Virtual Reality is Reality :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Virtual Reality is Reality In his essay, "A Rape in Cyberspace," Julian Dibbell wrote about a violent event that occurred in LambdaMOO, a virtual reality community. To some, Dibbell states, this event was nothing more than "spidery flitting of fingers across standard QWERTY keyboards" (450). On the other hand, to the victims it was much more. In his essay one of the victims was quoted as saying " ...[I] have thought about it for days. He hurt us both" (453). The effect that the virtual event had on the victim was obviously real; thus, this event effected their real life. According to Heim, the author of "The Essence of VR," virtual reality is "an event or entity that is real in effect but not in fact" (16). Is it the effect of a matter or the fact, materiality, of a matter that depicts how real an event is? If it is the fact, there is a distinct line between virtual reality and real life. However, if the impact that an event has on a person's life is what makes an event real, then virtual reality i s very real and the line between virtual reality and real life is very faint if it exists at all. The use of virtual reality is increasing in many areas of society such as: communication, business, education, and medicine. Perhaps this increase will cause the lives of all people, even those who do not use computer technology which is typically thought of as the medium for virtual reality, to be impacted. It is important to know if and where the line between virtual reality and real life exists due to this steady increase of virtual reality use. This essay will provide evidence focusing on how the line is slowly disappearing as virtual reality is shaping the way medicine effects our health and livelihood. The ways in which virtual reality impacts peoples' lives are rapidly increasing, especially with the increased use of virtual reality in medicine. One example of this is in the testing of colon cancer. An article from ABCNews entitled "The Wonders of Virtual Surgery" states that, "the American Cancer Society predicts that 96,500 people will get colon cancer in 1998, and 47,700 will die of it.