Porcelain Publishing / JHC / Volume 6 / Issue 1 / DOI: 10.47297/wspjhcWSP2515-469903.20220601
ARTICLE

Is Chalmers' Virtual Reality "Mirror Argument" Sound?

Shaohua Xue1
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1 School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, P.R.China
© Invalid date by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Extended reality devices provide users with unprecedented immersive and hybrid perceptual experiences, and users will act their bodies according to the information perceived. This shows that visual perception plays a crucial role in the formation and shaping of self-perception and spatial position. Users have a strong perceptual experience of their physical presence and self-perception in the real world as a result of their avatar perspective based on visual perception in a virtual hybrid environment, as is issued by Chalmers in his "Mirror Argument". However, users can still clearly differentiate their self and spatial experience between virtual and reality. To refute Chalmers' argument regarding perceptual experience in virtual reality, this article proposes a thought experiment called "Mary's Room in the Virtual Reality World" based on the experimental evidence of neuroscience. Finally, a possible future solution to this dilemma is presented.

Keywords
Virtual reality; Affordance; Perceptual experience; Thought experiment; Mary's room
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Journal of Human Cognition, Electronic ISSN: 2753-5215 Print ISSN: 2515-4699, Published by Porcelain Publishing