Ep 115: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 5 “Virtual Reality”

Although an episode devoted to "virtual reality" may seem quirky, parochial or quaint: the fact is that the concept of virtual reality runs very deep. Our understanding of reality is via virtual reality: that conjuring of the external physical world that our minds manage to do. I cannot do better than a part of the chapter itself where David writes "All reasoning, all thinking and all external experience are forms of virtual reality. These things are physical processes which so far have been observed in only one place in the universe, namely the vicinity of the planet Earth. We shall see... that all living processes involve virtual reality too, but human beings in particular have a special relationship with it. Biologically speaking, the virtual-reality rendering of their environment is the characteristic means by which human beings survive. In other words, it is the reason why human beings exist."(1) These are lofty claims but as always - as appropriate for this book, grounded entirely in reality and understood through reason. I refer to this chapter in some senses as the "synecdoche" chapter: a part of the book that represents the whole. (1) Deutsch, David. The Fabric of Reality (Penguin Science) (p. 121). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.