Relazione Simposio Epistemologia
prof. Sergio Moravia-Università di Firenze

The principal problem discussed in this Congress requires an organized sequence of different answers.

a) Firstly, the “Net” could represent an occasion for some people who suffer from isolation to get out of an horizon of self enclosure and this thanks to a production of scenarios (even if only virtual) able to include him/ her in stimulating situations.

b) Secondly, it can be maintained that the “Net” allows psychologists and psychiatrists to operate an initial form of intervention on a specific type of person in difficulty and this is thanks to the apparent co-presence on-line of people in difficulty and of therapists .

c) Thirdly, we must however highlight that:
i) The “Net” produces only a virtual reality, inevitably more artificial and fictitious than the reality from experience: the only one able to generate a process of effective ripening and (self -) transformation.
ii) The artificiality/simulativity of virtual reality not only prevents one from setting up appropriate affective dynamics (in people suffering), but risks increasing confusion between reality and phantasy, causing damage to his/her already precarious relationship with the external world.

d) This last remark leads me to add another point, this involves the relationship between a “normal “ subject and the “Net”. According to many researchers, the uncritical and excessive use of the “Net” may lead a certain kind of human being :
i) to be bewitched by the very “Net” , with a severe imbalance of the right ratio of the real experience time to one of the virtual experience .
ii) an initial situation of euphoria before more or less effective possibilities offered by the “Net”.
iii) a following situation of frustration before the only simulative, illusional nature of the on-line experience.

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