How the True World Finally Became Virtual Reality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3986/fv.42.2.13Keywords:
virtual reality, information, knowledge, metaphysics, becomingAbstract
As David J. Chalmers claims, “virtual reality is a sort of genuine reality, virtual objects are real objects, and what goes on in virtual reality is truly real.” In this paper, I will suggest that the philosophical hypothesis that we might live in a simulation can be considered to be the last and most nihilistic episode in the series of narrations about the true and apparent worlds that Nietzsche sketched in The Twilight of the Idols. I will argue that Nietzsche’s prediction about the obliteration of the apparent world has actually been fulfilled by Chalmers, and I will show why his theory must be considered one of the many fables that humans have been producing in order to organise the world according to their own ends.
Downloads
References
Ayer, A. J., “Editor’s Introduction”, in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York, Free Press, 1959, pp. 3–28.
Beane, Silas R., Zohreh Davoudi, and Martin J. Savage, “Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation”, The European Physical Journal A, 50 (148/2014), pp. 1–9.
Bostrom, Nick, “Are you living in a computer simulation?”, Philosophical Quarterly, 53 (211/2003), pp. 243–255.
Carnap, Rudolph, “Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache”, Erkenntnis, 2 (1/1932), pp. 219–241.
Carnap, Rudolph, “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language”, trans. A. Pap, in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York, Free Press, 1959, pp. 60–81.
Chalmers, David J., “The Matrix as Metaphysics”, http://consc.net/papers/matrix.html, accessed 25 July 2021.
Chalmers, David J., Constructing the World, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012.
Chalmers, David J., “The Virtual and the Real”, Disputatio, 9 (46/2017), pp. 309–352.
Clark, Andy, Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technology and the Future of Human Intelligence, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.
Metzinger, Thomas K., “Why Is Virtual Reality Interesting for Philosophers?”, Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 5 (101/2018), doi: 10.3389/frobt.2018.00101, pp. 1–19.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Will to Power, trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, New York, Vintage Books, 1968.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Twilight of the Idols, in The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings, trans. J. Norman, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave”, trans. T. Sheehan, https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf, accessed 25 July 2021.
Wheeler, John Archibald, “Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links”, in W. H. Zurek (ed.), Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information, Boston, Addison-Wesley, 1990, pp. 3–28.
Downloads
Published
Versions
- 2022-04-06 (2)
- 2021-12-31 (1)
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
More in: Submission chapter
