More real than reality?

 "But now, computers can give us something different — a view of the world that is more real than the one we can see outside, a picture that illuminates our understanding of reality rather than hides it under abstractions."

 

The above quote is from a piece today in the New York Times, sparked by the realism of the new Microsoft Flight Simulator.  The picture is a snapshot from the virtual world Second Life.

 A larger quote and context follows:

At the moment, much of what happens online seems to be diverging from what happens offline. The digital world is, as we have seen, lousy with alternative facts and harebrained theories that have little bearing in fact. It often feels like society is being shaped by the algorithmically defined sensibilities of online echo chambers and anonymous bots and trolls rather than the nuanced ideas of living and breathing people.

It’s not just social media that distorts reality. As a lot of parents and kids have recently discovered, online education is an unsatisfactory simulacrum of a real world classroom. Today’s virtual office is convenient, but it’s flat and emotionless. The Zoom audience at the Democratic National Convention? It was gimmicky, I thought, with something crucial lost in the transition from a raucous convention hall to our webcammed living rooms.

The new Flight Sim suggests a different model of digital interaction, even if you have no interest in flying a plane. Until now, we have had to make do with abstract fictions online; from The Sims to Fortnite to the fake friends and tossed-off Likes of Facebook, our understanding of digital life is as a computer-generated realm stretched and shaped merely to approximate reality.

But now, computers can give us something different — a view of the world that is more real than the one we can see outside, a picture that illuminates our understanding of reality rather than hides it under abstractions.

I am not saying that such a view will cure all of society’s problems; but if we want to understand the world as it actually is, isn’t it better to use tools that depict it that way, rather than to delve deeper into the fakery of our present digital dystopia?