Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit Subscriptions.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Digital Philosophy

Is VR Meaningful Escapism?

Amir Haj-Bolouri enquires into possible meaning through technology.

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.

…