not by programs. For example, perhaps I was born to be the fastest bicyclist ever. If I want to ride my bike but it rains every day where I live and I can't ride it, my genetic disposition to be the world's greatest bicyclist isn't really going to matter much.

On a user level, Turkle examines Mulitple User Domains, or MUDs, to explore the postmodern idea of a constructed self. MUDs are computer programs that allows people to interact with one another online, in real-time. To do so, the players on MUD's create characters, or computer selves, in order to interact with the environment of the MUD, which includes other players as well as objects. These players can be anything they want- either gender, animals, talking objects, etc. They simply define themselves as such. It is the players who create these selves, and operate them in a virtual world. To many of the users, the experience is very much like "real life": "RL (real life) is just one more window," says one user.

Turkle's view that the computers embody postmodern ideas of the self is one that allows some postmodern concepts to be physically seen. As she says, many people have difficulty grasping a theory that states our most basic reality (selfhood) is a constructed illusion (15). Yet what MUDs reveal is that constructed selves can be very real, as real as "real life." "When people can play at having different gender and different lives, it isn't surprising that for some this play has become as real as what we conventionally think of as their lives, although for them this is no longer a valid distinction," (Turkle, 14).

On the computer, meaning also follows the construction of a computer self. As one user Turkle interviewed says, "You are what you pretend to be," (Turkle, 12). Because users are able to switch between varied online identities as well as their "real" personalities, this shifting ability lends a certain superficial quality to the self. Using a scientific process, such as Freudian psychoanalysis on these computer characters would reveal little. To ask the question "Why are these characters here; why do they have personalities?" is answered "out of necessity." The existence of these computer selves is mandated by their environment. They need selves to operate on the MUD. Turkle sees a parallel in the "real world" -- selfhood is an illusion that we create to interact with our environment. Necessity is the mother of invention in both environments, and in the age of computer space, it is an invention that is blurring the line between simulation and reality.

Frosh, Stephen. "Social Experience and the Constructed Self".

Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan. Abnormal Psychology.

Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001.

Turkle, Sherry. "Identity in the Age of the Internet".