Virtualization of identity in the context of self-realization of a personality

Віртуалізація ідентичності у контексті самореалізації особистості

Я. В. Любивий, Інститут філософії імені Г. С. Сковороди, Національна академія наук України (Київ, Україна),

Р. В. Самчук, Інститут філософії імені Г. С. Сковороди, Національна академія наук України (Київ, Україна),

Мета. Дослідження спрямоване на з'ясування сутності віртуальної реальності та її продуктивної ролі у самореалізації особистості, а також значення процесу самореалізації особистості для розширення вимірів її ідентичності шляхом включення у неї віртуальних вимірів. Для цього розкривається процес формування феномена віртуальної ідентичності у середовищі віртуальної реальності та виявляється вплив продуктивної діяльності людини у віртуальній реальності на характер віртуалізації її ідентичності. Теоретичним базисом роботи є розуміння віртуальної реальності як поєднання свідомої продуктивної уяви як її атрибута, з одного боку, та технологічного компонента у вигляді комп'ютера та відповідних програм, - з іншого. Антропологі чною передумовою віртуальної реальності є здатність творчої уяви людини із багатьох розумових проектних моделей вирахувати й обрати найоптимальнішу, використовуючи, крім іншого, горизонтальні комп'ютерні мережі, в яких і формується віртуальна ідентичність. Наукова новизна. З'ясовано, що необхідною умовою формування віртуальної ідентичності є обмін результатами продуктивної та посередницької діяльності між інтернет-користувачами, яку вони здійснюють у інтеренет-мережах за допомогою самої віртуальної реаль ності. Відповідно до цього, філософські дослідження віртуальної реальності (R. Burrows, G. Cooper,

M. Heim, R. Harper, N. Green, J. Juul, B. Loader, N. McDonnell, N. Wildman, S. Muncer, G. M. Murtagh, S. Nettleton, O. Ollinaho, N. Pleace, G. M. P. Swann, T. P. Watts) поступово доповнюються дослідженнями у царині віртуальної ідентичності (R. Baltezarevic, B. Baltezarevic, V. Baltezarevic, D. Deh., D. Glodovic, Este

N. Beck, P. Kwiatek, R. A. Hardesty, B. Sheredos, N. McDonnell, N. Wildman, O. Ollinaho, E. J. Ramirez, S. LaBarge, J. Spiegel). Конкурентне продукування та розподіл засобів існування людини шляхом творчої проектної роботи у віртуальній реальності у взаємодії та комунікації з Іншими в умовах швидко змінювано го соціуму вимагає розширення ідентичності, включаючи у неї і віртуальні виміри. Самореалізація особис тості у сучасному світі включає у себе розширення ідентичності за рахунок її віртуалізації. Висновки. Про дуктивна діяльність людини у комп'ютерній віртуальній реальності, - як допоміжного інструмента її твор чої уяви, - у солідарній та конкурентній взаємодії з Іншими створює її віртуалізовану ідентичність, сприяє самореалізації її особистості та робить її цілісну ідентичність більш гнучкою. Відповідно і філософські дос лідження віртуальної реальності з часом доповнюються філософсько-антропологічними дослідженнями вір туальної ідентичності.

Ключові слова: віртуальна реальність; ідентичність; віртуалізація ідентичності; множинна ідентичність; соціальні мережі; комп'ютерні мережі; мережева ідентичність; самореалізація особистості

Аннотация

Виртуализация идентичности в контексте самореализации личности

Contemporaries had the opportunity to live in a time of radical transformation of a number of fundamental spheres of life for human existence. The changes that permeate human life deeper and deeper naturally arouse the desire to analyze their consequences. Over the past few years, the world has accelerated the process of basic changes in public life, reaching a level of fundamental civilizational transformation, similar to those that occurred during the Neolithic Revolution or art nouveau period. In the face of increasing the use of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, a corresponding heightened awareness of this civilizational transformation process in various stra ta of civil society has arisen. The growing use of renewable energy and artificial intelligence re quires a person striving for self-realization to solve many social and existential problems, includ ing the problem of identity.

Man finds his own identity as already given by his social environment, primary and, to a large extent, secondary socialization. At the same time, a person must produce certain sub-identities within his own multiple identity and sometimes radically expand the basic identity, reaching a new level of civilization of integral consciousness, which consistently has to incorporate previ ous, still insufficiently improved levels of identity. To do this, a person needs personification and inner painstaking reflexive work on his own consciousness with the help of his own self awareness. Information technology facilitates a person's contacts necessary for the social pro duction of goods and, at the same time, allows him to develop his own personality through the mediation of virtual identity.

Virtual identity is formed in the Internet environment as an important means of the communi cative process of self-improvement of the individual, which is necessary support and comple ment to the deep inner workings of a person's self-consciousness over himself.

Virtual identity is a kind of peculiar projection of real identity and is a peculiar kind of tool that allows a person to enter the deep social and socio-cultural communication, as well as an in teractive "training" model to ensure the work of the individual in the process of their own self improvement. With the help of virtual identity as a kind of educational model, a person tests the results of a certain stage of inner work on himself in order to further apply his own inner work ings in his practical activity in social reality.

Often, the virtual is interpreted in the epistemological-cognitive section as "ideal", "illusory", "fictitious" even when this concept understood in conjunction with the concept of "augmented reality", which is provided by certain additional electronic and technical means. The most com plete concept of the virtual is revealed when it is considered as a perfectly designed and perfectly tested model of a future product (in the production and technological aspect) or future activity (in the social aspect).

At the beginning of the 21st-century philosophers began to explore the role of virtual reality, which is an explicit basis for the project work of the productive human imagination, as well as a medium of social communication on the Internet. M. Heim (1993), exploring the concept of vir tual reality notes that in the work "State" Plato creates an image of people who were born in the cave and never left it, and who viewed the shadows of reality in ecstatic fascination, like modern people who fall into cyberspace. M. Heim also believes that a deeper understanding of virtual reality is also facilitated by G. Leibnitz's notion of monad. Monads are spiritual substances that do not interact with the environment ("have no windows") and everything they see is a product of their inner representation, desires, and imagination, since they have no substance other than them, although they coordinate their activity through Higher Monad (Central System Operator) (Heim, 1993).

At the same time, participants of network virtual reality engage in communication and co operative interaction, and in the case of augmented reality visual images increasingly supplant the purely linguistic contact between them, communication becomes post-symbolic (Heim, 1993). Virtual reality, among other things, is also a thesaurus of the mythological structures of consciousness, categories, and archetypes of understanding the world that make up the collective unconscious (K. Young), which predetermine human ascension into higher dimensions of being. M. Heim (1993) notes that one enters the alternate worlds through everyday "real" reality when, for example, he watches a movie (p. 129). Creativity in the field of virtual reality is a prerequi site for progressive changes in constant reality. Human philosophical experience is the basic vir tual reality, due to which the person obtains the ability to overcome obsolete social relations of constant reality and self-actualize in creating an identity that more harmoniously fits into the sur rounding social world.

It is important for philosophical analysis that the virtual has two necessary components: the reflective consciousness of man and the object of this consciousness, which he operates with the help of productive imagination. This imagination can construct its object without the help of ex ternal objectivity, or with such help in the form of a drawing on sand (in the ancient world), a drawing on paper (in modern times), and finally in the XXI century - a keyboard or mouse- controlled image on a computer monitor (laptop, tablet, smartphone). The concept of a virtual simulator is also important for the completeness in the concept of the virtual (for pilots, sur geons, drivers, the military, etc.), on which the skills of complex operator activities are practiced. A variety of computer games, in addition to the function of entertainment, also perform the func tions of developing generalized operator skills.

In addition to these components, the notion of the virtual is extremely important that several competing options of a constructed object or social action are simulated in the human imagina tion, and from these options, if not the best, then at least the optimal one is selected for the given situation. Such work of a person's imagination with virtual reality and choice of the best from alternative models of activity is an integral property of the person as a creative being. When a person works virtually, a certain meditative suspension is possible during his physical and men tal activity. However, parallel/simultaneous virtual work of human consciousness is possible, which is combined with practical activity. The easiest way to demonstrate this is at chess games or any other intellectual game, in which the best option is chosen. However, in more complex situations, logical intelligence here must be supplemented by intuition, existential and social feelings, which can also be conditionally called emotional, kinesthetic (motor), social, etc. intel lect. Computer visualized virtual reality, created with the help of appropriate software and a monitor, helps in the purposeful work of the human imagination with virtual reality. This effect is exacerbated if the software also includes related computer calculations of the required parame ters. This significantly enhances the creative aspect of human work, makes it more skilled and much more accessible to a wide range of people. J. Juul distinguishes between computational and creative aspects of human work in virtual reality. However, the computational aspect in the form of a virtual calculator must be complemented by the creative aspect in the form of produc tive work of the human imagination (Juul, 2019). The computing capabilities of virtual reality hardware significantly enhance the creative aspect of human labor, making it more skilled and much more accessible to a wide range of people.

Thus, computerized virtual reality is just a modern technological and software extension of the human attributive ability to virtualize through imagination.

The question of how real virtual reality is in relation to physical-bodily everyday reality, whether it is not fiction, is theoretically important. N. McDonnell and N. Wildman (2019) are inclined to a fictional solution to this issue. However, from the viewpoint of practical philoso phy, it is important to use the phenomenon of virtual reality to improve human life. It is possible to characterize the relationship between everyday physical reality and virtual reality in different ways theoretically, but in practice, virtual reality plays a significant role in human life. Accord ing to O. Olinaho (2018), the virtualization of society that takes place in the modern world has a decisive impact on the world of work, which provides a person with a means of survival.

In the social aspect, the electronic network virtual reality opens up for a person the opportuni ty to communicate on important topics for him beyond excessive social control. In addition, a person can deepen their knowledge of topical issues, which is currently of interest to other mem bers of the network. Thanks to this, a person can get to know himself better including his own existence in communication with others. Virtual identity in this case is a mask of real identity, which is an important additional factor and resource for the development of it that opens up new opportunities for self-realization.

Entering a certain artificially created virtual identity, one finds in the thesaurus of Internet communication a communicative "bubble" - the so-called hemophilic (Ferguson, 2018, p. 56), friendly network consisting of persons who are interested and/or concerned about the same social and life problems, trying to find out the social causes of the problem, ways to solve it and their own participation in it. Due to such communication, which is usually has a dialogical or polylog ical nature, one becomes more aware of society and himself, develops his own life position, clearly realizes his true interests and vital values. If such communication is accompanied by in tensive work of the person over himself, over the improvement of his own human qualities, then he develops in himself a higher level of integral consciousness.

As a result of this communication, one feels the support of others, gains confidence in their own actions in the real social environment, participates in the self-organization of both the online community and the real civil society.

An important feature of the 21st-century virtual society, according to G. Cooper, N. Green, G. M. Murtagh, and R. Harper, is that a considerable amount of industrial-economic, organiza tional, administrative and educational-cultural interactions are carried out through computer net works, which produces a large number of technological and social innovations using virtual real ity. In this sense, virtual reality significantly influences social relations, social structure, and types of management (Cooper, Green, Murtagh, & Harper, 2002, p. 287), and modifies them in such a way that creates more favorable conditions for self-realization of a personality.

Attitude to virtual reality depends on what aspects and parties its user intends to apply. G. M. P. Swann and T. P. Watts believe that those individuals who engage in business and net working through partners may consider that virtual reality is something unimportant and that computer networks are merely a means of establishing contacts between partners. Other people immersed in the Internet using an electronic helmet and operating gloves will not be able to deny the phenomenon of virtual reality as such (Swann, Watts, 2002). Indeed, completeness of the concept of virtual reality requires sufficient completeness of its constituent components, and the most important of these, in addition to the software and technical components, the human con sciousness and its ability to use their own productive imagination.

Among the issues of virtual reality, the practical-pragmatic aspect is important. According to S. Woolgar, virtual technologies should not confuse, but complement reality; their use should be productive and associated with the effective provision of human life. These technologies should promote the formation of target groups that intend to participate in one or another social activity, self-organizing from below. He notes that "... the more virtual, the more real, that is, the more virtual information technologies are used, the greater the impact they have on people's real lives" (Woolgar, 2002).

The positive side of the online community is the social support of people in crisis. S. Nettle- ton, N. Pleace, R. Burrows, S. Muncer and B. Loader believe that social support consists of so cial solidarity, assistance in maintaining physical and mental health, recreation and leisure, inclu sion in social ties, respect for identity. The virtual community supports its co-communicators not only within a specific region or country but also throughout the global community through online discussions, online forums, the entire background atmosphere of solidarity and communi ty (Nettleton, Pleace, Burrows, Muncer, & Loader, 2002).

Often, Internet communication after an arranged meeting of its participants in the real physi cal space grows into real face-to-face offline courses of lectures and practical classes on a variety of scientific, social, and personal self-development issues. These classroom lectures and practical classes are posted online for those people who for one reason or another can't directly participate in this live communication.

Virtual capabilities of computer networks are to some extent involved in most types and areas of activity - life, production, trade, education and practical self-study, public administration, and self-organization of civil society. In different areas and activities, both in general and for each in dividual, there is a different correlation between activities in physical space and in virtual reality. In certain areas and types, activity predominates in physical space, in others - in virtual reality.

These changes are not only in the fact that the Internet covers a vast majority of spheres and types of human activity, but also that, thanks to computerized networks and electronic virtual reality, qualitatively new network forms of production, distribution of benefits, training, reflex ive work of a person over themselves, more complex forms of human self-realization using Big Data systems and artificial intelligence are created.

In the case of a person entering the absolute, highest states of consciousness - satori, samad- hi, nirvana, etc., the virtual activity of consciousness for the duration of this state is suspended. Being in this state, a person no longer strives for something even higher, because he is already in the highest. To not aspire to something else is to enjoy this state and to suspend motivation for intellectual and spiritual search, to give up virtual modeling of situations of possible actions, and to choose the best option for these actions. However, when a person emerges from an absolute, highest state of consciousness, the person resumes the virtual reflexive work of consciousness, which consists, among other things, in the choice of whether to embody the results of being in an absolute state into the practice of daily life or not and if to embody, then - to what extent. Thus, when looking at the absolute state of consciousness "from the core of self-consciousness", it lacks activity in virtual reality, since the absolute state implies the cessation of any activity. However, with a reflexive view "from the outside", the absolute state itself is a bifurcation point, through which a person makes the choice of one of the virtualized models of future human activ ity. This choice should lead a person to a higher level of integral consciousness and self realization in accordance with higher goals.

The virtual aspect of identity should be considered not only as a virtual mask that hides a per son's true identity on the Internet but also as one of several possible models of future human ac tivity chosen through comparative auto-communication analysis. In this case, the identity of a person as a result of his or her primary socialization and the existing social relations is only one side of his/her identity as such. And such a slice of identity in today's dynamic fast-changing world is usually in crisis. An equally important aspect of a person's identity is the search for the best option for designing one's own identity for the future through virtual modeling. This is done by "trying on" several innovative options for possible future identities, internal evaluation of them, and choosing one of them - the most optimal. In the face of the crisis of modern identity, virtual modeling of identity is a way of enriching and harmonizing identity by empowering the subject with innovative forms of activity and expanding social contacts. At the same time, such work of the person over himself, his own identity is an important aspect of self-realization of the personality.

In the late 20th - early 21st-century the role and importance of local communities, as well as network connections, creative potential, and individual choice of each individual, is growing in public life. As a result, the role and importance of those areas of society and social institutions that are based on violent hierarchical relationships are diminishing.

In recent years, in the issue of virtual reality, the problem of identity as such and virtualized identity is beginning to come to the fore.

When a person is in virtual reality, he has the effect of multiple identities. Thus, R. Hardesty and B. Sheredos believe that a person, being in virtual reality, at the same time continues to be in concrete physical reality, combining both bodily and virtual identity. These two identities per meate each other (Hardesty & Sheredos, 2019).

Thus, R. Baltezarevic, B. Baltezarevic, P. Kwiatek, and V. Baltezarevic believe that after people start using the Internet, they expand the circle of acquaintances with whom they are in contact. However, this can lead to the weakening of ties with local communities, which blurs their identity (R. Baltezarevic, B. Baltezarevic, Kwiatek, & V. Baltezarevic, 2019). Agreeing in general with the above point of view, it should be noted that such an erosion of identity occurs when a person has a passive attitude towards it. When a person actively involves in this problem and is aware of how identity is formed and transformed, he can expand his own identity and combine its local dimensions with global ones.

However, this study would not be complete and objective if we did not pay attention to the so-called other side of the coin - the negative aspects of identity virtualization. First of all, we are talking about the fact that the virtual space, especially social networks, is a space in which companies for the better knowledge of the client track our activities and our preferences, for the opportunity to sell better their products and services. From the information they receive, they have the opportunity to form an idea of our preferences from music to politics, which cre ates a field for manipulation and suggestion, in order to sell something or impose a certain choice, using this knowledge. Moreover, with the help of Internet tracking technologies, ac cording to Esti N. Beck (2015), certain companies form "invisible" digital identities of users that sell to other companies (p. 125). So, despite a number of positive factors of the opportuni ty provided by cyberspace, it also contains certain threats. Among these threats D. Deh and Glodovic include:

...insufficient protection of privacy, discovered and illegal use of per manently memorized data in meta-media society and digital space, espe cially on the social network, and possibility of manipulation and control ling the identity of another as well as the the possibility of placing mul tiple identities, which bring questions the legitimacy of data. (Deh &Glodovic, 2018, p. 101)

The possibility of, among other things, illegal use of personal data of users of computer social networks is also noted by J. Spiegel (2018), who believes that this data can be used to manipulate the minds of Internet users.

Exploring the specifics of identity construction in the digital space, D. Deh and D. Glodovic argue:

...that participation in digital space significantly influences the construc tion of identity and alters the experience of self, first of all at the psycho logical level, building "bridges" from real self to ideal self, via the pre ferred self, where the possibility of losing the real self and basic authen ticity becomes a new risk, which is the matter of special importance for each individual, but also for the system as a whole. (Deh & Glodovic, 2018, p. 109).

According to E. J. Ramirez and S. LaBarge, moral problems play an important role in the re alization of virtual identity. When communicating on the Internet, it is necessary to take into ac count that certain moral restrictions that exist in face-to-face communication disappear here. In this regard, the online community needs to develop a certain degree of ethical control, which should govern their actual practical experience on the Internet (Ramirez & LaBarge, 2018). To develop sophisticated rules for the communication of individuals in virtual reality will probably require a long and persistent work of intellectuals and thought leaders.

Originality

In general, the positive trend towards the growing role of personal choice and network connec tions is realized, however, in the current conditions of growing social tensions and conflicts, which is expressed as an identity crisis. This crisis can be overcome through self-realization - the work of the individual on the basis of universal values, expanding the horizons of their own consciousness, acquiring innovative activities, and enriching their own identity. To successfully overcome the identity crisis, it is important to philosophically comprehend the main trends of world develop ment, to see one's own mission in it, to design the future image of one's identity, and to put it into reality in discursive interaction with Others. An important tool for this is network communication using a virtual identity. Thus, the virtual space creates many new opportunities for self-realization of the personality. However, it also contains certain threats, which is an axiological problem, since even the best thing can be used for a bad purpose, it all depends on the intentions of the user.