virtual reality

continuing o the discussion in class about virtual reality, Poster says " One participant argues that continuous participation in the game leads to a sense of involvement that is somewhere between ordinary reality and fiction. The effect of new media such as the Internet and virtual reality, then, is to multiply the kinds of "realities" one encounters in society." I thought this was interesting because one may know that an internet game or virtual reality game is fake, but through repetition this knowledge becomes distorted. With "continuous participation" the mind begins to become so engaged with it's interactions that the line between reality and fiction becomes blurred. I found it harder to understand what Poster meant by multiplying realities, but I think what he's getting at is how virtual reality multiplies the truths that we can perceive in actual reality. This might occur when someone "walks" through a virtual reality world that was build based on reality to look exactly the same, when the person then walks through this space in reality, he may remember multiple images of the space, without remembering what was a virtual memory and what is real.