Would it be immoral to permenantly live in a virtual world?

[casdave]

Currently there are those who do live in a virtual world, these are the young males usually between 15 to 25 who literally close themselves up in tier rooms for years.

This is a serious phenomenon in Japan, its direct sufferers are called** Hikikomori**, but there are other flavour such as Otayu which seems similar, on the face of it, but is much closer to being a meditative hermit.

It’s very unlikely this could happen anywhere but in Japan, no Western parent is likely to allow their offspring to lock themselves away like this.

It is very hard on the family of such individuals, some of whom have shut themselves away for 7 years or more, the only reason some families actually know there is life is the dissapearance of food.

The sufferers typically surround themselves in an internet/multimedia world finding it preferable to living in the real one, with which they have difficulty coping.

To get an idea of the extent of this issue is at best only estimation, since the Japanese goverment does not collate figures, and many families are ashamed to admit that one of their number has this condition, but estimates range between tens of thousands, right the way up to 1.5 million.

In this sense, then, we are not talking morality, we are really referring to a form of mental illness, and for someone to prefer to live in a virtual world even under more ideal circumstances I would have to wonder at their state of mind.

One kicker in all this is that others who have suffered from this condition have gone on to commit horrifically brutal and motiveless crimes, and maybe the Columbine killers were just a US manifestation of that.

We do not seem to be equipped for a virtual life, or we have not been able to create a virtual world that would satisfy human needs so living in such an environment would amount to social and mental starvation.

[smiling_bandit]

If you donated to charity and continued to help the economy, would it be okay then, smiling bandit?

No, money is just a figment. A useful one, to be sure, but it is still a convenient lie. In this case, you don’t really know or care whom you are giving to. There is no real goodness to your action, merely an economic exchange: you are, literally, buying an easy conscience.

[erislover]

It depends on what we consider a virtual world. The internet is a virtual world, but your actions there (here) can have very real consequences.

If we consider a world which has no connection to reality other than through the very real person who is inhabiting it, well, I don’t think morality applies here at all, any more than it is or is not immoral to think about things (for isn’t that what we’ve done here is extend the imagination?).

Can one make immoral movies? Books? Can I draw an immoral picture?

[char]

Well if your a live and healthy person why the hell would you want to waste the life that you have. If your on your death bed and dying, sure hell yeah live it up in the matrix.

[cainxinth]

I agree with MrVisible, morality exists equally in real and virtual worlds. Killing mindless computer simulations is not immoral. Killing sentient ones (if they ever exist) I believe would be. I do wonder if there would be a harmful side effect to spending your life in a world of instant gratification, but I think VR is worth that risk. And, if problems do arise governments would probably regulate VR just like the real world with laws and restrictions to keep people safe.

Personally, I cannot wait for VR. Instead of all of us sitting at our desks typing conversations we could be having them in person, so to speak. And we could do it anywhere we can dream of, under the sea, on the rings of Saturn, almost anything is possible in a computer simulation. And, imagine the avatars!