Vegas, Disney, and the Metaverse
transcript Verlag eBooks August 24, 2022 DOI: 10.1515/9783839462003-002 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Las vegas Metaverse Archaeology Human–computer interaction Virtual reality |
| Key points | Argues that classical philosophical skepticism about reality, exemplified by Zhuangzi, Narada, Plato, and Descartes, provides a framework for understanding contemporary questions about virtual worlds. |
Abstract
In his technophilosophical investigation Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy, David J. Chalmers discusses the historical skepticism about the human capacity to recognize material reality.Already in the centuries before our era, Chinese, Indian, and Greek thinkers independently raised whether humans could distinguish between what was real and what was an illusion.Chalmers outlines Zuanghzi's dream about being a butterfly, Narada's dream in which he lived an entire life as a woman, and Plato's allegory of the cave whose imprisoned inhabitants mistake distorted and selective reflections for reality.He interprets these doubts as examples of philosophical domains: "Knowledge: How can Zhuangzi know whether or not he's dreaming?Reality: Is Narada's transformation real or illusory?Value: Can one lead a good life in Plato's cave?" 1 Classical philosophy's concerns about the perceptibility of material reality continued into the modern era, culminating in Ren Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy. 2 With them, Chalmers writes, Descartes "set the agenda for centuries of Western 1 Chalmers,