Interactions with Non-living Objects and Virtual Realities in a Seriously Complex World

Let’s dig down the word ‘interaction’ a bit. ‘To act’ means doing something. ‘To react’ means doing something in response to an act which has already been taken place. ‘Interaction’ means exchanging of action and reactions repeatedly between or among the doers who are involved.

In general terms, it seems that interactions happen in case of humans only but the truth is that most of the interactions in human’s lives at present occur with non-living objects or virtual things.

That is the point which is giving rise to innumerable complexities each day which are really hard to handle if one is not aware of how these are going to affect one’s body, mind and soul.

Every single actions has its reactions

When any action takes places, it surely invites a reaction. In another word, it stimulates a person to respond. What will be the response depends on how a person involved in the matter perceives the action.

For example, Sarah, a four year old, is roaming in market with her mother. Suddenly, she finds a new toy and starts to cry for getting that but her mom does not allow. Soon after, she confronts a barking dog, gets scared and started crying.

Like that small child, every single thing triggers us to choose a response. First important thing is how one perceives that thing. If it is pleasant, the later reactions or responses will be pleasant and vice versa.

In case of a child or animal, the response is automatic as they do not know how to choose. But for adults, two things will happen; perceiving the incident properly and moving to respond thereby.

Emotional Interactions with non-living objects

The first task will be done by the head which is responsible for all rational analysis, preparing a response commanding the mind to move. The second action happens in the heart which is responsible for all emotions (such as anger, fear, happiness, love, surprise, disgust or sadness) triggering humans to move accordingly.

The resulting action is the product of head activities and heart activities. Moreover, whether an individual gets head and heart to respond to something specific depends on certain rewards or punishments.

There can be multiple trade-offs, for example, prioritizing head over heart, overwhelmingly biased to heart rather than head or being able to draw a balance between these two. But it is for sure that if someone fails to define properly what the action is and what will be the possible reactions, chances of error will go up significantly.

Interactions with Living being, Non-living being and Virtual Realities

Everyday a person interacts with many things, let’s categorize those into three groups; Living beings, non-living objects and virtual entities.

The interaction between or among humans is the most primitive one as it has been taking place since the birth of this great creature.

Another is the interaction with non-living earthly materials like a phone set, tangible assets and so on.

The last one is the interaction with virtual realities, for example, social networking, social technologies etc. This is certainly adding new dimensions of simplicities and complexities to human lives every single day.

In addition, problems with varying nature are ever on the rise as growing number of humans fail to choose between head over heart and heart over head while roaming in virtual realities.

Managing Emotions While interacting on Virtual Atmosphere

Think of social media. A person spends significant amount of his/ her daily times behind this. How is s/he interacting with it? From cursory view, it may seem that it is a pleasant one but reality may be different in terms of one’s body, mind and spirit if this interaction is not managed properly.

People love to do what they love; prioritizing heart over head. For example, Nadir, in his 30s, spends almost five hours in an average behind his phone, especially on social networking sites like Facebook.

He is a hardworking man, who does a very hectic job. But after job, he has nothing to do but hovering over his cell phone. It has been quite intense during the pandemic when he is doing his job from home.

We get really emotional while interacting with these

There are emojis on every post on Facebook. Question is whether this person becomes truly emotional while interacting with these. The answer is yes. This is a type of virtual interactions which occupies a big portion of his thinking mechanisms.

The person is doing what s/he loves to do for long hours in search for dopamine for energizing himself but probably being unaware of the fact that it can tell upon his health, mind or can turn his thinking mechanism into a sheer garbage field.

Human to human interactions on the decline and filling up the vacuum

Human to human interactions have gone down and people have become isolated in true sense with advent of so many means of virtual communications.

It is on the rise more than ever before and has started to attack the closest human interactions like marriage, family, friendship etc. Are humans really meant for that?

A truly difficult question to answer. Every single object whether living, non-living or virtual, which a person interacts with everyday, creates a significant and powerful influence on him/her.

It is in 1970s when Nadir’s grandfather cannot even think of these. For example, for weekly grocery needs, Nadir uses an app. He completes these whole bunches of activities with only few clicks without almost zero human touch.

But in the past, say in 80s, his grandfather needs to visit a market, roam around and spend almost a day to get the weekly groceries to home. Most importantly, he needs to interact with many persons for accomplishing his trading activities.

Those interactions may later turn into long term trading relationships as well which probably gives them a source of fun, enjoyment, care, love and means for some healthy pastimes.

In true sense, these actions and reactions are real interactions which fill his day. But in case of Nadir, this human aspect is totally missing. He is interacting with something which is non-living in nature and does not have the power to interact because of not having real emotions.

Living with Machines

The day is not far when humans will stay with only machines. Probably, marriage with machines will be legalized soon.

The most potent matter to argue that how are these going to impact; if these become widespread then what would be nature of human groups; which group will dominate then – groups comprising only humans or the ones comprising of both humans and machines.

The biggest question is that can human be turned into machines to make them behave appropriately with a machine. Is the human being really meant for that?

Last words

Every single interaction has either positive or negative impact on an individual. In case of judging, head must be put into first rather than the heart.

Unanswered questions are; Is Nadir really aware that he is getting lost in the ocean of virtual interactions every day, how are these impacting his body, mind and soul? How is he changing as a human and Can he really be able to reprogram himself to turn into a machine like being?

Will a machine be able to be a real supplement to the human touch which gives motivation, strength, love, dignity and force to imagine and create?