Synthetic Worlds - New Scientific Guinea Pig

Virtual Parallels collide at the Synthetic Worlds Institute at the University of Indiana.

Arden was developed by Professor Edward Castronova and colleagues to explore the economic changes that can occur in a synthetic world and real world and how one impacts the other. Arden "gives social scientists an entire populated world on which to perform experiments - something always lacking in the real world." (BBC.com)

The Shakespeare era has been created to engage with online players to create a social laboratory without the users realizing it. Social scientists will start tweaking within Arden and see how the synthetic community within Arden will respond.

Takes the white lab rat to a whole new level.

Classroom chats.....
Will synthetic worlds take over social research? Is it a reflection of directions that societies will take...evolve to? Will social scientists be able to predict and be able to stop potentially harmful events from happening? Time will tell.....