Pierre Lévy - O que é o virtual?

The digital world is part of reality. The computers are absolutely real. the 0 and the 1 are codes that are in a memory that is absolutely physical and real.

The screens are absolutely physical and real. And, of course, the living human bodies are always absolutely physical and real. What is virtual, what is not physical, what is immaterial, is signification.

The world of signification, which is the real virtual world, we may say. It’s a world that starts with language. It’s not a world that starts with computers.

As we speak, now, there are two aspects in our language. There is the physical, acoustic aspect, the sound, the atmosphere vibrates, which causes our eardrums to vibrate, that’s the physical reality. But, at the same time, this flow of physical information carries another information, which is the semantics information, the meaning we give to the sounds.

And you can’t touch the signification. I’ll give an example. If you touch a human being.

You can see them. You can hear them. But the concept of humanity, that you can’t touch.

You can’t see it. You can’t hear it. So, that’s a virtual abstraction.

It’s the concept. And for that, you don’t need a computer. From the beginning of mankind we live in this abstract world, in this virtual world of signification.

What computers do is simply… What computers do is that they are able to automatically manipulate the signs of language. It’s in our minds that signification exists. It’s like saying that the mind only exists after the computers.

It’s madness. The mind exists from the beginning of mankind.