Virtual Reality

[Apotheosis]

If the create of a perfect virtual simulation of reality - an environment where you could interact with other people, but have absolute control over the scenario and their perception of you (your appearance, manner, language, personality - everything that would indicate who you are) - were possible, would you choose to live in it?

Ray Kurzweil Explores the Next Phase of Virtual Reality | Ray Kurzweil | Big Think

I haven't been here in awhile. I've never been great at talking about problems so I didn't feel like I was helping anyone. But regardless, I saw that video recently and it got me thinking about the future of technology and how it will affect medicine and humanity in general. It could create a utopia.

I'm especially interested in this because I've now switched from studying film and writing to physics and chemistry (double major - I have plenty of time to myself, so why not use it well). I suppose I'm still a dreamer, but I think science will be the most powerful force for turning dreams to reality.

Anyways... this is something I'd want to be involved in creating, but I'm questioning the ethics of creating an artificial world - it would be the most perfect fiction possible, but is that enough to make it real? Does that even matter?

I'm wondering what you guys would think.

 

[thor01]

Yes! I often think that.

HOWEVER, this is a virtual relaity in a sense I think. Nothing is truley solid, apprantly. We decode information as thigs, in our heads, some say. As everything is just vibrating energy, and is all connected, going by that theory.

But somehow its still difficult to act in some areas as if it is haha. Because the way its set up still seems to be difficult for us and yes I guess we don't have control over what other people thing, other than how we choose to perceive it. But it still helps to think of it that way i think in other ways.

 

[BlackPuma]

Only if it can either actually host life, or co-exist with the real world. And with that I mean being able to be outside the Utopia without becoming depressed or suicidal. Pleasure is highly additive if the intensity is high enough. My fear is that it would create a too high a contrast between the awesome virtual world, and the real one.

 

[Apotheosis]

Yes! I often think that.

HOWEVER, this is a virtual relaity in a sense I think. Nothing is truley solid, apprantly. We decode information as thigs, in our heads, some say. As everything is just vibrating energy, and is all connected, going by that theory.

But somehow its still difficult to act in some areas as if it is haha. Because the way its set up still seems to be difficult for us and yes I guess we don't have control over what other people thing, other than how we choose to perceive it. But it still helps to think of it that way i think in other ways.

In the sense that what we perceive isn't actually what is, we do live in a virtual reality. Processing of information by perception occurs independently of the observed.

But that's a whole other discussion - I suppose a better term for what I'm thinking would be 'artificial'.

In the present universe, every point of data that could ever be is already in existence (that statement becomes fuzzy on the quantum level, though it is not invalidated). In an artificial reality (whether it be generated through nanotechnology or some other form of neurological interface) that randomness is taken away. We can emulate or create 'rules' and functions as we desire, and choose what data to include.

Only if it can either actually host life, or co-exist with the real world. And with that I mean being able to be outside the Utopia without becoming depressed or suicidal. Pleasure is highly additive if the intensity is high enough. My fear is that it would create a too high a contrast between the awesome virtual world, and the real one.

The thing is, technology like this has the potential to rewrite our definition of life. Popular philosophy does not yet account for technological influences. For this particular scenario, though, it would come down to the method of creation. The most likely candidate at the moment would be to induce a sort of controlled-dreamstate through nanomachines in the blood, body and brain (the video I linked briefly addresses that, but doesn't go far into detail). In a sense, you wouldn't be alive at all, but you would still be sentient.

By the time something like this is possible, though, medicine will be at a point where psychological phenomena like depression and anxiety will be a nonissue as we become able to manipulate biological responses with greater precision (ie rather than swallow a hormone pill, we can trigger or disable hormone production at will).

...the whole thing is a philosophical cluster****, really. And I suppose it's possible technology will advance in a completely different direction, as would make artificial realities completely unnecessary. Gah, life has too many variables... maybe that's the problem.