Virtual

The virtual is the "almost real", like in the phrase "It was virtually..." meaning it was so close to being [that thing] I almost believed that it was. So a virtual reality is a reality so close to being real that it almost fools you into thinking it is real. But see, we're using the world wrong. When most people use "Virtual Reality" what they mean is "Digital Reality", because as soon as the reality comes into being - even in a digital sense, it doesn't have to be tangible to be real - it ceases to be virtual. Because anything virtual cannot by definition exist.

I guess that means that the stereotypical "Virtual Reality" is indeed still virtual, as there is no fully immersive sensory substitute for real life. It might be possible in the future, but then it wont be virtual.

Of course, the problem with digital reality is that people go too far with it, instead of producing under-rendered stylized people, in their quest to create the hyper real. Objects and people too real to be real. Have you seen some of those new fantasy and science fiction covers? People look really creepy when every pore on their face is rendered in loving detail. Cut it out dudes, it's just wrong.

Also, New Media writing is almost as hard to understand as Philosophy writing, except with considerably less bullshit and talking about God. It's really similar otherwise, they're both primarily concerned with debating whether or not something qualifies as a legitimate existance, expression, or state of being as defined by rules with nearly no basis in anything that exists outside of the author's own head.