[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-detail-513237-en":59,"doc-seo-513237-105":80},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":60},{"doc_id":61,"user_id":62,"nickname":63,"user_avatar":64,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":66,"doc_content":67,"file_id":68,"file_url":69,"file_type":70,"file_size":71,"view_count":19,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":72,"language":73,"language_code":74,"site_id":75,"html_lang":74,"table_of_contents":76,"faqs":77,"seo_title":78,"seo_description":66,"update_tm":79,"read_time":24},513237,1099529839202,"SundayMiles","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","Avatars and Virtual Immortality - Deceased People, Virtual Agents, and Afterlife Possibilities","Avatars and information-technology agents in virtual worlds extend what living people can do, potentially preserving a kind of active existence after death. The piece argues that avatars need not mirror a person precisely, citing games where characters function with partial independence and adjustable autonomy. Examples from World of Warcraft and programmable secondaries in other online worlds illustrate how virtual representations can serve memorial, agency, and user-directed interaction. Information agents are also compared to answering machines and recommender systems.","Document 1 of 1  \nAvatars and Virtual Immortality  \nAuthor: Bainbridge, William Sims  \nPublication info: The Futurist 45.2 (Mar/Apr 2011): 32-33.  \nProQuest document link  \nAbstract: Deceased people always left active legacies in the memories of the survivors who knew them, and in the consequences of the deeds they performed in life. Now, a very great variety of avatars and agents in virtual worlds is extending the scope of action for a growing number of living people, potentially continuing their active existence after death and fulfilling the fantasies of religion through information technology. Avatars need not reflect the person precisely, and indeed World of Warcraft calls them characters rather than avatars, suggesting that they have some independent nature. Some recent gamelike virtual worlds, notably Star Trek Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online, allow one to have four or five secondary avatars operating at once, and to set their degree of autonomy. As people gain more and more avatars, agents, and other technology based expressions of themselves, the scope for action during their lives increases, and the possibility of life after death becomes progressively more real.  \nLinks: Linking Service, Click here to order Full Text from Interlibrary Loan  \nFull text: Headnote  \nAlready, many people have information technology agents, but these agents are so simple we do not ordinarily think of them as such.  \nDeceased people always left active legacies in the memories of the survivors who knew them, and in the consequences of the deeds they performed in life. Now, a very great variety of avatars and agents in virtual worlds is extending the scope of action for a growing number of living people, potentially continuing their active existence after death and fulfilling the fantasies of religion through information technology.  \nA hint of the human future can be found on Aldor Rise in Outland's Shattrath City in the massively multi player online role-playing game World of Warcraft. There stands Caylee Dak, an Elf huntress, with her nightsaber panther, Dusky. Her function is to bless any member of the Alliance who brings her a poem beginning, \"Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am in a thousand winds that blow, across Northrend's bright and shining snow.\" As an avatar, Caylee Dak is an active memorial for a player named Dak Krause, who died of leukemia in 2007, dressed exactly as she was when she served as his avatar in this virtual world, now providing a hint of immortality for his departed soul.  \nAvatars need not reflect the person precisely, and indeed World of Warcraft calls them characters rather than avatars, suggesting that they have some independent nature. Thus, before we even begin to catalog the full range of avatars and agents that already exist, we should realize that they are expressions of the self, and the self may be expressed in many ways. I had 22 World of Warcraft characters, and invested more than 700 hours of my own existence in each of two of them, Maxrohn and Catullus. Maxrohn, a human priest, was named after my uncle, Max Rohn, who was an Episcopal priest and something of an adventurer; he once taught me a judo move that could break a man's arm. Thus, Maxrohn was a mixture of me and my uncle, and we all are partly reflections of the family members who have shaped our own characters. Catullus was based on the ancient Roman poet of that name, and I have published an essay bylined \"Catullus,\" in the form of a letter from him to a supernatural being, namely me, about his own sense of being real.  \nSome recent gamelike virtual worlds, notably Star Trek Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online, allow one to have four or five secondary avatars operating at once, and to set their degree of autonomy. In a very real sense, these secondaries are programmable by the user, because one may set ahead of time which actions each one  \n26 December 2013 Page 1 of 3 ProQuest  \ncan perform, a","cbCaimFSlTg2H2k2","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimFSlTg2H2k2","pdf",93158,3,"English","en",105,"# Avatars as expressions of the self\n## Independent nature and adjustable autonomy\n# Virtual memorials and fictional identities\n## World of Warcraft example\n# Agents beyond games\n## Answering machines, speech recognition, and recommender systems","[{\"question\":\"How does the article connect avatars to virtual immortality?\",\"answer\":\"It describes avatars and agents as extending the scope of action for living people, potentially continuing active existence after death. It frames these digital continuations as fulfilling religious-like fantasies through information technology.\"},{\"question\":\"Do avatars have to reflect the original person exactly?\",\"answer\":\"No. The article notes that avatars can differ from the person, and even points out that some games call them “characters” rather than avatars, implying some independent nature.\"},{\"question\":\"What kinds of virtual agents are discussed besides avatars in games?\",\"answer\":\"The article discusses information-technology agents in everyday systems, including answering machines, speech-recognition programs, trading agents, and recommender systems that adapt to user ratings and purchases.\"}]","Avatars and Virtual Immortality - Deceased People, Virtual Agents, and Afterlife Possibilities | PDF",1791282200,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":82},"ok",{"site_id":75,"language":74,"slug":83,"title":65,"keywords":84,"description":66,"schema_data":85,"social_meta":138,"head_meta":140,"extra_data":142,"updated_unix":143},"avatars-and-virtual-immortality-deceased-people-virtual-agents-and-afterlife-possibilities","",{"@graph":86,"@context":137},[87,100,120],{"@type":88,"itemListElement":89},"BreadcrumbList",[90,94,96,98],{"item":91,"name":92,"@type":93,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":95,"name":9,"@type":93,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":97,"name":15,"@type":93,"position":72},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",{"item":99,"name":65,"@type":93,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/avatars-and-virtual-immortality-deceased-people-virtual-agents-and-afterlife-possibilities/513237/",{"url":99,"name":65,"@type":101,"image":102,"author":107,"headline":65,"publisher":109,"fileFormat":112,"inLanguage":74,"description":66,"dateModified":113,"datePublished":114,"encodingFormat":112,"isAccessibleForFree":115,"interactionStatistic":116},"DigitalDocument",{"url":103,"@type":104,"width":105,"height":106},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/avatars-and-virtual-immortality-deceased-people-virtual-agents-and-afterlife-possibilities/513237.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":63,"@type":108},"Person",{"url":91,"name":110,"@type":111},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-17","2026-10-06",true,{"@type":117,"interactionType":118,"userInteractionCount":19},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":119},"ViewAction",{"@type":121,"mainEntity":122},"FAQPage",[123,129,133],{"name":124,"@type":125,"acceptedAnswer":126},"How does the article connect avatars to virtual immortality?","Question",{"text":127,"@type":128},"It describes avatars and agents as extending the scope of action for living people, potentially continuing active existence after death. 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