Living in a different dimension_

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could choose to live in a different reality where life was just peachy to us, where studying for exams was actually fun, and eating chocolate wouldn’t make us fat?

That is what Virtual Reality (VR) could give us: a different life in a different place!

What’s the drawback? Well, first and foremost, real life sucks, I’d give anything to live in that place where eating sweets wouldn’t have any negative consequences, but that would mean I’d prefer to live in a reality that isn’t my own; second, how could you guarantee that when you got bored of this new reality and wanted to return to your real life, you’d return to your reality and not another reality that looked just like your reality?

Confusing, right?

This subject has been discussed extensively and even made into the big screen: The Matrix explores the concept of living in a VR, Inception does this with dreams, and eXistenZ explores Virtual Realities introducing them as game worlds.

Let’s disregard the other possibilities VR could mean for us and tackle this theme in a gaming angle:

As a role-playing gamer, I enjoy playing RPGs because they detract me from my real life, and put me in the role of a hero/savior/whatever, someone with voice and who makes a meaningful difference in their reality, something I am yet to achieve in mine. But this big hero is still just an avatar, a projection of me in the game world, subject of limitations imposed by the game design, story, and programming, a projection from which I can easily detach from.

But what if it were really me who made a difference and not an avatar? What if it were I who was celebrated by my heroic actions? This is a dangerous thing; a reality where you do matter is not something that is easily escapable and forgettable. Perhaps you’d find yourself wanting to go back again; perhaps you’d never want to leave…

And this is just assuming that Virtual Realities were designed just as games.

There are people who lose themselves in another reality, usually a result of a psychiatric disorder. Wouldn’t VRs, by their very nature, be considered as disorders? It seems like a frightening thing not knowing what is truly real.

The implications of Virtual Realities is a really interesting and philosophical theme, having been discussed for a long time now.

If the technology is perfected one day, I think I wouldn’t want to touch VRs with a ten-foot pole. People always say they can control themselves until they get addicted.


What about you? Would you consider yourself immersing in a Virtual Reality?