AUTHOR=Metzinger Thomas K. 

TITLE=Why Is Virtual Reality Interesting for Philosophers?

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Robotics and AI

VOLUME=5

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/robotics-and-ai/articles/10.3389/frobt.2018.00101

DOI=10.3389/frobt.2018.00101

ISSN=2296-9144

ABSTRACT=<p>This article explores promising points of contact between philosophy and the expanding field of virtual reality research. Aiming at an interdisciplinary audience, it proposes a series of new research targets by presenting a range of concrete examples characterized by high theoretical relevance and heuristic fecundity. Among these examples are conscious experience itself, “Bayesian” and social VR, amnestic re-embodiment, merging human-controlled avatars and virtual agents, virtual ego-dissolution, controlling the reality/virtuality continuum, the confluence of VR and artificial intelligence (AI) as well as of VR and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), VR-based social hallucinations and the emergence of a virtual <italic>Lebenswelt</italic>, religious faith and practical phenomenology. Hopefully, these examples can serve as first proposals for intensified future interaction and mark out some potential new directions for research.</p>