virtuality

http://hum.uchicago.edu/faculty/mitchell/glossary2004/virtuality.htm

The word virtuality derives from the Latin virtus, which means
strength; this is in turn derived from vir, indicating a man or
manliness, as in virility. [1]
It is also related to virtue, which
indicates both "a particular moral excellence" and "superiority or
excellence in respect either of nature or of operation."
The Oxford English Dictionary lists three possible definitions for
virtuality. The first of these is archaic, and means "the possession of
force or power" or "something endowed with virtue or power." The
second possible definition is "essential nature of being, apart from
external form or embodiment." The third possible definition, which
also corresponds to the common usage of the word, is "a virtual (as
opposed to an actual) thing, capacity, etc; a potentiality." Thus the
two definitions of virtuality in use seem contradictory. C.S. Peirce, in
his definition of the virtual, notes this contradiction and finds it
problematic. He defines the virtual as follows: "A virtual X (where X
is a common noun) is something, not an X, which has the efficiency
(virtus) of an X." [2] His definition does not adhere to either of the
OED definitions strictly, as it indicates an "external form or
embodiment," which does not reference itself and which stands in for
something else ("a virtual (as opposed to actual) thing"), but in such
a way as to be as effective in terms of representation as the actual
thing. Nevertheless, Peirce seems to indicate his definition is closer
to the second rather than third OED definition, as he goes on to state
that, "This [his above definition] is the proper meaning of the word;
but it has been seriously confounded with 'potential,' which is almost
its contrary. For the potential X is of the nature of X, but is without
actual efficiency." For Peirce, the virtual relation indicates "a
displacement."
Historically, virtuality as potentiality is founded in Aristotelean
thought. [3]
For Aristotle, entities can be understood as both
actuality and potentiality; entities are actual in their existence in the
world, but every mode of existence is an actualization of a
potentiality. The virtual here indicates the multitude of possible
states that any entity may experience, circumscribed by the essential
- that is, the potential always relates to an essence in terms of the
possible states that may occur (depending on the essence of the
entity, some potentialities exist while others do not). For Peirce, the

virtual marks a difference of orders, one standing in for the other.

Classically, the virtual indicates the potentiality of an essence.
Thomas Aquinas introduces virtuality into this context, as a synonym
of Aristotelean potentiality. The move from the virtual as marker of
potentiality in one order to marker of the potential between or among
orders occurs in Kant's On the Form and Principles of the Sensible
and the Intelligible Worlds. Kant, in attempting to understand the
nature of the soul, answers the problem of the incorporate soul
existing in the corporate world by designating the soul as having a "a
presence in the world [that] is not spatial, but virtual." [4] Thus the
virtual begins to mark that which exists in one order and can only be
actualized in another order. Peirce marks the point where the virtual
and the actual split, where the virtual is a relation rather than a
potentiality that is waiting to be actualized (this is not completely
true, of course, for Peirce requires a shared essence between entities
of different orders, a quality or "virtus" that marks the differing
"common nouns" as equivalent).
The modern, vernacular use of the term virtual corresponds to
Peirce's definition if we think of the popularized, Lawnmower Man
image of virtual reality, as here virtuality is of a different order than
the actual world (as it can be fantastic, as in the aforementioned
film), but it likewise must be loyal enough to a concept of reality that
it retains recognizability (thus it functions as an illusion of an exterior
reality). The modern, technology-driven conception of the virtual can
be divided into two equally apt definitions. [5] The first connects the
virtual with its "real" counterpart by means of a visual similarity made
manifest technologically, via various apparatuses that construct
interactive sensory experiences. The apparatus used in Lawnmower
Man , for example, corresponds to the prevalent combination of
prosthetics, usually a helmet display and a haptic interface of some
type (such as a hand controller or glove). A second model, developed
in the early 1990s, is the CAVE system, a virtual theater which uses
an enclosed room, the walls of which are composed of display screens
onto which high resolution virtual imagery is projected, creating a
virtual space that is less obviously mediated by technology. [6]
These technologies are aimed at providing an illusion of the human
body in a virtual space, but virtual technology is also being employed
to extend the manipulation of the human body in real space, as in the
example of virtual surgery. [7] Virtuality of this first type, which
presupposes visual similarity, does not necessarily imply highly
specialized technology; virtual online persistent worlds, both game
and information oriented, which utilize classical perspective, but
substitute the computer screen for the helmet display, provide an
example of the virtual as resemblance, as does the WYSIWYG
interface, etc. The second conception of techno-virtuality can be

summarized as informational, in which the virtual and the actual

share not visual characteristics but a similar information structure.
An example of this would be the online chat room, where the virtual
room or community is structured by its ideal rhetorical underpinnings,
the dialogue of different voices (here mediated by typed text). The
virtual classroom or museum are further examples of this.
The farthest extension of the modern usage of virtuality is manifest in
Baudrillard's notion of the collapse of the distinction between the real
and the virtual. For Baudrillard, the enormous circulation of images
that marks the last half of the 20th century (and is marked by
television more than any other technology) introduces an ontological
confusion in terms of the image that is not present even for Peirce;
for Baudrillard, the virtual does not indicate a difference across
orders, but indeed the complete collapse of orders, so that the real
and the virtual become indistinguishable (on an ontological level). [8]
For Baudrillard, images have lost their ability to be virtual because a
real referent can no longer be distinguished - what once was
designated as virtual is now more present than reality itself (or reality
is so imbricated with these images that the difference becomes
moot). Against virtuality, Baudrillard posits the hyper-real, (2).
Alan Goodrich
Winter 2002