"You know, they talk about virtual reality as some future technology that’s going to change everything, [but] we’ve been living in a virtual reality for the past 6000 years. I mean, look at cities like New York and London and Los Angeles. Every nature has disappeared. Everything you see is a human idea, downloaded into material existence. It’s entirely virtual, it doesn’t disappear at the punch of a dial, but it is as virtual as the virtual realities that will eventually be made out of light behind goggles. "
-Terrence McKenna
Interesting quote, though I don’t agree with it at all. There’s nothing virtual about buildings, or cars, or currency, or clothes, or modern civilization in general. It’s all every bit as natural as we ourselves are. The word “virtual”, specifically when used in the term “virtual reality”, implies a simulation. It refers to a non-real representation of an objective model, usually based on our own reality (or at least our understanding of it). If Los Angeles were “virtual reality”, then nothing anybody did there would have consequences that extend into the real world, which, according to Terrence, would be defined as any environment that still exists as nature created it before the arrival of intelligent beings.
A skyscraper is as natural as a bee hive. In both instances, a living being has organized matter into a purposeful structure to allow us to live our natural lives more productively. I honestly don’t see a distinction between our present style of living and that of anything else nature has produced, at any given period in time.
hmm so then we have been living the past 6000 years(not surely)
the third of our life in a virtual reality not aware of it 
(we are homo sapiens 
a bit arrogant because sapiens means wise maybe homo satanis is more fitting )
or precisely 2000years…(if those 6000 were for sure ,maybe tomorrow they discover fosils of homo sapiens old 1mil years and then get really confused
because they understand that belief is stupid destructive and illogical
and unbelief more sapiens and get incontinence because of the broken illusion of one reality and one perception as the truth and by the overwehlming cogniton that as long as the ego exist that reality will only be a matter of perception and the opening to infinite possibilities necessary)
hmm now i am a bit offtopic
but dreams are a virtual reality even real to me as what we call reality
(i dont belive in realty because i don t belive in anything)
so to resume we are already equipped with virtual reality 
our brain is the best device 
and now i could write an arrogant essay about this i think i will open a blog and write on it stuff like this…
this forum is full of inspiration 
Reminds me of another quote by this journalist that we touched of briefly once in class, “Vinyl is as natural as lichen” (which I do agree with).
It’s like McKenna thinks that humans are supposed to stay this simple little ape, building all sorts of ‘natural’ stuff out of stone, wood - that there is something bad about unnatural ‘concrete’ [by the way, I agree with you Athe], but that seems to suggest that he thinks that humans are not supposed to be anything more than what we were thousands of years ago.
So as far out as it is, even if it were true, why would it be a bad thing anyway?
…and who is Terrence McKenna? 
Josh…google is your friend. 
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_McKenna
ah…im having trouble putting my response into words. i will check back with you all when words are formed in my head. I have response to ath’s comments. i think mckenna’s comment was a bit misinterpreted, i believe he was talking more about patterns of thought and the way in which we live our lives.
I do agree somewhat though, with the “vinyl is as natural as lichen” concept. I think that also applies to the invasive plant species “problem”.