The VR Philosophy Course

The following workbook contains twelve distinct assignments that are based on various virtual reality applications and games currently available on the Oculus Quest 2 headset (now rebranded as Meta). Each module focuses on a different aspect of philosophical inquiry, ranging from existentialism to idealism to political science to consciousness studies to the latest developments in artificial intelligence, etc. The structure of each assignment is as follows: 1. Instruction. 2. Reading. 3. VR engagement. 4. Completion. While several of the modules include writing essays, usually in an autobiographical or experimental format, many are concerned with creating new and distinctive content within virtual reality. This includes composing a short soundtrack to accompany a particularly ponderous and deep insight, constructing a new version of Plato’s famous “Allegory of the Cave,” and building a unique city from the ground up to better understand the checks and balances necessary to manage a thriving and industrious community.  This workbook is just one of three required for the “Virtual Reality Philosophy Course” being offered here at Mt. San Antonio College. The second one is entitled, Digital Teleportation: A Philosophic Journey in Virtuality, which at over three hundred pages long contains twenty-five original articles on neuroscience, machine learning, evolutionary biology, and the future of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. The third required text, and the guiding philosophical overview for the class, is David Chalmers’ book, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy.

As a philosophy professor at Mt. San Antonio College for the past thirty-three years, I have taken a decidedly scientific orientation in almost all of my courses. Because of this, students are encouraged to ground their studies in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology whenever possible when trying to answer problems that they confront in their intellectual lives. Such a consilient approach is naturally multi-disciplinary in scope and thus when the more mature sciences cannot adequately explain a given phenomenon it is important (indeed necessary) to incorporate psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and even religious studies to have a more comprehensive purview. Yet, and this is still a controversial issue in the humanities, I argue that philosophy done well is science and when it is done poorly it remains . . .  well, philosophy. This is not to disrespect or dismiss philosophical thinking, but only to underline the salient fact that when intellectual queries are answered successfully they invariably branch off and become part and parcel of science itself. Throughout history, philosophy has served as a vital and practical way to ferret out which questions have empirical referents (and possible answers which resolve the perceived conundrum) and those that appear nearly impossible to solve. The following essays focus on consciousness, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, computer science, virtual and augmented reality, and more. Each chapter stands on its own and doesn’t require prior knowledge about the subject, though having a background in philosophical and scientific thinking is a plus. These essays, with a few exceptions, were originally published in Europe on the Integral World website during the past decade. I have added a postscript to several essays to bring them up to date and add the latest insights culled from the latest research in all things related to A.I. and V.R. 

EXTRA CREDIT, OPTIONAL. GUARDIAN REVIEW:  Over 544 pages, Chalmers argues that virtual reality (VR) is in fact “genuine reality”. Chalmers taught himself to write computer programs at the age of 10 and discovered his first virtual world in 1976, the text-based Colossal Cave Adventure. Today he regularly uses different VR systems: “I put on a headset, open an application, and suddenly I’m in a virtual world,” he writes. In VR he has assumed a female body, visited Mars, grappled with assassins, and taken to the skies like a bird. During the pandemic he regularly used it to discuss philosophy, meeting up with his “merry band of fellow philosophers”. Although the technology may still be somewhat clunky, he notes, “we had the sense of inhabiting a common world”. Facebook’s recent rebranding as Meta – short for “metaverse”, a term borrowed from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash – signalled the growing importance of these new immersive cyber technologies. Facebook’s Oculus Quest headset is already available and Apple is due to release one soon. Augmented reality (AR) is also improving, offering a way of experiencing the world that is part virtual and part physical, with digital objects or text overlaid across the visual field. Chalmers thinks AR could initially be more influential than VR, replacing screen-based computing entirely. As the technology progresses, AR glasses or contact lenses may be superseded by retinal or brain implants. A brain-computer interface would allow our eyes and other sense organs to be bypassed, affording access to a complete range of simulated sensual experiences. Ultimately, this will transform how we live, work and think: “My guess is that within a century we will have virtual realities that are indistinguishable from the nonvirtual world,” Chalmers predicts.