From: U55533%uicvm.uic.edu@OHSTVMA.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (William H Temps III)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: PHIL: VR and RL: Beginning a Philosophical Consortium
Date: 11 Dec 92 03:33:31 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu


In article <1992Dec10.070740.25702@u.washington.edu>,
portal!cup.portal.com!Tagi@uunet.UU.NET says:
>
>I wish to ask some questions that I've been thinking about for quite
>some time.  I have speculation of my own to compare and invite discussion
>on the following: ....
>
>A) What makes a computer world 'virtual'?
>B) What makes the world of our everyday noncomputerworld life 'real'?
You seem to be asking for nothing less than a definition of the nature
of reality.  Tough question.  Big topic.  Consider Bishop Berkeley, who,
asked how he would refute the philosophy that reality was an illusion,
kicked a boulder:  "THUS do I refute it!"  That's one definition:
reality can be felt, and it can hurt you.  That may change with
improved VR technology.  Then there's consensus reality:  reality is
what most people agree is real.  There's Alfred Korzybski with General
Semantics ("Science and Sanity") back in the '30's, pointing out that
what we perceive as reality is necessarily filtered through the human
nervous system, and is a highly abstracted and extremely limited
view.  There's modern physics (e.g., "The Tao of Physics", by Fritjof
Capra and "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukav), discovering that
whether an entity presents itself as a particle or a wave depends on
how you look at it, and suggesting that science is not searching for
ultimate reality, but only describing experiments and their results
(the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, 1927).

One might say that reality is what we perceive consistently.  Far as I
can remember, every time I stub my toe, it hurts.  If someday my toe
goes through a wall, I'll suspect unreality.  Reality also tends to be
consistent among individuals:  most people agree that walls and rocks
are solid.  People who disagree with the consensus are generally
disbelieved and possibly locked up.  Not so long ago, most people in
the U.S. would have agreed that Blacks were intellectually inferior to
Whites.  Was that reality?

In a very general sense, VR is anything that mimics reality without
being real (whatever reality is).  It could be anything you imagine (VR
in your head with no equipment).  Some people are great at this
(hallucinations, delusions, or visions).  Broadly speaking, imagination,
books, TV, etc., are all VR.

>(C, D, and E omitted)
>F) What is the value of assigning rigid definitions and labels to
> either computer or noncomputer worlds?  How do we benefit from them?
>G) What is the problem with assigning such rigid definitions?
It gives us a working, mutually accepted vocabulary, allowing for
discussion without having to redefine terms constantly.  The problem
is that "language limits thought":  too-rigid definitions and
paradigms limit the range of imaginable concepts (both problems and
solutions).  Various creative people, including A Einstein, suggested
that they were able to solve problems because they were able to approach
them in a naive, childlike way, without preconceptions.  Being rigid is
often valuable; so is being loose.  The trick is to be able to do both,
each at the right time.

>I don't expect that anyone will have 'the' answer, but some speculation
>and/or train-of-thought responses would be welcomed.  Thanks.
I can do that.
>
>Thyagi
>
   --- Bill Temps <u55533@uicvm.uic.edu>
   --- I *WISH* I had opinions of my own; I have to borrow from other
       people