A Non-Convincing Virtual Reality

Ray Kurzweil’s chapter “..and bodies” explores the “virtual reality” permitted by nanotechnology, but most of his predictions, similar to Freud’s psychoanalysis theory, frightens me and traps me in their circulars argument that my fear and withdraw further proves their correctness. Of course I am not a scientist, and Kurzweil seems to involve in many cutting-edge researches in artificial intelligence and virtual reality even until now (according to the recent Time article about Singularity). However what I interrogate is that he resides his argument on an assumption that virtual reality is desired and beneficial to all human beings, and that such technology will not interact with our social structure.

In the section of “the sensual machine” he illustrates how nanotechnology and virtual reality will allow people to design and experience almost all kind of sexuality. The problem of his vision, in my opinion, is not that it deviants from the ethic of sex, but that it confines the topic to sex without putting it in the context of the human society. This problem prevails everywhere throughout the chapter. No matter it is the capability in physical or mental e experience, virtual technology is very individual-oriented, and it can and only can exist and function exclusively for one person. If that becomes the truth, in the first place it will require us to question the structure of a capitalist society where everyone works off their specialty and consumes their desire. If most desire, according to Kurzweil, can be well-satisfied by a set of virtual reality, then will we need to work or continue consume at all?

However the discourse of capitalism is still circulated in his book which out being questioned: in the section “virtual bodies,” the author mentions that a competition can happen within software companies because users are able to choose and change the world they want to live. If the evolution of human race happens because of virtual reality advancement, why our social structure and ideology won’t? Therefore I am not convinced by Ray Kurzweil’s picture of our future with virtual reality and nanotechnology.