Résumé
David Chalmers has recently argued that virtual reality is a genuine kind of reality, populated by real digital entities. At the ontological level, this realist view is ambiguous between two readings. One states that virtual entities are strictly identical to digital entities. The other considers that virtual entities and digital entities are distinct, but that the former ontologically depend on the latter. In this presentation, we shall explore the latter form of virtual realism, and attempt to offer a novel account of the dependence of the virtual on the digital. Virtual objects, we contend, should be seen as constituted by digital objects and mental states. In order to develop this claim, we shall draw on Lynne Rudder Baker’s theory of constitution We’ll explore the rationale and consequences of this view, which we take to be the most promising form of realism about the virtual.
