The Real, the Virtual and Quantum Theoretical

The visual experience we have, of a world outside of ourselves, is an hallucination. Now it is not the  outside world in itself, that is the hallucination, but rather our experience of it.

Now while this might sound consistent with Plato's argument, with his parable of the cave, the problem for Plato, and modern variants, such as The Matrix and Dark City, is that we can not necessarily distinguish any experience of the outside world (such as a cave shadow) from anything that would be any other than just another experience of that outside world (such as Plato's retina). In other words there is not any determinate difference between Plato's "reality", outside the cave, and the experience of those inside the cave. They are both, in a sense, inside their own cave - inside an experience of what is otherwise outside.

On the other hand we could read Plato as being more metaphoric than literal, that he is not necessarily meaning what is available as an experience outside the cave but rather, meaning the idea of an outside, outside of experience, outside of the cave.

However, the idea of an outside, is still something that occurs within thought (within a cave). And one could argue that the idea of an outside, precisely because it is more metaphoric than literal, is actually more removed from the outside than the simpler, more literal experience of such.

But lets not treat this as necessarily a criticism. We can always regard a suitable idea of an outside as a way to correct an otherwise the internal, cave-like nature of experience. But is such a correction necessary? Is not the hallucination of an outside, appearing as if outside, already it's correction? Do we not (normally) experience the images on our retina as if they were not on our retina? Do we not already experience those images as if they were already outside of ourselves?

Before going further, we need to to agree on a code. The code I adopt is from optics.

In optics the term "real image" refers to those images which occur at a surface. The use of the word "real" has nothing to do with the content of such images. It is simply code for surface images, such as a shadow on a cave wall, an image on a retina, or an image on the screen in a camera obscura. In contrast to such real images, is the "virtual image". A virtual image is that correction which occurs, which re-situates a real image, as if outside of ourselves, as if out there in space. It is the virtual image which we effectively experience.


Now the last term I want to use, and which has already been used, is the "outside". This is the difficult one because there is no way of clarifying this term other than as some sort of negation of the previous two. Neither real nor virtual it is outside of both and has no image. It is an empty signifier.

The reason it is empty is not necessarily because it is empty but because we have yet to find what is signified by such. Or even if that is possible. It is a signifier in search of some sort of meaning other than those discussed, and other than being just this other.

In it's current form it is transcendental and therefore open to criticism as such. Nevertheless we hold on to it and if needs be, we can always abandon it. Or put it back in the cupboard for another day.

Now what strikes me as marvellous about the virtual is this correction which occurs. It's not necessarily a complete correction, or even an adequate one, or even a correction (!) but it's a transformation performed by the brain, on real images. This is particularly striking in the case of stereoscopic images. The images themselves (the real images) have no depth but the brain is able to, almost immediately, to experience the stereoscopic images as if they were occupying the space either side of the screen in which we would otherwise situate those images. This depth effect occurs in our brain. This effect demonstrates what is meant by the virtual. It is not just the stereoscopic image which is virtual but the entire space around it as well. The entire world around us, whether inside a cinema (cave), or outside, is virtual.

But the basis for this virtual (apart from the brain of course) is the real image (shadow, retinal etc) which informs it and on which the brain operates. The real image sits at the interface between the virtual and the outside. Or at least that is our proposition. The virtual provides for a correction in relation to the real image, reposing the image, as if it were outside of ourselves. We could also call it an illusion (rather than a correction) if we assumed there were no outside. Or we may want to call it such even if we do believe there is an outside, but calling it an illusion so as to indicate the so called correction isn't a correction, or could be a better correction.

Now what can complicate this is when we introduce images that are not so immediate. For example a photograph. While cave dwellers pondering a shadow are doing so at the same time as the outside of such is taking place, a photograph or a film occurs somewhat later, and can (and usually does) involve various additional processes (such as special effects) which complicate or otherwise void any correction. Correction, in this case, would be a somewhat inappropriate word. But nevertheless, those operations, which we've otherwise called a "correction" still take place. It is only the word which is inappropriate. So with that understood we'll continue to use the word "correction" for the operation, even if a correction isn't the result. A better word, in this context, might be "virtualisation".

Irregardless of how a real image is constructed we virtualise that real image. Not only by situating a retinal image outside of ourselves, but situating any real images within that (such as a photograph) as having content outside of that image.

Now returning to Plato, the problem for Plato, is twofold:

1. the virtual already makes a correction in relation to real images.
2. the space in which this correction occurs can not be the source of a real image

The second point is worth re-reading. Plato's argument is that the reality/origin of the cave shadows is outside the cave. But Plato's outside is not that of our currently empty signifier (which we'll speak about later) but the virtual - that psychological space in which the cave shadows (or Plato's retinal image) undergoes virtualisation. This occurs as an operation on the real image. The real image can not be a function of the operations which otherwise operate on that real image. It is the virtual image which is a function of operations on a real image. Not the other way around.

Now, of course, we can construct images in our imagination, ie. within the virtual, and actualise those images as real images. For example, computer synthesised images can be imagined, constructed, and rendered. The space in which such images have their origin is effectively the virtual. Which brings us to what has been, until about a hundred years ago, an equivalence that could be created between the virtual and the outside.

The virtual starts out, no doubt, as an evolutionary response to real images. There has evolved a kind of bodily intelligence in relation to real images, a virtual reality, in which otherwise real images (retinal images) are corrected inside the brain. We see things as outside of ourselves because (we propose) what we see represents what is outside of ourselves. And what better representation than to appear as if outside ourselves. But in addition to such we have also developed schemes for representing the outside in terms of geometry and mathematics. So precise were these additional tools we've been able to create what we thought were completely accurate models of what was otherwise happening outside.

But about a hundred years ago, models that been in use since antiquity, while undergoing various modifications and rethinks, underwent it's biggest rethink, the philosophical ramifications of which are still being hotly debated to this day. Quantum mechanics was discovered and quantum theory developed. It turns out (perhaps not surprisingly) that the outside may not be completely thinkable in terms of our virtual frameworks. Until then we could have always asserted that our virtual reality is just a substitute for some actual reality - that what we mean by our virtual reality is that actual reality. That when we say a real image, such as a shadow, has it's origin outside the cave, even if the outside is a virtual reality, we mean by that virtual reality, what that means: some actual reality.

That argument is one that could have worked, (or has worked), prior to quantum theory. In classical theory, if a theory was really correct, then the virtual (the theory), and what it otherwise represents ("reality") could be interchanged. In this classical context a real image would have it's origin in an outside "reality" and that "reality" would be no different from an ideal virtual that otherwise reproduced it. If it walks like a duck it probably is a duck.

Now quantum theory is very strange and the reason for this strangeness isn't necessarily a function of it's assumptions. Indeed the theory is generally, and most successfully, I'd argue, described in terms of classical assumptions because it is through classical assumptions that it's fundamental strangeness is most obvious. While it's tempting to think that alternative assumptions might alleviate the strangeness, I've never found this to be the case. For some theorists the many worlds interpretation of quantum theory is less strange than the original quasi-classical one. And to some extent it may be. But personally I think the alternative assumptions just make quantum theory even stranger. But that could very well be a good thing.

In classical theory (Plato, Aristotle, etc) it is an assumption that images are an effect of a reality outside the image. Not all classical theory is of this persuasion. But let us just say that what we mean by "classical theory" is that which assumes this is the case. The task of classical theory, armed by the certainty of mathematics, and the assumption of images as a function of an outside reality, is to (or was to) define an equivalent virtual reality for that outside. If a virtual reality (ie. a theory) could produce images that were the same image as those created by the reality outside, then the virtual reality could act (virtually) as a substitute for that outside reality. The virtual reality could be, in principle, the mind of God.

With the advent of computer generated images we can partly (if not wholly) see what classical theorists (as a whole) have in mind. When you put all the theory together, you see quite remarkable demonstrations of more or less exactly what they are thinking. An entire branch of computer generated imagery is devoted to producing the basis for an exchange between virtual reality (comprehension) and reality (the outside). However the emphasis has shifted somewhat. The goal of the exercise is now more about creating a subconscious sense of an equivalence rather than necessarily an actual equivalence. But perhaps for good reason.

For reasons we can feel free to admit as beyond us, it is (it would seem to me) impossible to completely exchange the virtual for the reality it otherwise seeks to represent, (or to be). I sometimes feel, in a moment of random insight, that I know why, only to realise I have no idea. What I do recognise, is the historical pressure, to discover why (or how) it is like that, or why/how it isn't like that. It is a pressure I try to ignore.

In quantum theory the relationship between a classical description of an experimental setup, and a classical description of it's image (a real image) is not classically describable. Or rather, a classical description of this relationship, in terms of a direct one to one mapping, fails. What is possible, in it's place, is not any better (in terms of a one to one mapping) but has the virtue of being, at least (so far) correct.



to be continued