Virtual Thought

Abstract

Summary: The visual, or that which can be 'seen', is only part of an image, and the gap between the visible and the essential realities of images is constantly growing. This article proposes the paradigm of virtual reality to sum up the image's multiple generative, operational and functional links with that part of it which is not 'image', and which therefore goes beyond it and enhances it in new ways. The development of this model raises several questions: an epistemological question (what new relationship does the virtual introduce between the visible and the intelligible, between seeing and knowing?); ethical questions (what truth can be attributed to virtual images? what self-images can be portrayed? what is to be done with the image of others?); An ontological question (what relationship exists between a being and its virtual representation, between presence and the image of presence?)