Is VR Meaningful Escapism?

Amir Haj-Bolouri enquires into possible meaning through technology.

- Amir Haj-Bolouri

Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) is considered the perfect technology for extending the experiences we have in the physical world. Through it, we can represent and simulate the past, the present and the future. And through the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence, modern VR experiences are not only realistically convincing, but also smart. As such, IVR experiences can increasingly be a creative product of human imagination. Moreover, the IVR experience is 'immersive' in the way that it turns the user into a 'being-in-the-virtual-world' - that is, an embodied avatar, dynamically present, and capable of accomplishing 'magic' - teleportation across virtual worlds, walking through walls, hiding inside furniture, or generally, exercising the god-like power of being able to define the (virtual) reality around us. The immersive effect is arguably dependent on the sensory configuration of IVR technology, in that it provides an enclosed visual field for the user, headphones that cancel out the sound of the outside world, and haptic devices that can provide sensory feedback loops of touch, pain, heat or cold.

However, with the possibilities that IVR increasingly affords us also come existential questions, and thoughts about the distinction between what's real and what is a layer of illusion. One might wonder where reality begins and ends, especially when IVR experiences will begin to extend the world we engage with on a daily basis. David Chalmers argues in Reality+ (2022) that virtual reality is genuine reality because we can live meaningful lives there; and increasingly, we will. Subsequently, Chalmers invokes questions such as: What is reality, anyway? How can we live a meaningful life? And how do we know there is an external world independent of human experience?

Of course, through the ages, philosophers have questioned our conceptions of reality. One famous example is provided by Hilary Putnam in