Virtualities

Why not a series of novels set inside a succession of virtual realities like the "emulations" (conscious simulations) in Poul Anderson's Genesis? A number of characters would spend long periods of time in several virtualities which the AI would program with different probabilities. Thus, in a "mundane" virtuality, someone who set out to go to work would usually arrive at his work whereas, in an "adventure" virtuality, it would be far more likely for him to be abducted by enemy agents or alien invaders etc and he would then have to exercise heroic skills and abilities before he was able to return home that evening. The same characters would experience different genres or even combinations of genres. If they enacted the conjuration in James Blish's Black Easter, would the demonic sendings escalate all the way to Armageddon again? Might the emulated events occur with infinite duration in the last microsecond of the primary reality? Or would the characters be in a literal hereafter?

We know that we must differentiate between appearance and reality. An apparently single stationary solid object is really many moving particles with spaces between them. Reality becomes conscious of itself by appearing to itself but in different ways. Appearances to a bat are different from appearances to a man. In fact, human beings often seem to perceive different realities. Physically, we inhabit a material reality. Psychologically, we inhabit a perceived and apparent reality. If we discovered that what we had thought to be a material reality was on the contrary a virtual reality, this would be just another level of the reality-appearance distinction.

Andrea above the Old Pier Bookshop thinks that there is evidence that we are in a virtual reality. Part of the argument is probabilistic. If there is one primary reality that contains many virtuals each of which also contains many virtuals, then it is more probable that we are in one of the virtuals than in the primary. Our apparent reality has remained consistent for a very long time or at least seems to have done but, if our memories are revisable, then we don't know whether they are reliable.