ISBN The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality book English Hardcover

As this comprehensive and multidisciplinary book makes clear virtuality has a pedigree that pre-dates the computer age and modern virtual worlds a pedigree that can be traced back to classical mythology and beyond. Equally the concept of virtuality is not the province of one field of study alone but is the foundation and driving force of many both theoretical and applied. Our conceptualizations and applications of virtuality are multiple as contributors demonstrate across the nine sections of the book that move from philosophy to technologies and applications before returning to philosophy again for a discussion of the utopias and dystopias of virtuality. The almost 50 essays contained within range freely across subjects that include the potential of virtuality ethics virtuality and self presence and immersion virtual emotions image sound and literature computer games AI and A-Life Augmented Reality and Real Virtuality law and economics medical and military applications religion and cybersex. Throughout contributors discuss differences between virtuality reality and actuality in debates filtered through the lenses of the disciplines represented here and speculate on future directions. It is not at all clear that there are differences and if such distinctions are to be found the boundaries between virtuality reality and actuality continually shift as ideas modes of organization and behaviors constantly flow from one to the other regardless of direction. The Handbook presents no unified definition of virtuality to comfort the reader rather a multiplicity of questions and approaches underpinned by provocative statements that should further fuel the debates surrounding our notions of virtuality.