[Vwoolf] Woolf and the VR theory of mind

[Ella Ophir]

A gratifying Woolf sighting in this *New Yorker *piece on virtual
reality. Rothman tries to explain, in various ways, Thomas Metzinger's
conception of the experience of "self" as a VR-like mental model, and turns
in the end to Woolf:

"While a person exists, he feels that he knows the world and himself
directly. In fact, he experiences a model of the world and inhabits a model
of himself. These models are maintained by the mind in such a way that
their constructed nature is invisible. But it can sometimes be made
visible, and then—to a degree—the models can be changed. Something about
this discovery is deflating: it turns out that we are less substantial than
we thought. Yet it can also be invigorating to understand the constructed,
provisional nature of experience. Our perceptions of the world and the self
feel real—how could they feel otherwise?—but we can come to understand our
own role in the creation of their apparent realness. “The compensation of
growing old,” Virginia Woolf writes, in “Mrs. Dalloway,” is that, while
“the passions remain as strong as ever,” we gain “the power which adds the
supreme flavour to existence,—the power of taking hold of experience, of
turning it around, slowly, in the light.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/are-we-already-living-in-virtual-reality

I'd been thinking about Woolf all through another essay in the same issue,
on a theory of "extended mind" ("Where does the mind end and the world
begin? Is the mind locked inside its skull . . .  or does it expand
outward, merging with things and places and other minds that it thinks
with?") ("Mind Expander" by Larissa MacFarquhar) -- so was pleased to run
into her in this one.



-- 
*Ella Ophir*
Associate Professor, Department of English
College of Arts & Science | University of Saskatchewan
P. (306) 966-2056
http://artsandscience.usask.ca/profile/EOphir#/profile
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