Are we living in a simulataion? Does it matter? Does that steak taste like a steak? What is your default self-image? Want to change it? What does that mean? How can you escape all of these questions? Virtual worlds have a long history in science fiction. In the 80s, Willam Gibson used cyberspace as a medium for memory. Back in the 60s, Philip K. Dick imagined a virtual world that could be disseminated from a spray can. Here’s more on virtual worlds in science fiction from Book Raid:
Have you ever found yourself waking up to the shrill sound of your alarm, grappling with the bed covers, fumbling for the snooze button and thinking “Nah, not this reality. I’ll hop into a different one today, thank you very much.”? Welcome to the club where we escape into alternate realities and absurdly complex universes teeming with artificial intelligence, simulated environments, and cybernetic modifications. Judge us if you wish, but we’re smitten with the underbelly of the hard sci-fi world.
Hard science fiction: it’s like weaving the fun, fantastical elements of Star Trek with the confusing, hair-pulling complexities of quantum theory – just the brain workout we all crave, right? With no further ado, let us embark on a dimension-hopping journey through ink and pixel, courtesy of the minds that penned these brilliant hard sci-fi novels about virtual realities. Because, why contend with one pesky reality when we could have, I don’t know, 7.5 million? Buckle up, you are in for quite a ride!