Friday, February 28, 2025
Is virtual reality real? (Updated)
[This piece is reposted from 4/9/22, updated in the context of the Israel/Hamas and Ukraine/Russia wars, with reference to recent Islamic State (IS) attacks]
The phrase "virtual reality" takes a twisty path from its Latin roots. Of course, by the time children are in middle school they know what virtual reality is, but ask them to define it. Then ask yourself.
A good dictionary (in this case Merriam-Webster) covers the basics: "Virtual" is related to the noun, "virtue," which we know to mean, "a morally good quality," like integrity or honesty, from Latin virtus, "merit," "perfection," from vir, "man." The transition from vir to the rest is an etymological puzzle (while you're at it, consider "woman of virtue"), but my focus here is the equally mystifying modern usage of "virtual."
Back to the dictionary- there are three broad definitions of "virtual":
1: Modern common use: "Almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition : the troops stopped at the virtual border." Virtual borders are not official borders on a map, but de facto borders, determined by use.
Note: Only definition #1 clearly references the historic usage of virtue, retained in our word "virtuous," meaning "exhibiting virtues." In the example above, virtual borders have the "virtue" of being observed by practice, though not the virtue of being indicated on maps.
2: In Computing: "Not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to exist, e.g., a virtual doorway;" In other words, imaginary.
3: Physics: "Denoting particles or interactions with extremely short lifespans and indefinitely great energies, postulated as intermediates in some processes." That is, particles, or things, that exist for such a brief period of time that their reality as things is questionable.
One might think that virtual reality derives from definition #3, since it is the most puzzling. Does the length of time that something exists have bearing on the reality of its existence? In galactic time, humans do not exist very long. Does that mean ours is a lesser existence? That subject will have to wait for another essay, however, since virtual reality derives from #2, which means, as noted, imaginary.
[Note: I'm going to leave the definition of "reality" as "things that are real," a cop-out perhaps because Merriam-Webster informs us that "reality" derives from the Sanskrit for "property," something to do with "wealth and goods" being real things- a philosophical question for another essay.]
Under virtual reality we get: "The computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors."
The question I ask at this point is, why do we need to conceive of computer-generated simulation as a type of reality? We never had that need with novels, plays or movies. Those are not types of realities. They are imaginary.
In modern, media based culture, we seem to have concluded that reality is manufactured by us. We get support for this notion from TV news. If the news show we watch shares our bias, our brain allows the television to hook-up with its perceptual apparatus, as a sort of adjunct brain, at least mine does. When I watch a TV news report from a war front on a station matching my bias, my mind gravitates towards belief. If I watch a story on a station that does not match my bias, I am skeptical. In a twist on "confirmation bias," my brain is requiring that its perception of reality be moderated by outer mechanisms that match its bias, in other words that reality be manufactured.
In addition to the news, we have "reality shows." These are shows in which people behave in stage-managed ways that are realistic only in the sense that they are real behaviors on the show.
One could defend this new definition of reality as manufactured by pointing out that unlike past ages when, for example, young men recruited for the Crusades were told that various events were happening in the Holy Land that required invasion, those events were held to be real, not virtually real. So our culture, by holding that an event can be credited that is only virtually real though not necessarily really real, admits a pervasive doubt into our discourse, and doubt is a virtue.
But the extended context is not so hopeful- it suggests that we don't require actual reality from our media, that it is enough to produce simulated, virtual reality, as video games do.
It is in this context that I consider IS (or ISIS), which in 2014, with its professionally produced, ready for prime time video of a Jordanian pilot burning to death in a cage, realized the predictions of numerous science fiction novels, from the media-mediated wars of George Orwell's 1984 to the blurred lines between war and mass entertainment in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games. On the day the IS video was released, ABC national news anchor David Muir described its "high production values," adding that, "No Hollywood studio could have done better," as if he were delivering a movie review. In a sense he was.
The other day a friend showed me a video from a source on the Internet that purported to be a recording of the transmission from a U.S. drone that was conducting an attack on IS ground troops in Syria who were attacking the Peshmerga (Kurdish enemies of IS, thus our allies). It was a nighttime attack, the ground troops glowing white through infrared lenses. The chatter from drone control, which was hundreds or thousands of miles from the scene, was dispassionate but engaged, technical, referencing targets and coordinates, ordering rocket and 30mm fire that resulted moments later in white flashes where running forms had been. It looked exactly like a video game. I could have been pounding my thumbs blasting aliens or Kazakhs (a favorite game foe for a while). Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game comes to mind, in which hot-shot 9th grade gamers are told by the military that they are trying out a new training video, while they are in fact fighting real aliens (Spoiler alert: Book III reveals that the "invading" aliens were on a peaceful mission).
What do these musings have to do with the real IS? I should add that my point is not that IS is not real. It's hard to see how its actions could be faked. A man really was burned; people were really beheaded; many European and American cities are really being terrorized. I'm talking about the sober thinking behind IS, specifically their marketing department, and they clearly have one. The War of IS is packaged for young men the way a video game would be packaged. Consider how you'll be watching a TV show that young people also watch, and suddenly there's a commercial for a video game showing CGI heroes blasting a variety of monsters, with titles like End of Doom Part III! Now it's Return of ISIS- The Reckoning!
Commentators have wondered where IS comes from and what it wants. It is not a country, or associated with one. It has no past as an established enemy. But its genesis in no secret. IS formed in reaction to persecutions of Iraqi Sunnis by U.S. imposed Shia leaders, after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq that toppled Sunni leader Saddam Hussein. IS was in effect born of U.S. policy, continuing the pattern of post-World War II conflicts in which we indulge our need to fight enemies by creating them- as we do with video games.
In other words, IS is not entirely real. Virtually, though, it's real enough. It certainly has no problem with ratings, though IS is at heart a transitory organization, dependent on outside support. On its own it does not have the staying power of a profitable video game. The best outcome would be to win this war quickly, as well as virtually and really.
[Update, 11/4/23: The Israel/Hamas war is both real and virtual. In America its reality is bolstered because many people instantly identify with one side or the other, and because people on both sides are maimed and killed. The virtual parts are the competing storylines of the conflict's background, such that someone new to the subject could read all the opposing accounts from biblical times to October 7th, 2023, and come away with no idea what to think, because the same assumed facts and historical fragments, accepted by each side but filtered through different perspectives, support antithetical narratives and draw antithetical conclusions. On top of this, since the October 7th attack, two new antithetical storylines explaining the purpose and nature of the attack have unfolded, as specific as the Manhattan Project in their intent, creating two groups of people living in opposite realities: fissionable material when the two groups are in contact, social atom bombs to be manipulated and ignited as one would physical bombs. Americans who manage to remain “undecided” or "unaligned" through the pressure to choose between these realities (due to our freedom of speech we get both storylines) will be overruled by the passion and argumentation of those who are sure of their place in the struggle].
[Update, 6/11/25: The two post- Oct. 7 narratives have reached a dangerous intensity, with a worldwide audience believing either that Israel is genocidally starving and killing innocent people, or that Gaza's 2 million people, if unrestrained, would storm into Israel and kill every Israeli they could find. There's plenty of commentary on the situation; my only point is that it was pre-planned. Hyper-inflamed emotions were the desired outcome. The effects of increasing conflict will be felt far beyond the region. The local explosion will be used as a match to ignite other flammable potential (e.g. war with Iran). There are enough such ignition points (now including Occupied Los Angeles] to light the whole world on fire. The good news (maybe) is that the fires will be somewhat controlled to ensure that an AI mediated, bioengineered new humanity will come out the other end.
[Update, 3/23/24: Available sources suggest that IS is funded from continually shifting politics, which helps explain its unclear meaning. The obscurity deepened after the horrific attack of 3/22/24 on concert-going civilians in Russia, for which a putative IS took credit. Russia says the attack was directed by Ukraine, with no reference to IS. Hamas says that Israel and the CIA directed the attack through IS. The U.S. says that IS is an independent terrorist group that committed the attack independently, as indicated by its claiming to have done so. The "facts" on all sides are as antithetical to each other as the "facts" on either side of Israel vs Hamas/Hezbollah, or Ukraine vs. Russia. This is purposeful. We are not supposed to understand what's going on with these potential triggers of World War III, but it's clear what's going on: Current civilization is under threat of being dismantled by violent covert and overt forces. I don't recommend total pessimism, but to avoid it we need a politically influential group that describes and discusses things as they are, to save us from intellectual suffocation and keep hope alive.]
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