I hesitated about creating a new page untitled "post-meeting discussion"... anyway : about the use of the word "metaphor". In my old litterature notes, i found it was about a rhetorical substitution or pairing. Consequently, in both cases (substitution/pairing) Virtual Worlds seem to match with that definition. Besides, meta-fora is about trans-portation. The implicit and explicit similarities between virtual world and real world helps to trans-pose some elements from the first life to the second life.

Interestingly enough, as a signifier, Virtual Word does not necessarily refers to real world... lacanian structuralism would explain that it's only when articulated to a second signifier (knowledge) that the "virtual world symptoma" will make sense. That's our work to continue a signifying articulation with some scientific metaphorical explanations to understand sl/rl.