Colloque - Virtual and Augmented Realities: Epistemological and Metaphysical Issues : Self-Involving Imagination

Claudine Tiercelin

Métaphysique et philosophie de la connaissance

Année 2022-2023

Colloque - Virtual and Augmented Realities: Epistemological and Metaphysical Issues : Self-Involving Imagination

Intervenant(s)

Alexander Fisher, University of Cambridge

Résumé

This paper considers the ethical significance of self-involving imagination, where we imagine ourselves as others. This form of imagination occurs in taking on personal ideals, in simulation of others' mental states, and when we imagine ourselves as characters in acting or in videogames and virtual reality. The ethical concern is that the imaginer might be morally corrupted as troubling attitudes taken on in imagination leak into their actual psychology. This worry is heightened for interactive media as imagined attitudes play a significant role in motivating action, hence more plausibly might start to influence us outside of the imaginative context.

I note two mechanisms which serve to prevent leakage of immoral attitudes, dampening this ethical concern. First, we often face heightened imaginative resistance to taking on immoral mental states. This prevents us even imagining holding certain immoral attitudes. Second, whilst we generally passively quarantine our attitudes to the imaginative context, in morally charged cases we also more actively quarantine – we take on immoral attitudes in imagination but are consciously careful not to acquire them in reality. This pair of guarding mechanisms help prevent our becoming morally corrupted through self-involving imagination.

Présentation

Virtual Reality technology affords its users a strongly immersive and interactive experience of computer-generated environments, through a dedicated headset. With Augmented Reality devices, 3D computer-generated imagery is projected onto physical space, thereby "augmenting" the user's surroundings with an overlay of virtual entities. These "Extended Reality" (XR) technologies are likely to become a part of our everyday life in the near future. They also raise a host of fascinating issues, which have increasingly been discussed in the recent philosophical literature. This international conference will investigate the metaphysical and epistemological questions raised by XR technologies.

Le colloque est intégralement en anglais et a eu lieu les 5 et 6 juin au Collège de France