MovieChat Forums > eXistenZ (1999) Discussion > Would you do it?

Would you do it?

posted 15 years ago by B-J-C
7 replies | jump to latest

So if they actually brought out technology like this, virtual reality where you could experience anything you like (within the confines of game availability), the only requirement is having a hole plunged into your back, would you do it? I'm asking, assuming the obvious issues that are the theme of the film weren't an issue (losing identity, losing touch with or forgetting about reality, etc). Assuming it was perfectly safe and you were always 100% in control and aware that you were playing, would you permit a small mutation of your body in order to experience the latest technological craze?

I thought I could oooooorganise freedom
hoooooooow Scandinavian of meeee ...

[–] jimglidewell 15 years ago

As long as I could have the procedure done by a guy named "Gas" using a greasy device in a gas station, sure... :-)

[–] OgreVI 15 years ago

See, that the thing. I'm not sure it would be possible to ever be sure that you weren't losing touch with reality. An experience like this would automatically warp reality.
Once you've been in, there's just no logical way you could ever prove to yourself that you'd gotten out. And, if I may pick up the theory of the radicals in the movie, once the technology has been developed, nobody in the whole world could ever be sure, because it would always be possible that you had entered the alternate reality and then been made to forget that you'd entered it.
And then, of course, that leaves open the possibility that the technology has been invented and that I'm in the game right now and have been made to forget that the technology exists at all. You too, and everyone else. We're all in the game and always have been.
Now I'm feeling paranoid. I'm gonna go get drunk.

Death is...whimsical today.

[–] strawberrymilkandgin 14 years ago

Did you ever have a dream where you could jump so high in the air that you were scared of injuring yourself when you landed?

Do you ever wake from a dream and you could swear the place was "real" not just a dream? With emotions like anger, fear, sexuality, love, all deeply intertwined with the environment, plot and scenario?

Hell yeah I would get the plug for my spine installed, but I'd wait a few years until they work out the kinks first.

[–] Foxxo 14 years ago

Honestly, no I would never even consider doing this, and I'm surprised any of you would. You may think that they'll work out kinks, and that the game will be foolproof. Maybe that's true, but the very nature of the game is that it creates a completely alternate reality.

Picture this, a game where you can warp to have fun, do whatever you want, live out fantasies etc. What will stop people from living their entire lives in this game? People won't want to live in the real world anymore. Ever partaking in a game like this is unhealthy and you run the risk of losing a grasp on reality. People may think it'll become easy to manage but the lifestyle of all of humanity would change.

I would have thought watching this movie would have raised awareness as to why this sort of game could almost destroy humanity as we know it. I just don't understand why most people can't see the obvious, and very dangerous, implications involved in this warping of reality.

Wulf_Man

[–] kingspank0 14 years ago

All these themes are explored very intelligently and entertainingly in the online novella below. I highly recommend it (and no I have nothing to do with its production).

http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html

[–] Strazdamonas 14 years ago

What will stop people from living their entire lives in this game? People won't want to live in the real world anymore.

i think thats the point. besides there was a movie, evne couple movies, of exactly this happening. people living inside the virtual reality, moving around with fake bodies.

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"Common sense is not so common."
- Voltaire

[–] silverkid 14 years ago

Existenz already exists. Its called marijuana.

http://most-underrated-movies.blogspot.com/