Reality, virtual reality and reality in philosophy

We express the virtual reality definition, with reality meanings and  what reality is according to different thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud.

1. What is reality?

The concept of reality comes from the Latin ” realitas ” and refers to everything that actually exists , to the real; that is, everything that is not part of the imagination or fantasy and that has the property of existing because it can be perceived by one of the senses or by reason.

Reality is an abstract concept widely debated in philosophy , since debates and disagreements have always been generated regarding what things are real and what things are not.

2. Reality in philosophy

From classical Greece, the concept of reality is discussed, where Plato argued that it generated a reflection , which was what was actually captured by the senses, and not reality itself directly. That is, the reality captured by the senses was imperfect, while the ideas captured by reason were the true reality. Then, his disciple Aristotle defended the idea of ​​reality, more than anything like everything captured by the senses.

With regard to the Modern Age , Descartes (considered the father of modern philosophy) proposed some distinctions between reality and existence; and later the Irish philosopher George Berkeley developed the philosophical current of subjective idealism , and maintained that the world did not exist, but only in our perceptions of it. In turn, Kant held an intermediate theory between extremist positions.

On the other hand, Jacques Lacan made a distinction between “the real” and reality , according to which in the first case he talked about everything that existed, regardless of whether it was perceived or how it was perceived by the senses, and in the second, he spoke of the world according to the perception of the human being .

On the other hand, the reality for Sigmund Freud is a linguistic construction about what is real , that captures the self through language and transmits it, but only from what I was interested in capturing from that reality.

Today, reality is considered a set of subjects and objects that interact in a system .

3. Virtual reality definition

Virtual reality is a modern technology , with which, through the use of computers and specific devices for this, it allows an individual to generate the sensation of being in another reality , which is imaginary , generated by computers . 

In virtual reality , a helmet is used with a visor that the individual places on the eyes , and in some cases special equipment is used, such as suits and gloves that increase the feeling of receiving real stimuli. This is used in the area of ​​video games, but is also used for example in flight simulators to train aviation personnel or in medicine.