Virtual Worlds

by Benjamin Woolley

In Virtual Worlds, Benjamin Woolley examines the reality of virtual reality. He looks at the dramatic intellectual and cultural upheavals that gave birth to it, the hype that surrounds it, the people who have promoted it, and the dramatic implications of its development. Virtual reality is not simply a technology, it is a way of thinking created and promoted by a group of technologists and thinkers that sees itself as creating our future. Virtual Worlds reveals the politics and culture of these virtual realists, and examines whether they are creating reality, or losing their grasp of it. 12 photographs.

Genres: Science, Technology, Nonfiction

257 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Mark Love · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having previously completed a 600+ page work of fiction (Owen Meany) I opted to next re-read a work of non-fiction that has sat on my bookshelf for 15 years. Although, given that the subject was the virtual reality it wasn’t quite as non-fiction as I presumed.

Written in the early 1990s Virtual Worlds was (at the time) billed as a zeitgeisty look into the potential for virtual reality headsets and snug bodysuits to transport us to alternative realities, but is in fact a much more sober consideration of the nature of reality itself, taking the reader on a journey through the history of computers and simulation and into the theoretical limits of computability, quantum mechanics and multiverses, that leaves one legitimately questioning whether the book really exists. Woolley’s explanations of the key concepts behind the development theoretical physics, and their parallels with post-modernism in literature and critical theory, are superb – accessible to the layman, without being at all patronising.

Ironically, for such a well written and researched book, Woolley totally fails to predict the emergence of the internet, online identities, Second Life and vitual currencies, and many of the observations seem quaint. For instance, the assertion that we would never be able to view realistic video images through phone wires reminds you just how far we have come in so short a time.

That aside Woolley was confident that technological advances would allow us to peek into realistic simulated realities in the future, although I suspect that they won’t be of the kind he imagined.

Anyone for a game of internet Wii Mariokarts? Pass me the goggles.

[Kaoru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written at the height of the first wave of virtual reality hype in the 90s, this book is an admirably unhyperbolic (in fact rather refreshingly sceptical) socio-cultural study of the phenomenon, that the author uses to open a wider debate about the nature of reality and simulation, and the tensions between the two in (predominantly) western science and culture from the middle ages to the present day.

In the process, Wooley manages to predict all sorts of things; the rise of social media, Netflix, bitcoin, the proof of quantum mechanical action at a distance, to name just a few, while also successfully deducing that true, immersive 3d virtual worlds will remain elusive longer than the evangelists of the 90s imagined.

For anyone living in the interface between reality and simulation that is the world today, this is a fascinating and sobering read. I really enjoyed it.

[shuang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for class. Outdated methods, but still interesting to see someone's POV from decades ago on VR. Made very good metaphors, comparisons, and predictions.

[Allison Thornton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting material covered (I read this in preparation for a presentation to my company on virtual reality) but the writing style was quite boring and sometimes the flagrant grammatical errors throughout made it difficult to get through.

[Annabel]

Good!