Hear His Voice, Click
"We can never re-create the human mind through AI, but we can re-create the whole empirical world through VR," the author makes such a radical yet convincingly justified claim.
Is Virtual Reality merely a video game that totally consumes and distracts the player immersed in its simulations? Or is VR an immaterial world rich with meaning that beckons humanity to migrate into a better future world held inside computers? Philip Zhai tackles this contemporary question with keen logical analysis and concludes by advocating a standpoint that transcends these two opposing views of Virtual Reality.
According to Zhai, the combination of the three technologies -- digital simulation, sensory immersion, and functional teleoperation-- in a well-coordinated manner amounts to a Re- Creation of the whole empirically perceived universe. This is not a mere metaphor of Trinity. Virtual Reality could literally replace the actual reality if we choose to live in this newly-created world. Zhai in this book provides an ontological proof based on astounding yet carefully crafted thought experiments and cogent philosophical reasoning. He leads us to realize that: 1) whatever reasons we have for justifying the materiality of the actual world will have the equal validity for justifying the materiality of the virtual world once we are immersed in it; 2) whatever reasons we have for calling perceived objects in the virtual world illusory are equally applicable for calling those in the actual world illusory; 3) whatever functions we need to perform in the actual world for our survival and prosperity, including production and procreation, can also be performed in the virtual world. The danger lies, however, in the possibility of a total reality blackout when the Reality Engine breaks down, which is comparable to a natural disaster on the cosmic level in the actual world.
Zhai also provides a rigorous analysis of why strong AI as proposed by Daniel Dennett and other believers is impossible and why John Searle's criticism is off the mark and also fallacious. He shows how the parallelism between the virtual and the actual world must hinge upon the unity of the human mind as the center of perception, which is the pre-condition for the spatial locality of the empirical world.
Later chapters deal with the normative issue of the desirability of Virtual Reality. The discussion is based on the author's highly original concept of Humanitude developed in his previously published book. He draws on various classical philosophers and also argues with contemporary thinkers through masterful logical analyses and lively phenomenological descriptions. According to him, the only important difference between the actual and the virtual world is that we are co-creators of the latter: Gods 'R Us.
As Michael Heim -- internationally known as "the philosopher of cyberspace" -- says, "Zhai's book is a must-read for anyone interested in the implications of simulation and immersion technology." The thought experiments presented here are as mind- boggling and entertaining as any plots in a science fiction story, yet they are able to put you into alternating states of excitement and enlightenment. If you are a seasoned philosopher, chapters on VR's implications for philosophy of mind and other metaphysical issues will very likely challenge you to re-examine the starting point of philosophical reasoning; if you are a beginner, this book will lead you from the ground up to the frontier of the philosophical enterprise. If you work in a technical field of VR or information industry at large, this book will help you form a clear vision about the future possibilities of electronic revolution. In general, anybody with a decent educational background will benefit a great deal from reading this eye-opening and groundbreaking book.
Philip Zhai holds a Bachelor's degree in engineering and a Ph.D. in philosophy. He is the author of the book, The Radical Choice and Moral Theory, and numerous articles. He also plays musical instruments and composes music. He has taught philosophy at Univ. of Kentucky, Muhlenberg College, Millsaps College, Moravian College. He has also been invited to deliver lectures around the world on various occasions. He is now spending most of his time on designing and writing software programs, while continuing to write philosophy books. You can reach him by e-mail at philipzz@hotmail.com or see his picture by clicking here.
Acknowledgements
Preface
Chapter 1. How to Go "behind" Physical Space
§1. Playing the Game: Get Wired to Go Weird
Shootout in Cyberspace
Immersed in the Game and Never to Return?
§2. What If Now ...
Imagination Gone Wild Yet Intellect Disciplined
Totally Lost in Disney's Space Odyssey
Reality Unreal or What?
See the Sound and Hear the Color
Summary: Equally Ignorant
§3. Cross-Communication Situations
Mis-Located Bodies
Adam and Bob Messed Up
A Fundamental Ambiguity
What Is the Catch?
Teleportation with a Helmet
A Smart Brain That Knows Not
§4. Interpersonal-Telepresence: I Am Here!
Brain Switch without Surgery
Self-Identity versus Other-Identity
John Locke Is Locked Out
Summary: A Person Is Nowhere
§5. The Community of Interpersonal-Telepresence
Go Places at Will
The Body Goes Public
The Survivor of a Fatal Accident
Again I Am Nowhere
What Is Colored but Shapeless?
You Are Now behind the Space!
Summary: Personal Identity without Space
§6. The Principle of Reciprocity
From the One Seeing Many
Where Is Virtual Reality?
Jaron Calls It an Illusion
Natural versus Artificial
Don't Worry But Watch Out
Chapter 2. The Causal and the Digital under the Virtual
§1. The Four Sources of Virtual Reality Input
Get Immersed
Input in the Opposite Direction
§2. Manipulation of the Physical Process from Cyberspace
Survive and Prosper in Cyberspace
You Are an Agent
Efficiency Matters and...
§3. Cybersex and Reproduction
The Explosive Paul and the Implosive Mary
Copulating and Procreating
The Erotic Ontology
A Dangerous Idea
§4. The Expansion beyond Necessity
Get Rich by Doing the Impossible
Simulations Don't Count
Optional Local Continuity and David Hume
A Hypothesis to Be Tested by Psychologists
Space Further Re-Configured
The Economy of Inside-Out Control
Gods 'R Us
§5. Interaction among Participants
Jump and Get Real
Let Your Partner Paint Your Body Or Whatever
Back to CCS
§6. The Final Decision That Is Irreversible: Alert!
VR for Today
Build a VR Museum Right Now Please
But Should We Do It?
Chapter 3. The Parallelism between the Virtual and the Actual
§1. Deconstructing Rules for the "Real" and the "Illusory"
Cookies Are Served
The Gunman Wants My Rolex
Robots Are Taking Over!
Summary: Seven T-Rules Gone in Order
Rotating the Fork
§2. Communicative Rationality as the Final Rule
Bishop Berkeley Says Thusly
The Final Rule: Relativism Prevented
Foundational Part of VR No Less Real
But Is the Gunman Real?
§3. How Phenomenological Descriptions Are the Same Throughout
Two Evaporating "Hard Facts"
Optional Reality Is Fake
The Myth of Singularity
Summary: Three Principles of Reflexivity
§4. Fundamental Philosophical Questions Remain
Lao Tzu Debating Berkeley
The Quarrelsome Rationalists
A New Turn of the Mind
No Expiration Date
New Creation Story?
Chapter 4. All Are Optional Except the Mind
§1. John Searle's False Notion of Body Image in the Brain
Temporality Inherent in the Mind
The Amputee and John Searle's Confusion
The Whole Universe in My Brain?
The Credit Searle Deserves
But More Disastrous...
A Pain with an Index
A Real Pain Which Is Nowhere
Daniel Dennett Wrong in the Same Way
The Cart and the Horse
Zhai or Dennett
Summary: Back to the First-Person
§2. The Fallacy of Unity Projection
No Dualism
Quantum Mechanics
Don't Be Self-Defeating
Hofstdater and Tipler Also Guilty
Brain Discredited
Why Mind Is Not a Computer
Is a Stone Also Conscious?
Hello Mr. Stapp
Einstein's Brain
§3. The One-ness of Consciousness, Brain, and Quantum Mechanics
Emperor Penrose's Mind
Dare to Dream
Back to the Future?
The Split Self
Why Care about Your Future Pain?
§4. A Conjecture: The Square Root of -1 as the Psy-Factor
Theoretical Physicists Are Invited
Verifying Claims Made by Mystics
Chapter 5. The Meaning of Life and Virtual Reality
§1. Recapitulation and Anticipation
Reciprocity
Virtually Do It All
Really Illusory
Ontology of the Mind
§2. Meaning as Different from Happiness
Orgy-Porgy
The Right to Be Unhappy
Optimism from the Frontier
The Lawnmower Man
Zombie or Pure Spirit?
§3. Meaning and the Creator
Is God's Life Meaningless?
Gods 'R Us again
Creatures and Dirt
To Believe or Not to Believe
§4. Significant Difference vs. Real Difference
Fake Mona Lisa etc.
Another Sense of the Real
Real but Irrelevant
The Meaningful as the Central Concern
An Unsuccessful Rich Man
He Is Happy But He Has Failed
A Homeless Millionaire
In What Way Am I Morally Responsible?
Try More by Yourself
Meaning of Life Right Under Your Eyelashes
§5. Three Modes of Subjectivity and Intentionality
Subjective but Fair
Logical Positivism and Its Discontent
Be Proud of Subjectivity
Does a Hole Exist?
The Trinity of Subjectivity
The Conative Mode
The Communicative Mode
Schlick's Concern
The Constitutive Mode
Back to Virtual Reality
Intentionality not Cultural Relativity
The Meaning of "Meaning"
§6. Meaning, Ideality, and Humanitude
Humanitude versus Human Nature
How Can We Understand Each Other?
Leave Human Nature and Go Home
Materiality Discredited Again
§7. Virtual Reality: The Way Home
Ethics of Intentional Reality
The Merge of the Experiential and the Meaningful
The Good and the Virtual
Should We Erase the Boundary?
Chapter 6. VR and the Destiny of Humankind
§1. The Fragility of Technological Civilization
The "Dark Side" of Cyberspace
Don't Abandon this World!
No Hero in the Wife's Eye
Nothing Is Thick
Biologically Mortal
§2. The Question of Death
Meaningfully Immortal
Death Never Experienced
§3. Transcendence of Personhood and Immortality
Little Anthony's Dying Wish
The Little Boy's Immortal Personhood
My Grand-Grandchildren and Beth's Step Father
Pleasing yet Worthless Life
Human Soul Refurbished
Humanitude Re-Visited
§4. What Could Happen Soon
No Hype
Take a Virtual Shower
Shopping on the Web
VR Conferencing
Making Love while Continents Apart
Walk through...
Educational VR and Virtual Art
§5. Virtual Reality and the Ontological Re-Creation
Let's Swim in the Sea of Meaning
The Media That Shape Our Being
The Metaphysical Maturity of Civilization
Note: "Humanitude" is a concept This author developed in his book
previously published, The Radical Choice and Moral Theory,
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994.
Appendix: Jaron Lanier's Virtual Realty Interview
Bibliography
Glossary
Index
See the section on Cybersex and Human Reproduction
Read his poems in Chinese here!
In Association with Amazon.com,
Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality
Philip Zhai
Artificial Life and Virtual Reality
Nadia Magnenat Thalmam, Daniel Thalmam
Computers of the Future : Intelligent Machines and Virtual Reality (Beyond 2000)
David J. Darling
Cybercities : Visual Perception in the Age of Electronic
Communication
M. Christine Boyer
Garage Virtual Reality
Linda Jacobson
How Virtual Reality Works (How It Works)
Joshua Eddings
Possible Worlds : The Social Dynamic of Virtual Reality
Technology
Ralph Schroeder
Step into Virtual Reality/Book and Disk
John Iovine
Virtual Realities and Their Discontents
Robert Markley (Editor)
The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical
Age
Allucquere Rosanne Stone
War of the Worlds : Cyberspace and the High-Tech Assault on
Reality
Mark Slouka
Communication in the Age of Virtual Reality (Communication)
Frank Biocca, Levy Mark R. (Editor)
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