Envisioning the Virtual

Abstract

The author discusses the role played by the virtual in human experience and perception. The virtual is perceived as potential and, therefore, as inaccessible to sensual perception. It this sense it can be said to be abstract. There are, however, examples, drawn from the empirical sphere, such as the optical illusion, the visual perception of depth and the experience of a situation as value-laden, which demonstrate that the virtual can be included in experience and be perceived in a non-sensual mode. Thus complementarity of the virtual and the actual is proved. The virtual can be regarded as an “abstraction being experienced”. The analysis of the relations which constitute experience and, while being dependent on the virtual, at the same time determine it allows the author to consider the theory of the virtual as a foundation of some kind of situational ethics.