Abstract
As David J. Chalmers claims, “virtual reality is a sort of genuine reality, virtual objects are real objects, and what goes on in virtual reality is truly real.” In this paper, I will suggest that the philosophical hypothesis that we might live in a simulation can be considered to be the last and most nihilistic episode in the series of narrations about the true and apparent worlds that Nietzsche sketched in The Twilight of the Idols. I will argue that Nietzsche’s prediction about the obliteration of the apparent world has actually been fulfilled by Chalmers, and I will show why his theory must be considered one of the many fables that humans have been producing in order to organise the world according to their own ends.
Publisher
The Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU)
Reference14 articles.
1. Ayer, A. J., “Editor’s Introduction”, in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York, Free Press, 1959, pp. 3–28.
2. Beane, Silas R., Zohreh Davoudi, and Martin J. Savage, “Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation”, The European Physical Journal A, 50 (148/2014), pp. 1–9.
3. Bostrom, Nick, “Are you living in a computer simulation?”, Philosophical Quarterly, 53 (211/2003), pp. 243–255.
4. Carnap, Rudolph, “Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache”, Erkenntnis, 2 (1/1932), pp. 219–241.
5. Carnap, Rudolph, “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language”, trans. A. Pap, in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York, Free Press, 1959, pp. 60–81.