Virtual worlds - it's time to take out the intellectual trash

There can be no doubt that 3D animation and multimedia in general has been an incredible tool for medical diagnostics, architecture and for the computer gaming industry. A number of surgeons use electronic 3D models to practice complex operations online but they also attend real operations and assist.

Airline pilots undergo many hours of 3D simulations to achieve and keep flight status yet they must also log up the requisite amount of real flying time with another pilot or co-pilot. Note that pilots don't log up many hours of real flying time so they can perfect their techniques in the simulator.

The notion of creating avatars (how like God) and buying and grooming avatar pets, going to a cyber bar to meet fellow avatars, is excellent news for teenagers or the teenager in us that won't go away. But lets call them for what they are - entertainment. There are now more than 100 online universes. There's a universe offering something for everyone.

Neil Postman's central thesis in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death - Public Discourse in the World of Show Business (1985), was right. Very little serious intellectual exchange has taken place through a medium, which is more akin to a fashion show or the intellectual equivalent of a disco.

The famous aphorism that states that “data isn't information, information isn't knowledge and knowledge isn't wisdom” has never been truer.