The Validity of Living in a Virtual Reality
A reimagining of a thought experiment with too small a scope
At a cool meetup set up by James L. Walpole, he brought up the Experience Machine thought experiment. Fortunately, he inadvertently changed the almost obviously answerable original idea, the Pleasure Machine; which was first posed to prove that hedonism was not the end goal for humans, that people want more than to just experience pleasure. That’s an easy experiment with an easy conclusion. ‘No, of course I wouldn't want to live in simulation that just made me experience pleasure. Even if my idea of pleasure is technically complex, it’s still too easy and would always feel undeserved and fake.’
However, James’ inadvertent shift was far more broad and complex and engaging a thought experiment. ..
Would you choose to live in a virtual world, where you can do whatever you want, but with full knowledge that you were in this created reality, or live in the real world?
This. Is. Fascinating.
This shows and tells so much about who people are, what they want, how they perceive the world, and just a… a veritable gold mine drilling down to the essence of a person.
Many will have the same answer, at first; ‘No.. of course not, it’s all fake, and I’d know it’s fake, it wouldn’t mean anything.’
That was my first answer… my gut answer. But that wasn’t the right answer… not for me.
It didn’t speak to who I am.
The problem with that answer is many people, by default, look at the surface level: the obvious similarities between this unfamiliar, theoretical reality, and the one we’re in right now. Thus they liken it to games. Escapism.
No matter how good a game is, how fun or how much time and effort you spent into getting your character to the highest level, it doesn't actually mean anything.. its all fake. There is still a real life you have to come back to and deal with.
But that perception in and of itself is wrong, illogical, and inconsistent with this version of the thought experiment.
A game is meant to have a goal, a thing to accomplish. Once you do, it's over. You can leave or play again or keep playing aimlessly, but the end-game has been reached. Furthermore, games are not exclusive to a medium, nor a medium to games.
Just because something is virtual does not mean it is a game.
You can make life a game… many people do… but that does not mean life is objectively a game, or that it objectively cannot be a game. It is up to your perception of life to dictate if it is a game or not.
You can not (try to) change or even ‘tell’ someone their perception is wrong. You can take issue with it, point out inconsistencies, make them feel dissonance… but in the end, their perception is still their perception. If it is real to them, than it may as well be.. even if it's not ‘real life’.
Thusly, living in a Virtual Reality… is by no means any less real than our current reality.
If anything,
An engineered reality may be more real for each individual, because they can be their true, authentic self…
Without any reason or societal pressure to conform or to follow someone else’s rules or to put on a mask to hide their true feelings and thoughts from others.
Granted, none of that is impossible in our reality… you dont have to conform or put on a mask to live in this reality. We can choose to live a life of freedom.
And it is exactly That. Desire. To live. Free…
That makes living in a Virtual World perfectly okay, and even the right thing to do, for you… if you so desire.
Going further:
Many people may be misperceiving the multiverse… but I’ll keep that for the next article…
Either way, living in a Virtual Reality does not mean less value, or fake experiences, or meaningless achievements… if anything, there is more fulfillment to be had, because you have more cause and less limits to live the life you want to live.
It opens up the market(s) for far more services, commerce, and ideas than ever would be possible in just our world/reality alone…
You see, the best thing about this expanded thought experiment is that is is not closed in scope. It does not have firm conditions…
The only assumptions it posits is:
1) You can live in a virtual reality world
2) You know that you are living in virtual reality
The beauty of this is in what you assume to also be true…
- Do you assume that you’ll be the god of this VR world? That your experience will be like that of ‘god-mode’ in a game?
- Do you assume that this is just one world, one small planet, or even one virtual city that you are inherently constrained within?
- Do you assume that you cannot communicate with anybody else? That you will be in this world all by yourself, or that you’ll be unable to communicate or trade with people back on earth?
- Do you assume that any accomplishments or experiences you have will not be recognized or useful to others?
Whatever additional assumptions you have are indications of you!
Your mindset, your fears, your hopes, your desires… Your limits.
The assumptions you add on to this very broad and nebulous scope is a proxy for highlighting that which you care about, and that which you worry about.
For me, after really thinking about the pure idea of simply living in a virtual reality… I realized that it poses an abundance of opportunities that I’d never be able to experience in ‘real life’. I realized that ‘reality,’ to me, is simply any place that I can live.
VR is just another location.
Like moving and living in Japan or somewhere in Europe, in Africa, or out in space, beyond the bounds of Earth… VR is simply another locale, and just like when you move to a new place, with a new environment, you have the opportunity to craft a fresh new identity. The same goes for (a) virtual reality.
Living in a Virtual Reality means moving to a new home, where I can craft an identity without the inherent limits and restrictions of ‘real life’. If it is up to me, I can tune the settings such that I have just enough time and resources and difficulty to invent whatever ideas I have. Even ones that seem nigh impossible back on Vanilla Earth. Here, in a virtual reality, I can explore and adventure through space, and through dimensions, and with magic and science and anything else then turn around and share that experience.
Because in my virtual reality, I have no assumptions that I am alone. I can go and find ‘real people’ living in this virtual reality that is not even constrained by dimensions or universes. I could live in a multiverse, where every person that ever opted to live in VR has their own universe (or living in a shared universe) of which I can in turn visit.
I dont limit myself nor assume limits where there are not.
That is what I learned about myself (and others) while truly diving deep into this expanded thought experiment.
The only limits, are those we set for ourselves.
In my VR world, I can sell or give away my creations and experiences to those living in ‘boring’ old Vanilla Earth. I can even interact and live in a living universe rife with sentient AI that take the form of humans… or meet aliens in my travels through the ‘verse… And because the AI are sentient… they in turn could be far more intelligent than me or anyone else back on Vanilla Earth, and could have created their own realities and dimensions and sciences and magicks…
The possibilities are quite literally infinite.
In fact, even reaching beyond this thought experiment…. VR is and will be the biggest frontier to our world… our economy… and our way of life… it fundamentally changes the meaning, value, and idea of life…
There is so much more to be said about this, but in short, I would most definitely live in a Vertiverse… but only if and when this virtual universe reaches the point where it is a living, breathing reality in and of itself.
What about you? Think beyond the Experience Machine and the video games of today. What kind of life will you live in a Virtual Reality?
What limits do you set for yourself?
