Embrace virtual worlds as a new reality, says philosopher

It is hard to imagine humans spending their lives in virtual reality when the experience amounts to waving your arms about in the middle of the lounge with a device the size of a house brick strapped to your face.

Ian Sample

But this is where humanity is heading, says the philosopher David Chalmers , who argues for embracing the fate. Advances in technology will deliver virtual worlds that rival and then surpass the physical realm. And with limitless, convincing experiences on tap, the material world may lose its allure, he told the Guardian.

Chalmers, a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, makes the case to embrace VR in his new book, Reality+ . Renowned for articulating “the hard problem” of consciousness – which inspired Tom Stoppard ’s play of the same name – Chalmers sees technology reaching the point where virtual and physical are sensorily the same and people live good lives in VR.

“A common way of thinking about virtual realities is that they’re somehow fake realities . I think that’s wrong,” he says. “The virtual worlds we’re interacting with can be as real as our ordinary physical world. Virtual reality is genuine reality.”