"The environment's role in the development of higher, specifically human characteristics and forms of activity is as a source of development" — L.S. Vygotsky, 1934

Just as Second Reality demonstrated how raw technical constraints could birth unprecedented creative expression, Vygotsky showed us how the social environment acts not as a mere background, but as the active source of human development.

The demoscene emerged from limitations—64kb, 640x480, tracker music. Yet within these constraints, ideal forms crystallized: tunnels, plasma effects, synchronized audiovisuals. Similarly, we develop not despite our environment, but through its affordances and constraints.

"The emotional experience [perezhivanie] arising from any situation determines what kind of influence this situation will have on the child."

Perezhivanie — Neither pure emotion nor pure cognition, but the unity of person and situation. The same demo watched by different viewers produces different experiences: one sees technical mastery, another feels nostalgic wonder, a third perceives mathematical beauty.

The same environment—the same code, the same pixels—refracts through different prisms of experience. This is perezhivanie: the unit of analysis that captures both situation and person in their unity.

"The interaction between the ideal form which exists in the environment and the rudimentary form which a child possesses"

What makes Second Reality legendary isn't just its technical achievement—it's how it crystallized an ideal form that influenced countless coders, artists, and designers who followed. The rudimentary forms in newcomers (basic programming knowledge, aesthetic sensibility) interacted with this ideal form to produce new generations of creators.

This is the mechanism of cultural transmission: not copying, but interaction. The ideal form doesn't replace the rudimentary—it guides its transformation. The learner doesn't become the master; they become themselves through engagement with mastery.