Allan's Philosophy Podcast Headline Animator

Allan's Philosophy Podcast

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Phun-size Philosophy # 73 – Reality vs. Virtual Reality

The difference between reality and virtual reality is really based upon physical and digital properties. Virtual reality can be used to describe and can cover the sub areas of computer aided realities where it is almost a combination of the two like photoreality and cyberspace. It is important to realize that you can do so much more virtually than you can in real life like computers and technology allow us to shoot zombie Nazis or fight aliens or take over the lives of soccer stars as they attempt to defeat their rivals. I love technology for the simple fact that it extends human capabilities far beyond the normal natural limits that our bodies impose on us. We can instantly zoom through the earth in Google Earth or talk to robots through cleverbot.com. Technology isn’t just applicable to virtual reality however as it lets us carry out some amazing feats in real life as well. It lets us do things that at one point we never thought possible like flying in jet pack or being able to life hundreds of pounds with an exoskeleton. Technology completely changes the landscapes of our lives and fortunately for us, we live in a time where it is rapidly advancing at an exponential rate. Even 10 years ago we are able to do things that would have never been possible with our restrictive technological abilities. Basically every facet of life has been advanced in some way through technology like entertainment. In recent years, our virtual “lives” have seen enormous growth especially socially through applications like Facebook. If Facebook were a country it would be the third biggest one. With amazing feats like this, it is no surprise that we thousands of hours of video are at our fingertips or that we can instantly chat with people across the world. With all of these great advancements technology can have especially virtually, it is important to realize how vital maintaining a real life is. No I’m not going to tell you that you need to exercise or something like that but there are certain things in real life you can’t do online. Whether it is writing a letter or playing a board game, there are some things that, while they may be replaceable online, I feel like will still be around for a long time. While most of them might seem boring or slow, they are usually more personal because you actually have to take the time to do them. While you can still send an email or play Uno online with friends, it still doesn’t feel the same as sitting down with the family to play games like some may have done during Thanksgiving. I feel that these real world things won’t become obsolete in our generation but I do believe that the future may unfortunately be one in which people never leave their homes because the social norms of today wont have a traditional foundation to follow. Unless we instill the values of today into our kids of tomorrow, they will have no reason to follow in our footsteps, but with new technology being developed at such a high rate is that necessarily a bad thing?

No comments:

Post a Comment