The ancient and medieval idea of reality and virtuality

CHAPTER 1 – VIRTUAL REALITY AND ARCHITECTURE

“There is no purely actual object. Every actuality surrounds itself with a fog of virtual images.” (Deleuze, The Actual and the Virtual, 1997)

1.1 A PHILOSOPHICAL IDEA OF SPACE. ACTUAL, REAL, POSSIBLE AND VIRTUAL.

The ancient and medieval idea of reality and virtuality

Greek philosophers were the first to theorize about reality. Plato theorized the realm of ideas or perfect

forms as the sole real space, in his Theory of Ideas (or Theory of Form). According to Plato, ideas are the

essence of things, and the physical space is not necessarily real, nor perfect, but a mere representation

in the material world of objects that try to imitate the world of ideas. So, while Plato considers the realm

of ideas to be the real world, populated by abstract objects, the physical world is the reflected

materialized and imperfect representation of it. We all experience Plato’s allegory of the man in the cave looking at the shadows created by light reflects the analogy with the illusion of the real word (fig.4).

Plato as a metaphysical dualist believes that reality exists in two different realms, the real and the

virtual and can be explained considering two separate substances: the imperfect material or physical

world and the perfect immaterial or mental world of ideas. As a result, in Plato's view, the reality is

recognized primarily via the intellect (from inside), rather than through direct sensory experience. In his

view, the world of ideas or the being represents the virtual, and the virtual is more real and perfect than

the physical or materialworld, which is the subject of constant change.

Figure 4 Plato’s allegory of the cave (Source: MatiasEnElMundo, https://www.thoughtco.com/the-allegory-of-the-cave-120330)

Aristotle rejected Plato’s world of ideas as a separate entity from the real world, and proposed only one

level of reality, although he made a distinction between actuality or reality (things happening in real

time) and dýnamis, potentiality or virtuality (things which can potentially happen). Aristotle introduced 23

the concept of physics and metaphysics. To him, they cannot be considered as separated realities, but

are instead part of every entity of our world, and in individuals are represented through Body and

Psyche. Moreover, the potential and the actual are continuously transformed into each other. In contrast

to Plato, Aristoteles considered space substantial and dynamic, defining it as a container of objects in

continuous motion. Space assumes a variety of possible states, which not being actual are considered as

virtual. Theatre, for instance, was considered as a virtual world, in which experience differed from that of

real life, and had no direct impact on it. It does, however, have the potential to become real. That

suggests that real and virtual are dynamic and evolve through time, and the virtual is the potentiality

of essence to become real.

Following Aristoteles' stance on potentiality, Thomas Aquinas presents the notion of virtuality as a

synonym for potency in the High Middle Ages, although this term had not yet emerged. “Virtuality” and “virtual”, as we know them today, originate from Latin "uirtus" and the deriving nouns and adverbs

"uirtualitas", and "uirtualis", etc. In latin "uirtus" assumed different meanings from individual

psychological features such as the conformity of life, the living according to natural principles and

possessing ethical and moral value, to physical attributes given by nature, "virilitas", such as power,

masculinity, bravery, courage, and so on.Thomas Aquinas recognized and emphasized the double

meaning of "uirtus" or what he defined as "potency": on one hand the ethical and moral dimension,

which he associated with Christian principles, and on the other the actions of violent power. Aquinas

placed them in antagonism, giving power a negative connotation that subsequently changed to creative

potency or potentiality. In this sense, "uirtualis" as explained by Aquinas refers to two types of contacts:

the virtual as characteristic of the state of being and the corporeal, as the quantity of masses, which

characterizes physical things. Furthermore, Aquinas asserts that virtual contact may affect and modify

the physical condition and considered this as the starting point of action. Similarly, to Aristoteles thought

on the dynamic change between virtual and real, Aquinas referring to the human beings, states that the

body is virtually inside the semen “corpus humanum in semine est uirtualiter” (Aquinas, 1475, De potentia 3,9,9), and has the potentiality to be transformed into a physical being.

By generalizing his notion, we might conclude that any virtual form can potentially be turned into

physical reality. It refers to something which without being real, can produce a similar effect. The work

of Aquinas definitively established the meaning of virtuality and became a reference point for studies on

space and advanced computer technology in the twenty-first century.