Infinite Reality
Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds, and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution
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5.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Enough with speculation about our digital future. Infinite Reality is the straight dope on what is and isn’t happening to us right now, from two of the only scientists working on the boundaries between real life and its virtual extensions.”
—Douglas Rushkoff, author of Program or Be Programmed
Can our brains recognize where "reality" ends and "virtual" begins? Where will technology lead us in five, fifty, or five hundred years? An unrivaled guide to our digital future that has been cited by the Supreme Court, Infinite Reality is a mind-bending "journey through the virtual universe" (Wall Street Journal). Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson, two pioneering authorities, explore the profound potential of emerging technologies and reveal how our brains behave in digital worlds.
Along the way, Bailenson and Blascovich examine the timeless philosophical questions of the self and "reality" that arise through the digital experience; explain how virtual reality's latest and future forms—including immersive video games and social-networking sites—will soon be seamlessly integrated into our lives; show the many surprising practical applications of virtual reality, from education and medicine to sex and warfare; and probe further-off possibilities like "total personality downloads" that would allow your great-great-grandchildren to have a conversation with "you" a century or more after your death.
Equally fascinating, farsighted, and profound, Infinite Reality is an essential guide to our virtual future, where the experience of being human will be deeply transformed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An assimilated Jew, journalist London (One Day the Soldiers Came) was shaken to learn that his thoroughly modern grandmother was born in a small, Orthodox, Yiddish-speaking community in Virginia. A reunion of this now-gone "shtetl" that had coexisted peacefully with its gentile neighbors inspired him to discover other Jewish communities in challenging circumstances that live peacefully with their gentile neighbors which he rather simplistically opposes to Israel, whose violence in the West Bank and Gaza he deplores. In Rangoon, Burma, in the midst of a military crackdown, he wonders why the city's Jewish community is dying; in Iran, he finds a Jewish community not too worried about anti-Semitism, with a guaranteed seat in Parliament, 30 synagogues and six schools. In Cuba, London wonders whether Jews join the Jewish community more for spiritual connection or for perks like a government beef ration; in Bosnia, he finds an inclusive Judaism that gave back to society at large. Finally, Israel's powerful Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial makes London believe for the first time in the necessity of a Jewish state. While a sincere and soul-searching observer, London often comes across as politically na ve and admittedly ill-informed about Jewish history and rituals. Photos.
