Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy

by David Chalmers

***🏆 A Five Books Book of the Year ***

A book of ‘technophilosophy’ by David Chalmers, University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at NYU and co-director of its Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness. Chalmers is famous for coining the phrase ‘the hard problem’ to describe the difficulty of explaining how matter gives rise to an experiencing mind, but this book is very much for the general reader and requires no prior knowledge of philosophy of mind (with lots of references to The Matrix, the opening lines of “Bohemian Rhapsody” etc.).

Recommendations from our site

“What David Chalmers wants to say is that the reality that we seem to experience if we see a table in front of us is in some important sense real: it’s not an illusion. That goes against the Cartesian way of seeing those imaginary or created worlds. That’s the main thrust of it. He’s very clever because he’s managed to then rehearse many of the key arguments that you would encounter in most philosophy courses, but through that lens of virtual reality. It genuinely is thought-provoking (or virtual thought-provoking). It’s well-written too.” Read more...

The Best Philosophy Books of 2022

Nigel Warburton, Philosopher