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In
the Western world, we are still proceeding from a
Cartesian worldview. In this paper I will
illustrate that this dualistic worldview is
objectified in Virtual Reality technologies. In
order to illustrate this, I will first explain the
main ideas of Descartes’ Optics with
respect to his vision on sense perception, space
and the body. Secondly, I will compare the
described topics of Descartes’ philosophy with
the phenomenological critique and alternative of
Merleau-Ponty. These elaborations will serve as a
background for my illustration. I will distinguish
three kinds of virtual spaces, of which the CAVE
seems to arouse the strongest kind of Cartesian
ruptures, which I will refer to as experiences of
‘shattered embodiment’.
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