More pertinently, does this mean I don't have to pay rent?
[laughter]
Seriously, folks . . .
I was at the dentist's the other day and was able to watch a scuba-diving DVD on a screen above the chair while listening to canned music. I've heard of dentists who take the step further and install actual virtual-reality headgear. It keeps the patient comfortably occupied and can produce a sense of bilocation so effective anesthetic isn't needed.
I extrapolated this to its logical conclusion and realized that my entire life -- my apartment, my computer, my cats, my CD collection, the coffee shop down the street -- are nothing but a clever distraction. Perhaps I'm actually undergoing the equivalent of a root canal in some clinic of the future, where instead of nature videos or VR patients get to enjoy whole new lives: memories compacted into the space of a few minutes or hours.
(Again: the notion that I'm in fact long-dead while some unseen neuro-hacker runs software on the husk of my brain. Yes, consciousness "feels" "real" -- but what's "real"?)
Close your eyes
and think of someone
you physically admire
and let me kiss you
let me kiss you
But then you open your eyes
and you see someone
that you physically despise
but my heart is open
my heart is open to you
--Morrissey, "Let Me Kiss You"
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