Would living in a digital world be meaningful?

[Dio]

I have been watching Sword Art Online recently which has inspired this thread. If you haven't seen it you don't need to to answer the question. It is about gamers being trapped in a virtual reality game. The only way back to the real world is to beat the game.

In the beginning most tried to fight and progress in order to return to their old lives, yet after a while some became content with their new digital lives and some expressed no intention to leave any more despite having a physical body and old life they left behind.

It doesn't matter if you like the SAO animu or not but I was wondering if you would consider a digital life to be meaningful. If you were trapped in a digital world with a bunch of other people do you feel it would all be pointless because you know it isn't physical or is there more to it than that?

What if you actually discovered like in the Matrix that this world you know is a digital one. How important would it be to you to experience reality? Would you take the red pill or would you be content to carry on with your life here?

 

[karu]

A digital world, huh?

I personally wouldn't mind living in a world like that so long as I know the world I'm getting into. If it were a Zelda digital world or any other video game/alternate reality then I'd get to do a lot of things that couldn't be done in this reality; but then there are some risks aren't there?

In SAO if you die in the game don't you die irl? I heard something like that. If that were the case, then it'd be terrifying but I'd still do it. Pretty sure that one day science will have gone to far and create something along these lines and the entire existence of all human beings will be all living in an alternate reality and the entire human species will become an extinct which leads to one of three things; the Cows take over,the Pigs take over, or the Felines take over...

 

[Mido]

I have been watching Sword Art Online recently which has inspired this thread. If you haven't seen it you don't need to to answer the question. It is about gamers being trapped in a virtual reality game. The only way back to the real world is to beat the game.

Also, just a quick reminder: if you die in the game, you die in real life!

In all seriousness, as far as the question at hand is concerned, and before I actually get into my answer; I think a large part of SAO's appeal and why it got so popular was because of its premise and circumstance, no matter of what one thinks about the series as a whole. The virtual world could be something that allows users to experience entities beyond the realm of ordinary possibility, such as environments rooted in fantasy and so forth. In this respect, there is a somewhat appealing degree of escapism involved.

It doesn't matter if you like the SAO animu or not but I was wondering if you would consider a digital life to be meaningful. If you were trapped in a digital world with a bunch of other people do you feel it would all be pointless because you know it isn't physical or is there more to it than that?

What if you actually discovered like in the Matrix that this world you know is a digital one. How important would it be to you to experience reality? Would you take the red pill or would you be content to carry on with your life here?

The deeper elements of your question I find a bit more difficult to answer. The former point, SAO seems to have an answer for it itself. Our characters more or less resolve that the bonds they establish in the game are still real and transcend the virtual world, and I can see that. To a lesser extent, it's akin having friends online, even though in SAO they all see each other's appearances, obviously. Are those bonds any less real? I may be delving too far into questions, so I'll cut that off here.

The latter is especially interesting because, while I admittedly never saw The Matrix, there does seem to be a motivated desire to experience the unknown, which I assume is reality. That desire or curious is something I would probably have myself, although I don't know whether I would pursue it depending on the circumstances.

 

[Dio]

A digital world, huh?

I personally wouldn't mind living in a world like that so long as I know the world I'm getting into. If it were a Zelda digital world or any other video game/alternate reality then I'd get to do a lot of things that couldn't be done in this reality; but then there are some risks aren't there?

In SAO if you die in the game don't you die irl? I heard something like that. If that were the case, then it'd be terrifying but I'd still do it. Pretty sure that one day science will have gone to far and create something along these lines and the entire existence of all human beings will be all living in an alternate reality and the entire human species will become an extinct which leads to one of three things; the Cows take over,the Pigs take over, or the Felines take over...

If you die in the game you die in the real world. The question is could you be content to live in a virtual world knowing it wasn't real? If you enjoyed it there would it be enough for you or is living in the real world always superior even if you enjoy it less?

Science will go that far one day I am sure and I am sure some who can afford it will pay to have themselves put on life support whilst they live their entire lives in a virtual world. Similar to inception where there are those that are given drugs to sleep most of the time in order for them to live mostly in the dream world.

I don't think all humans will do this because they won't be able to afford to. So we won't be going extinct that way. If we did go extinct the octopusses would take over. They are plotting as we speak.

 

[karu]

If you die in the game you die in the real world. The question is could you be content to live in a virtual world knowing it wasn't real? If you enjoyed it there would it be enough for you or is living in the real world always superior even if you enjoy it less?

Science will go that far one day I am sure and I am sure some who can afford it will pay to have themselves put on life support whilst they live their entire lives in a virtual world. Similar to inception where there are those that are given drugs to sleep most of the time in order for them to live mostly in the dream world.

I don't think all humans will do this because they won't be able to afford to. So we won't be going extinct that way. If we did go extinct the octopusses would take over. They are plotting as we speak.

The octopuses, I should have known...

 

[Night Owl]

I don't know, I could see both worlds beginning to feel about the same. In the real world you get wrecked by big government, big business, crime lords, and whatever else wants to take advantage of the little guy. In a World like SAO, you would get the same treatment just more directly. Players who are higher levels, might "help" lower level players for exorbiant fees; they might decide that they want what you have and will take things by force; If the game favors Item and money drops for weaker players, they might exploit the system keeping players weak, etc. The game world will be just as messed up if not more messed up than real life. In life there are laws to help protect the little guy, but the game might be everyone for themselves.
The risk of dying to somebody else's lust for power or greed might actually be higher in the game because people will justify it by saying "it's only a game."
I think the real word might actually be better because of that.

Now if it was a world like in Log Horizon, where respawns are possible. I think the virtual world would be better than the real world. Even with the factor of humans being jerks, you can probably still live to get strong enough that you can crush most who would try to stand against you. You can get strong enough to protect who you want to protect. And, if you live in a certain city, you can do so safely under the protection of the Log Horizon guild.

 

[Shroom]

Man, living in the real world isn't meaningful, and you're asking me about a digital one???

 

[Musicfan]

life only has what meaning you give so it could?

 

[YIGAhim]

The book "Ready Player One" is a fanominal book that is a lot about this. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Living in a game wouldn't be the same. That's no life

 

[Nicolai]

The real question is: are there video games in this virtual world?

I mean, Mario Odyssey surely isn't going to be in this world due to copyright; and there's no way Nintendo made this virtual world, because they're always behind on trends like these.

The virtual world I live in would definitely have to have the same variety of video games as the real world. Honestly, if you're running single-platform, that might not be farfetched. As long as your game system is powerful enough to run two games at once, all you'd have to do is embed the second game on any TV screen of the virtual game, and make the eShop accessible through the virtual game.

It shouldn't be too hard. If a system is powerful enough to fool our bodies into interacting in a virtual world, with a full set of realistic physics with fine-enough detail and a full reading on the human body's 100 billion neurons, then a game running on a TV screen is probably not even an afterthought.

 

[Castle]

Who's to say we aren't living in The Matrix right now????

If so could we tell the difference? I mean, conceivably a virtual simulation would convey all of the sensations we're capable of experiencing just without limitations if there are no user restrictions. We could fly, transform ourselves and the environment, get hit really hard without dying or feeling pain. So it would be like our world only better and with fewer consequences!

But would it be meaningful? Our existence is defined by our limited lifespan and the limited resources we have to make use of in our lifetimes. In a digital world, could we die? If there was no risk to our existence, would it be worth living? If resources were unlimited would we all be provided for and content or would we do nothing because we strive for nothing?

There is a fascinating twilight zone episode about this, where a card shark who dies and goes to heaven where he is waited on by women hand and foot, and wins every game of cards. A card shark's dream come true right???

Spoiler

turns out he didn't go to heaven[/spoilers]

Would our virtual world be a prison? Well, we're kinda marooned on this rock called earth as it is so wouldn't seem much different to how we've been this whole time.

If we were severely restricted by the admins or the system itself or if we were forced to compete that would suck.