Digital Metempsychosis? A Critique of the Two-Worlds Model of Immersivity

The paper proposes the notion of "Two-Worlds Model" (TWM) as a theoretical framework in order to analyse some currents in the contemporary debate on technologically mediated experience. According to this model, technologically mediated experience-especially immersive experience-can be described as a form of "digital metempsychosis"-a feeling of being elsewhere. The paper argues that this model is not new in the history of philosophy, and that it is a very common theoretical and cultural strategy, often used to reduce medial differences-differences in the way of being or of experiencing something-as objectual difference. By analysing some specific topics-the most common accounts of immersive experience, the relation between immersivity and presence, and the notion of "cyberspace"-the paper aims at showing the limits of the TWM, in particular when it is used in order to describe technologically mediated experience