As this comprehensive and multidisciplinary book makes clear, virtuality has a pedigree that pre-dates the computer age and modern virtual worlds, a pedigree that can be traced back to classical mythology and beyond. Equally, the concept of virtuality is not the province of one field of study alone but is the foundation and driving force of many, both theoretical and applied.
Our conceptualizations and applications of virtuality are multiple, as contributors demonstrate across the nine sections of the book that move from philosophy to technologies and applications before returning to philosophy again for a discussion of the utopias and dystopias of virtuality. The almost 50 essays contained within range freely across subjects that include the potential of virtuality, ethics, virtuality and self, presence and immersion, virtual emotions, image, sound and literature, computer games, AI and A-Life, Augmented Reality and Real Virtuality, law and economics, medical and military applications, religion, and cybersex.
Throughout, contributors discuss differences between virtuality, reality, and actuality, in debates filtered through the lenses of the disciplines represented here, and speculate on future directions. It is not at all clear that there are differences and, if such distinctions are to be found, the boundaries between virtuality, reality, and actuality continually shift as ideas, modes of organization, and behaviors constantly flow from one to the other regardless of direction. The Handbook presents no unified definition of virtuality to comfort the reader, rather a multiplicity of questions and approaches underpinned by provocative statements that should further fuel the debates surrounding our notions of virtuality.
Introduction ; Mark Grimshaw ; I. The Foundations of Virtuality ; 1. The Virtuality and Reality of Avatar Cyberspace ; Bruce Damer and Randy Hinrichs ; 2. The Physical and Social Reality of Virtual Worlds ; Philip Brey ; 3. Envisioning the Virtual ; Brian Massumi ; 4. Being More Than Yourself: Virtuality and Human Spirit ; Andre Nusselder ; 5. Mythologies of Virtuality: "Other Space" and "Shared Dimension" from Ancient Myths to Cyberspace ; Maria Beatrice Bittarello ; 6. The Paradox of Virtuality ; Michael R. Heim ; II. Psychology and Perception ; 7. Avatar Psychology ; James K. Scarborough and Jeremy N. Bailenson ; 8. Not Quite Human: What Virtual Characters Have Taught Us about Person Perception ; Elizabeth J. Carter and Frank E. Pollick ; 9. Emotions and Altered States of Awareness: The Virtuality of Reality and the Reality of Virtuality ; Jean-Claude Martin ; 10. Applying Psychological Plausibility to the Uncanny Valley Phenomenon ; Angela Tinwell ; 11. The Psychology of Addiction to Virtual Environments: The Allure of the Virtual Self ; Deborah Abdel Nabi and John P. Charlton ; 12. Being Present in a Virtual World ; Giuseppe Riva and John A. Waterworth ; 13. Immersion in Virtual Worlds ; Gordon Calleja ; III. Culture and Society ; 14. Communication in Virtual Worlds ; Paul C. Adams ; 15. So Good, They Named It Twice? A Lacanian Perspective on Virtual Reality from Literature and the Other Arts ; David Rudd ; 16. History and Cultural Heritage in Virtual Environments ; Erik Champion ; 17. Flirting, Cheating, Dating, and Mating in a Virtual World ; Julie M. Albright and Eddie Simmens ; 18. Cybersex ; Stale Stenslie ; 19. A Virtual Assembly: Constructing Religion out of Zeros and Ones ; Robert M. Geraci ; 20. Acoustemologies of the Closet ; William Cheng ; IV. Sound ; 21. Breaking the Fourth Wall? User-Generated Sonic Content in Virtual Worlds ; Karen Collins ; 22. Sonic Virtuality: Understanding Audio in a Virtual World ; Tom A. Garner and Mark Grimshaw ; 23. Virtual Worlds: An Ethnomusicological Perspective ; Trevor S. Harvey ; 24. The Music That's Not There ; Martin Knakkergaard ; V. Image ; 25. Through the Looking Glass: Philosophical Reflections on the Art of Virtual Worlds ; Gary Zabel ; 26. Recreating Visual Reality in Virtuality ; Anthony Steed ; 27. The Translation of Art in Virtual Worlds ; Patrick Lichty ; 28. Painting, the Virtual, and the Celluloid Frame ; Simon J. Harris ; VI. Economy and Law ; 29. Virtual Law ; Greg Lastowka ; 30. Virtuality in the Sphere of Economics ; Vili Lehdonvirta ; VII. A-Life and Artificial Intelligence ; 31. On the Role of "Digital Actors" in Entertainment-Based Virtual Worlds ; Phil Carlisle ; 32. Evolution in Virtual Worlds ; Tim Taylor ; 33. Virtual Ecologies and Environments ; David G. Green and Tom Chandler ; 34. Computational Modeling of Brain Function and the Human Haptic System at the Neural Spike Level: Learning the Dynamics of a Simulated Body ; Gabriel Robles-De-La-Torre ; VIII. Technology and Applications ; 35. Distributed Embodiment: Real Presence in Virtual Bodies ; John A. Waterworth and Eva L. Waterworth ; 36. Level of Realism: Feel, Smell, and Taste in Virtual Environments ; Alan Chalmers ; 37. Developing Handheld Augmented Reality Interfaces ; Mark Billinghurst, Huidong Bai, Gun Lee, and Robert Lindeman ; 38. Avoidable Pitfalls in Virtual-World Learning Design ; Keysha I. Gamor ; 39. Medical Clinical Uses of Virtual Worlds ; Giuseppe Riva ; 40. Military Simulations Using Virtual Worlds ; Roger Smith ; IX. Utopia and Dystopia ; 41. Ethics at the Boundaries of the Virtual ; Charles M. Ess ; 42. The Social Imaginary of Virtual Worlds ; Patrice Flichy ; 43. Virtuality and Humanity ; David Kreps ; 44. Virtual Dystopia ; Andrea Hunter and Vincent Mosco ; An Afterword in Four Binarisms ; Tom Boellstorff ; Index
