Virtual Philosophy

I was unable to attend today's lecture because I had to go to a Job Search seminar held for final year students (which will also be on tomorrow). So, I'll just have to rely on the lecture notes and my understanding of it to do today's summary. Here goes nothing...

There was a short discussion on the movie The Matrix and the extent of how computer-generated effects have an impact on individuals' identities. Personally, I thought that movie was excellent and had amazing visual effects. However, it was pushing the virtual reality idea to the extreme, and we are definitely very far away from it occurring in real life, or if it could ever happen at all. Indeed technology has advanced dramatically in a short period of time, and perhaps it has changed our perceptions of the world somewhat, but the idea of machines taking over the world or reconstructing our identities seems too far fetched for now.

Some precursors of virtual reality were listed, which included:
- Telegraph: development of Morse Code in 1837
- Telephone: first telephone to transmit sound over long distances invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876
- Phonograph: invented by Thomas Edison, his then primitive recording device has led to the development of cassettes, CDs and other recording devices today
- Radio: development of wireless telegraphy
- Cinema: relying on the theory of "persistence of vision", a machine was invented that showed a series of photographic pictures together with synchronised sound
- Television: TV was ready to be marketed to a mass audience by the late 1930s