Virtual you is just as real as physical you, says philosopher

As our lives become more and more enmeshed in the digital world, how do we determine which is our "real" self? If there comes a time where, like in The Matrix, we all live in a virtual world that seems so real we don't need to leave it for the physical, how will we identify ourselves in that virtual world?

David Chalmers is a professor of philosophy, and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University.

As a philosopher, he explores the nature of consciousness. His most recent book is Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy. In it, he explores the idea that virtual experiences are real experiences, and what that might mean for how we think about consciousness and our sense of self. In the future, that might mean grappling with life in highly realistic simulations.

Here's part of Spark host Nora Young's conversation with David Chalmers.

When we spend time in a virtual space, how much of ourselves do we bring with us in terms of our personality, our values, our morals and so forth? 

Descartes thought that we are ultimately minds. We are things that think; we are conscious beings and we bring our consciousness with us everywhere. It never goes away, except maybe for a moment when we sleep and we're not dreaming. So I think we bring our consciousness everywhere we go, but we bring different aspects of our consciousness to different places: When I'm at work versus when I'm at home versus when I'm hanging out with my friends. It's still me all this time and I'm bringing my consciousness, my memories and so on. But different parts of me may be active at a given time — the playful side, the serious side. And so I think it's something like that. With virtual reality, it provides a new environment for us to inhabit. When I go into VR, I'll now adopt a wholly new avatar or have a new form of embodiment in this virtual reality.

You talk about how your virtual body is not your physical body, but it's your virtual body. Can you talk a little bit more about that distinction? 

Traditionally, our bodies have all been biological and physical, but now we're entering this new era where we can take on new bodies, which are digital in form. I want to say that they are no less real for all that. I mean, there is sometimes this tendency to say if something is digital, it's not real. I think this is a very old fashioned way of thinking now. And maybe back in the '80s or '90s, people said they contrasted real life with digital life, but now so much of our lives are digital. So I want to very much resist this idea that if it's digital, it's not real.

So what happens in the future? Assuming these worlds get more realistic and we spend extended amounts of time in spaces that are digital replications of the physical world, you know, the metaverse, what does that do to our sense of ourselves in the physical world? 

The physical body is [still] going to be super important. This is the body that we all started with. But I mean, it is quite possible that maybe sometime in the future, there will be people who spend 18 hours of their day in the metaverse, as it were, maybe only six hours out in the physical world to eat and drink and sleep and so on. And for them, this virtual embodiment could come to be just as important in many ways as their physical body. There are probably already people who spend so much time online that they're actually more invested in their virtual embodiment than in the physical embodiment. And it's easy to imagine that just increasing.

Produced by Nora Young, McKenna Hadley-Burke and Michelle Parise. This Q&A has been condensed and edited for length and clarity. To hear the full conversation with David Chalmers, press the play button at the top of the page.