Cybertext as an Experimental Ontology

The main thesis of this work is the argument about the possibility of "experimental ontology" -the implementation of ontological hypotheses through developments in the field of video and computer games. To do this, the author first of all gives an idea of how relevant the ontological problem in philosophy itself (Meijas, Harman, Pickering) and in the philosophy of consciousness (Menzinger) is today. She also talks about the philosophical potential of the conceptual direction in the game industry -first of all, the manifesto of a "deep game". It is concluded that the general intention of the current stage of ontological problems is related to the idea of cognitive narrowness. In this context, the philosophy of consciousness is a kind of a pessimistic scenario for the development of this idea while, for ontology and conceptual developments in the field of video and computer games (PC games), this "narrowness" is an excuse for seeking its overcoming. Arguing about the ontological potential of PC games, the author bases on the current domestic tradition of understanding ontology as conditions for the understanding of experience. The specificity of PC games as a special kind of text - cybertext (Aarset) - is analyzed. PC games can be a "machine" for the production of a world that is sufficiently different to conflict with the familiar conditions of the understanding of experience (the former ontology). However, many games that claim to create "new worlds" do not imply such a conflict. This determines the following problem: what is a really different world? Heidegger's distinction between the ontical and the ontological is important to understand what game design must work on so that the "different", in the ontological sense, would mean different conditions of intelligibility. The author interprets Lakoff s ideas about the spatial metaphor of the "container" as the question of the habitus of space. The question of the limitation of the experience that has set a certain image of spatiality is discussed. In conclusion, the author speaks on some possibilities of a different habitus of space and argues that, in the sphere of conceptual PC games, we have opportunities for expanding the human cognitive arsenal and for a new form of mobility of cognitive resources.

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