Virtual reality, value, and the external world

Abstract Nozick famously argued that life inside an Experience Machine (EM) is dismal because it severs our connection to external reality. Would life spent in Virtual Reality (VR) be similarly dismal? Chalmers argues that because VR is importantly different from an EM, life in VR can be roughly as good as life outside. Chalmers further argues for Virtual Realism, the view that virtual worlds can be unqualifiedly real. I examine the relation between these claims about VR and the idea that there’s special value in connecting to the external world. The EM itself, I argue, can only weakly support the value of such a connection. And VR, as understood by Chalmers, is different from the EM precisely by permitting us to retain extensive links to the non-virtual world. We can better test the value of a connection to external reality by considering a more restrictive version of VR. This narrower form of VR is, I argue, inferior to life outside in several ways. Some of my arguments for this also support the idea of a valuable connection with reality—but only if Virtual Realism is false. By contrast, and contrary to the impression given by Chalmers, Virtual Realism seems to make little difference to questions about the value of life in VR vs. life outside.