Is Virtual Reality Experience Veridical, Illusory or Hallucinatory? A Complex Answer Based on a New Theory of Illusion and Hallucination and the Nature of the Technology Used to Create Virtual Reality

Macpherson, F. (2020) Is Virtual Reality Experience Veridical, Illusory or Hallucinatory? A Complex Answer Based on a New Theory of Illusion and Hallucination and the Nature of the Technology Used to Create Virtual Reality. Working Paper. University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Does virtual reality involve illusory or hallucinatory experience of things that are not present, or does it involve veridical perceptual experience of virtual objects? Philosophers have defended one or other of these options in recent debate. I answer this question by outlining and extending a new theory of illusion and hallucination, first articulated in Macpherson and Batty (2016), and applying it to virtual reality experience. In so doing, I pay attention to a feature of virtual reality experience unduly neglected in the philosophical literature: how it is actually produced. The result is a new account of the nature of virtual reality experience that shows that it is far more complex than extant accounts envision. Extant accounts assume a false dichotomy: that the experience is either wholly illusory or hallucinatory, on the one hand, or that it is wholly veridical, on the other. I show, instead, that it involves multiple veridical, illusory, and hallucinatory elements related in a multifaceted fashion. Developing this account of the experience had in virtual reality reveals important insights into the nature of indirect perception and reveals new forms of illusion and hallucination heretofore unthought of.

• Item Type: Research Reports or Papers (Working Paper)
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Macpherson, Professor Fiona
• Authors: Macpherson, F.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > Philosophy
• Publisher: University of Glasgow
• Published Online: 31 December 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 The Author
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced with the permission of the Author