Immersion in Cyberspace: Pause for Thoughts
"Sitting almost motionless at a computer, our eyes fixed to a screen, our fingers tapping at a keyboard, can we free our minds from the physical body, reaching across space and time to the minds of others, expanding it outward into a universal human Mind? Or, attached to a mostly dormant body, will our cyberminds wander off into a dangerous territory of unrestrained illusion? Perhaps the many millennia of evolution of the mind-body human have reached a point where we can progress beyond the physiological side of that integrated duality. Or maybe we are slapping Mother Nature in the face. If we try to leap out of those millions of years of evolution, maybe we are leaping right into disaster.
These are complex scientific, philosophical, and religious questions. At the moment, we have no answers. Good solutions usually show themselves as a compromise, a Middle Way. In the future, we won't have to choose between cyberspace and the f2f world. We'll choose between different ways of combining the two. In the meanwhile, if we're going to entertain any hypothetical but enlightening ultimatum, consider this one: If you had to choose between spending the rest of your life only in cyberspace, or in the f2f world, which would you pick?"
So which would you pick? Think carefully before you answer...pros and cons stated.
(The above came from a recommended article in Suler' EBook. Read it here) This article on The Two Paths of Virtual Reality is also a good and easy read).
