If you know something is ‘virtual reality’, would you invest/immerse yourself in it?
Would you allow yourself to believe it?
Would you willingly suspend your disbelief?
No matter how overwhelming and high-def the sensory content provided to you is, will you ever lose sight of the fact that it is virtual/unreal?
OR Will it be like a movie where we can plug in and out of it at will?
In a movie, we make the movie ‘feel real’ by virtue of our INVESTMENT, isn’t it?
So what makes something real or unreal?
I feel INVESTMENT/CATHECTION/ATTENTION is what makes ANYTHING real.
So withdrawal of investment implies withdrawal of that reality itself from your consciousness.
Super hi-def Virtual reality that mimics our sensory resolutions will open up a whole new interest in deep metaphysical questions (similar to the feelings Neo had in the matrix movie when he was first shown the nature of reality).
If all REALITY is from our INVESTMENT, then what about this solid reality we experience as the “REAL WORLD”?
Could we call that – our own UNCONSCIOUS INVESTMENT?
I see it as 2 poles:
Movie/VR is conscious investment ——while——- ‘Hard Reality’ is unconscious investment
Even an attempt to change the movie implies investment in the movie.
To “take/claim/redeem” your “power/freedom” back is to redeem your “attention/investment/cathexis” from the unconscious.
I see this as the whole quest of realization and freedom/transcendence.
Journey to the Abstract 