For someone to say that something is real requires an objective viewpoint, something not possible for a human being.
Everything, including art is as equally unreal and real according to the viewer. It is a matter of opinion.
Second Life is simply another way to mediate you consciousness and like the world we were born into it is a construct of our minds interpreting various wavelengths of vibrations. I challenge anyome to prove difinitively that the physical world is any more real than Second Life.
This dilemma existed before Second Life and will contine to be a question long after it.
Here’s a concept:
Imagine if SL were indestinguishable from your physical reality. In a few years with quantum computing we will be able to create such a construct. What would be the difference between the constructs then, when each is equally real to our perceptions?
The answer is neither, or whichever one you prefer.
Some thinkers posit that when this happens, and we are able to create a world so seamlessly real that we cannot tell the difference, we will also be able to upload our minds into this world and be free of the limitations of the biological avatars we inhabit.
When this happens things will really start to get interesting! Our biosphere can support maybe 12 billion people presently? However if our minds are uploaded into non-biological worlds and the inner planets converted into microprocessors fueled by solar power from the sun, our population could be 100 billion and exist anywhere there was sufficient sun to power our present construct.
Is this heaven?
My point is that dont be so sure that your meat avatar (your body) is any different than your SL avatar in percieving what is real. The future holds many surprises that we can only guess at!