If we perfected VR, and you can go in and have electrodes and the like inserted everywhere, after which you would live the life you always wanted. This would be a one way trip however. You would life out your entire life till you die in that pod, but you wouldn’t know it (except for you knowing you made that decision.)
In this pod you can have a full life and you can choose the theme. You can be another Bill Gates if you wish, or just a happily married middle class person (yes sex is included). You can also select your gender, and start out at any age. You can also live in the future (Startrek like) or past if you wish.
The idea is that it would be so real that once hooked up there would be no way to tell and the only way you would know it was VR was because you knew ahead of time. Does that clear it up?
Tinkering is not allowed, but you could set up the amount of predetermination ahead of time. You could chose for your life to follow a certain path, or change and adapt according to your actions in VR. But no you can’t say “Computer, VR Controls Please” - Well you could say it, but it would do as much good as it does now.
As long as I could be absolutly sure that no one from “outside” would or even could mess with the VR. That, and if I could be plugged in in sucha manner that I would meet other real people who were plugged into a world similar to mine (knid of like a MMORPG).
Now that I think of it, if you chose to live in the present or future which has this technology, I can’t see a reason you couldn’t choose to go into another VR inside your VR and start over again.
Well you still have a biological limit to how long you would live. It may be possible to speed up time in VR, perhaps by bypassing sleep (you would go to sleep and think you got 8 hrs, but really got a few seconds) so you could live a apparently longer life. But your body will still age. You won’t feel the arthritis as neural impulses would be intercepted by the VR computer (that is unless you wished to have this condition in VR).
Also you can be assured that no one will mess with your VR, nor will anyone ever know what you experienced. It will be totally computer driven and the ‘files’ deleted when you die.
Also there will be no contact with another actual person ever. You are the only variable in this world. I was considering allowing sort of a internet video phone link to other real VR pod people, but would rule that out, too likely to cause a reminder that it isn’t real.
Again this would be totally life like so you could set it up so it appears like you are interacting with other pod people.
I’m on the verge of saying “I reject your reality, and substitute my own,” but I think I’ll at least give your way a chance: I would go into your VR, provided I get a simulation that includes time travel. I would also go in if I got to design a custom universe for myself.
My reality is a lot more interesting: When you go into the VR, your brain is physically destroyed in the scanning process. It is recreated in the computer, where it is immediately burned into a permanent ROM image for safety’s sake. (Adopting the nickname ‘Flatline’ after this is purely optional.) You can then live in a virtual realm effectively forever, making new ROM images as you deem necessary. You can even reactivate ROMs and have conversations with past selves. You could interact with others in your machine, or in machines linked up to yours, and you could shape your reality on-the-fly. (I love the idea of bringing up a command line and altering the fine structure constant or the speed of light in a vacuum. It’d be the quantum mechanic’s toolbox. ;))
The main thing you can’t do, I suppose, is grow a new meat body. But I see that as a feature, not a bug.
This gets too much into the issue of the startrek transporter question. Is it transporting you or just creating someone who thinks they are you, while you actually cease to exist. My personaly beleif would be such a system (or the one you propose) would kill you. This is the reason to have the actual biological mind hooked up.