Virtual Worlds

Personal Thoughts

Bridging the real and the virtual

• moving away from personal computing
  • started off with timeshare
  • personal computing
  • now streaming EVERYTHING to the cloud
  • devices will just be viewing places https://www.mightyapp.com/

No matter how hard we try, our virtual selves will inevitably be tethered to our physical selves. Interface with these virtual worlds through looking at our screens, typing on our keyboards, etc. even with a pseudonymous-web that is not supposedly tied to anything in the physical realm.

Related to: digital-commons

VR

Physical bodies perceive the senses that are input from the VR machine. Brain in a vat experiment? question of representation and whether we need embedded systems

LGBT community – exploring gender identity. Super easy to express this online, and flexibility to do this more safely in an online space.

Reality privilege:

• Can explore things, can get fully immersed in a virtual world safely
• Don’t have the same privilege online
• Is the concept of utopia only a reality for those who can afford to not worry about physiological health? Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Crypto

Still needs to be converted to fiat? Can we have a fully crypto economy?

Physical Touch

“One concern, though, is that some social skills may not develop as effectively when so many interactions exist online. We learn how we are and aren’t supposed to act by observing others and then having opportunities to act out our observations ourselves.”

“On the internet, you can pull the plug and walk away. There’s no forcing mechanism that makes us have to learn” -> how do we keep people digitally accountable ?

Dunbar and his colleagues demonstrated that very light touch triggers a cascade of endorphins that, in turn, are important for creating personal relationships. Can this be replicated virtually?

Descartes

First Meditation → skeptical doubts

• descartes wants to find a foundation of knowledge that will still stand strong even after doubting the most basic facts about the world
• everything descartes has accepted has true has come through senses, but senses can deceive
• First Argument
  1. Some experiences are deceptive (e.g. visual illusions, mirages)
  2. Any particular experience I have might be deceptive
  3. It is possible that all my experiences are deceptive
• Counterexample to first argument
  • Some paintings are forgegeries
  • Any particular painting might be a forgery
  • It is possible that all paintings are forgeries
  • can’t be possible because all paintings if all paintings are forgeries, what are they based off of?
• Descartes' objection to First Argument
  • premise 2 doesn’t work → any particular experience I have might be deceptive
  • I am sure of my own thoughts
    • And yet to have these doubts, he must exist. For an evil demon to mislead him in all these insidious ways, he must exist in order to be misled.
    • Therefore, thought above all else is inseparable from being. The Meditator concludes that, in the strict sense, he is only a thing that thinks.

Dream Argument

• Premises
  1. i have dreamt at being at my desk
  2. when i dreamt it, i believed it was true
  3. when i dreamt it, it was false
  4. there is no way to tell whether you are dreaming or awake
• Conclusion → i don’t know that I am here at my desk right now
• as premise 4 is roughly equivalent to the conclusion, this argument is invalid
  • begs the question → argument which has a premise as a conclusion (circular reasoning)

The God argument

• suppose there exists an evil demon, just as powerful as God, but which deceives me about everything he can
• descartes refutation
  • it seems possible for there to be such a person
  • if there were such a person, then everything I believe would be false
  • I can’t tell that there isn’t such a person
  • so, I don’t really know anything I thought i knew

Nozick

• hedonism → only pleasure or pain motivates us

Experience machine

• suppose there was a machine that would give you any experience you desired
• would you plug in?

1. If “how things seem to be” is the only thing that matters to us, we have no reason to refuse this offer

2. we are hesitant to take up this offer (we have reasons to refuse it)

   1. “We want to docertain things, and not just have the experience of doing them.” (43)
   2. “… we want to be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person.” (43)
   3. We want to leave ourselves open to contact with a deeper reality.
   • what if we made machines to tackle all of this reasons? e.g. a transformation machine, result machine, etc.
   • these machines are disturbing because they are living our lives for us

3. therefore, experiences aren’t the only thing that matter to us