Natural Limits of Artiicial Realities

Without hands and feet He goes fast and grasps; without eyes He sees; without ears He ears. He knows whatever is to be known, yet there is none who knows Him. They say He is the foremost, the great Innnite Being. \S'vetas'vatara Upanishad" The universe is information and we are stationary in it, not three-dimensional and not in space or time. The information fed to us we hypostatize into the phenomenal world. Abstract We propose a preliminary exploration of the outskirts of the research area concerned with the design of artiicial reality systems. Our goal is to clarify the concept of artiicial reality and its connections both with other kinds of computer systems and with the world we live in (natural reality). In order to provide a framework for such a discussion, we sketch a list of dimensions along which to classify artiicial realities. We would like to thank Enrico Franconi (for telling us of the Conference), Enzo Minervini (for pointing out the relevance of Bishop Berkeley), Giorgio Satta (for helping with L a T E X), Sandy Stone (the kindest presence in the matrix) and Achille C. Varzi (for his valuable comments on a preliminary draft).