I cannot think about virtual reality without being grounded in how it differs from reality. Bottom line is that it does not replace reality, it only adds a new experience of a reality, in some sense. You cannot ask any question about reality without getting drawn into philosophy and questions about reality are core to philosophical inquiry. Since that wasn’t my focus of study in school I am playing catchup and I am now look at Hegel and Kant, two of the more notoriously difficult writers. But I think I have gotten a couple points from Hegel and I want to write them out.
The concept of geist (literal translation ghost but more nuanced) is central to what Hegel had to say about history. What I will say here may make Hegel scholars cringe but it is my interpretation as well as my understanding of the human condition. So I will build on this idea, right or wrong, until I find a need to rethink it.
We perceive ourselves as individuals with free will. That can sometimes be a useful fiction that blocks progress in understanding. As social creatures we are thrown into a society with its culture and are therefore subject to the social forces which shape and control us. Many people perceive these forces without that kind of orientation toward sociology and some rebel at the perceived coercion. In particular I have heard many so-called libertarians complain about control and blame the government. In reality government is created and controlled by people as an institution of our society. Yet no single person can be blamed for the shape of our government. It shapes us and we shape it over a long period of time. It is dynamic in the US system. (I recognize all the political fine points here but they are irrelevant to my main points about the geist.) The geist is the repository of cultural and social norms.
Language too has a repository. Every language community must have generally agreed upon meanings for words or else effective communication is impossible. Since so much of culture and society is linguistically based, I put that shared repository of the language community into geist as well.
Hegel is best known for his philosophy of history. Any society has periods of stability. This can lead to a belief that society is static but it cannot be further from the truth. Every vibrant society is actually a highly dynamic system filled with conflict that is kept in balance, in part by the social rules, the geist. As long as no conflict becomes disruptive to that society it will continue in a relatively harmonious fashion. But to Hegel that cannot be true long term. At some point some idea will permeate the society and raise a conflict that will not be balanced by the structures of that society. The conflict will eventually be resolved through some means, be it major reform or revolution. But the society cannot continue with the conflict unresolved. Once resolved the society reverts to a new dynamic system with the forces in balance.
In Hegel’s words, the society in its balanced form is the thesis. That thesis is challenged by some alternative to the status quo which he calls the antithesis. The resolution of the opposing forces resolves into a new dynamic system which he calls the synthesis. This is Hegel’s basic methodology for analyzing history. And it is the geist which is the repository of all three elements such that there is some movement from a beginning position of the geist forward to new periods of history.
Hegel sees a teleology that I do not happen to agree with. I find it utopian to believe that society can only move forward in any eternally positive way. I think history shows us backsliding can occur and we do not have enough history to be assured we can always reclaim whatever height we had and move forward. The synthesis could be a step backwards. But I recognize that this is a value judgement made from some particular point of view. But regardless of teleology the dynamic nature of society through time seems certain.
For my thinking on virtual reality I ask myself where the geist resides? As long as it is just a game or a diversion, there is no geist. Each person is embedded in their own geist and each grouping of humans has their own. What is happening the cyberspace is a dominance of the western geist. English only has Chinese as the only language that can possibly challenge it for dominance as the lingua franca. So far it has been the alliance of western nations who have set the standards and led with innovations that shape cyberspace. This may not remain true forever but it is certainly the case today.
Like any distributed system, the geist is more an emergent property of the particular collection under analysis. One could say every grouping of humans results in a unique geist but the reality is that there are a relatively small number of geists that dominate a society and they are typically mutually understandable. But as cyberspace becomes more inclusive the geist of cyberspace will get more attention. And to create any virtual reality worth the name, the elements of the geist must be addressed.
Each society has some foundational concepts which inform their laws. Chinese law will look very different from American law when it comes to issues of individuality versus communal need. This culture clash will come up if we were to try to create a system of law that would span both cultures. Since so many of the assets in a cyberspace are informational assets, the laws and attitudes toward intellectual property, rights of existence in the cyberspace, attitudes toward the role of government in matters of fraud and theft are merely a couple of the topics that a thriving virtual reality must resolve besides simple owernship and governance.
I hope to find much more in Hegel as I continue to study but this insight into one possible way to conceptualize the geist is sufficient for today.
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