GET REAL: A PHILOSOPHICAL ADVENTURE IN VIRTUAL REALITY By: Philip Zhai

Plato  The Cave Analogy  we’ll he be able to go back to the real world? And accept it?  The cave:  cave cave

Descartes  Can we know that at least one something is real?  The thinking agent  “I think therefore I am”

Berkeley  The world of perception  If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?  To be is to be perceived

Hume  Empiricism:  Everything we know comes from experience.  There are no a priori knowledge.  (circle example).  There is no creativity

Wittgenstein  To create a boundary, one must know both sides of the boundary.  Cannot separate things from a picture, as we can only know things by its totality or wholeness.

Chapter 1: Is it convincing?  The matrix  Strapping a suit that allows our brain to be fed chemical reactions to all senses in consensus with each other.  The odds are better for us living in a virtual world  Are we living in an ancestor’s virtual reality?

Chapter 2: Is it a coherent project?  Convincing dreams  Waking up IN a dream  The museum example  How to solve the problem of memory  Reproduction  Gods ‘R Us

Chapter 3: How would it work?  Creativity  Life without pain  Freedom to walk again  You submit your body for another  Different Laws of physics The bullet example

Chapter 4: The problem of consciousness

Chapter 5: Some implications  Time travel possible?  Health benefits?  Better conceptions of reality?  Solves Overpopulation? Conserves less resources? Global Warming? Evades potential nuclear disaster?  Shows that the question of reality might never be answered (as we can only know things in the system)?

Chapter 6: What could go wrong?  What is providing energy to the system?  Treadmill  Reap energy from human thinking itself  Reality Engine Breakdown  “We should never close the door back to the actual”  Would someone want to go back (cave analogy)?  Debugging  Need a minor population in the actual world  Death  How can someone create a game in which the loser who dies in the game dies in actuality? Is this mortal? Or is it simply blaming the creator, just as some might ask the same question for God? Some might justify and say that death is a good thing as it brings the soul to Heaven and etc.

Signs of Virtual Reality in this world  People get lost even in semi- virtual worlds, such as getting emotional over a movie, or angry at a game (crazy German kid), getting jumpy at a 3D moviecrazy German kid  There are two types of semi- virtual worlds:  Augmented Reality The sports score on Hockey game (interfaces) Night vision goggles  Augmented Virtuality Objects made digital Selling WoW weapons Second Life apparel

Negative Reactions  Some that are totally opposed to this idea would claim that they want the right to be unhappy. In essence, virtual reality limits freedom or creativity and even God.  We’ll all turn into mindless video-addicted zombies  If one would never see God’s creation, then wouldn’t their belief in God in their case be meaningless?

Rebuttals  Just as cyberspace is getting more open, where one can seek secondary opinions, maybe Virtual Reality would instead fix the problems of biasness that the media or TV (limited to a few in power) that it delivers.  Freedom is limited by physicality as well, for instance: Steven Hawking might have a desire to run a marathon, but limited by his Physical condition. Virtual reality would allow this to be possible, significantly increasing his experiences and thereby his freedom.