Reality...

Everyone claims they live in reality, and condemn any alternates. In the past, video games were seen as a way to escape reality. But now, the lines are not so clear.

If a man can eat, sleep, feel pain, fall in love or hate, are those not real? Must he exist in a certain plane for his emotions to be real?

The continued debate over whether the virtual world should be considered 'real' or not continues to wage on. On one hand, people claim the virtual world isn't 'real' and is only a figment of one's imagination. On the other hand, some virtual users claim they feel more 'real' when under, than they ever did in so called 'reality.'

Worse yet, as the virtual world begins to get more realistic, and machines like the full dives are produced, this line blurs all the more.

"Reality is only what you believe it to be. As long as you can feel pain, joy, love... or even hate; no one can take away those emotions and call them fake." Speech by Shouyou James on the advent of virtual gaming.

"There is only one reality. And that is here, where we were born. Anything else is a lie created by machines to rob us of true life. To those who wish to over-indulge in the virtual world, I say this: What happens when that world you consider reality shuts down due to system failure?" Excerpt from Nikel Nicholas. (President of the AVGN Anti-Virtual-Gaming-Network)

While these two figureheads clash, the rest of the world ponders on this issue. Is virtual reality fake? If so, do we consider the terminal patients who spend their days in there to be fake too? Who are we to judge what is real and what isn't? Or is the human race simply shirking responsibilities and heading towards extinction?

It is unclear at this point, but sooner or later, we will have to answer these mind-numbing questions.

-Excerpt from "Questioning Reality," by Peter Bowman.