THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF VIRTUAL REALITY AND PHANTOM SENSATIONS
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF VIRTUAL REALITY AND PHANTOM SENSATIONS

Summary/Abstract: One of the major issues in the current research on virtual reality (VR) is how to induce the feeling of reality in the experiencing subject. In this sense the phenomenon of phantom sensations (i.e. the persisting experience of a limb after its amputation) appears to be a paradigmatic case of VR. However, in contrast to the artificially induced VR experience, phantom sensations are linked to the strong feeling of their reality. Therefore, we characterise the subjective experience of phantom sensations by superpresence, as opposed to the artificially induced VR experience characterised by telepresence. Our hypothesis is that this phenomenological difference originates in the fact that phantom sensations represent a case of unmediated VR. This unmediated VR experience is essentially different from any technologically induced VR because it can be traced back to the epistemic abilities and limitations of the brain itself.

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