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A rather broad question rather than a small one: do you enjoy being embodied, feeling and doing stuff with your physical body in the real world?
For me, the answer is obvious – I would leave my body behind and not interact with the physical environment at all if I could. I just don’t feel any positive emotions moving around, being present, interacting with objects that aren’t a screen of some form. I never did for some reason, even as a kid.
It is strange because I’m a fairly healthy male in my late 20s without any disabilities, nor am I terribly out of shape (although I am slightly overweight due to working a sedentary job nowadays, but I had the same feeling even when I was at a normal weight), so I should theoretically be the prime demographic for enjoying bodily sensations. Some people have described intense physical activity to me as being inherently pleasurable – I’ve played my fair share of sports at the insistence of my parents as a teenager, and never felt anything other than irritation during and after training, so hearing others say it feels like listening to an alien describing the awesome parties of Alpha Centaura.
This sincere distaste for being embodied extends to a lot of aspects of life that most people tend to find enjoyable – I don’t care much for travel, tinkering with things or the physical side of sex either. I constantly find myself actively not wanting to go places or do things with my hands, and would probably be among the first to start living in some VRMMO full-time, Ready Player One style, once (okay, okay, “if”, let a man cope) it becomes an option.
Is this some fairly unique side-effect of the ‘tism that makes me miss out on universal human experiences, or do some of you feel that way as well?
I very much enjoy being embodied and think of my body as integral to me. We are inseparable and I think if my consciousness was separated from my body I would be a different person.
I've been an athlete and been in athletic competitions my entire life and I thoroughly enjoy the physical aspect in addition to the competition. I've found driving my body to its limit to be enjoyable and rewarding. I find the physical aspect of sex with the breathing, the contact, and the smells to be the better part of it. I think physically being near people is very important for my connection to them. I've found video games to be empty beyond the competitive/cognitive nature of them or feelings of accomplishment when I complete something. I get little or no enjoyment from "flying" or "jumping" or "falling" in a video game and likewise do not particularly care about graphics or spectacles. I very much enjoy jumping, flying, and falling in my body.
I've always found transhumanism to be anti-human. How much have you or do you video game and for how long? I've found among hardcore gamers, they regularly have similar feelings of detachment from their body.
My total gaming time is easily in the tens of thousands of hours, and I've been doing it since I was 4 or 5. Every year I bang out another 1500-2000 hours or thereabout. It's definitely a contributing factor, I'd say, although I was a bookish child anyway and whenever I wasn't playing, I'd be sitting down with a book or watching a cartoon, not running around. I'm not sure I would have turned out particularly different from who I am now in my preferences if video games were never invented.
The only time I've ever felt like you've described is when I tried to stay up for as long as I could and made it to about 3 1/2 days. At about the 2 1/2 day mark I started to feel disassociated from my body.
How often in your life have you felt genuine fear? I'm wondering if exposing yourself to things which I've found to cause genuine fear or physical stimulus, e.g., sky diving or rock climbing or motorcycle racing etc., would get you to re-embody, if that's something you would be interested in.
Do you get real fear, excitement, heart pounding, etc., when you're playing video games?
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