Modern day gamemakers are constantly working on higher-resolution, more realistic graphics; more immersive sounds—but they're a long long way off real life.

Pressing the "W" key to run forward as a graphic of a hungry tiger bounds behind you, just doesn't seem quite as sensual as running frantically across the savanna with your own legs, breathing in huge gasps and pumping your arms as the sun beats down on your shoulders, the grass brushes your shins, and the air whips around you with the wind of your passage.

Don't mistake me for a luddite; I'm not saying the technology can't get that good. I'm saying it hasn't gotten that good yet.

Failing to escape the computer tiger would also have fewer long-term consequences than failing to escape a biological tiger—it would be less a part of the total story of your life—meaning you're also likely to be less emotionally involved. But that's a topic for another post. Today's post is just about the sensual quality of the experience.

Sensual experience isn't a question of some mysterious quality that only the "real world" possesses. A computer screen is as real as a tiger, after all. Whatever is, is real.

But the pattern of the pseudo-tiger, inside the computer chip, is nowhere near as complex as a biological tiger; it offers far fewer modes in which to interact. And the sensory bandwidth between you and the computer's pseudo-world is relatively low; and the information passing along it isn't in quite the right format.

It's not a question of computer tigers being "virtual" or "simulated", and therefore somehow a separate magisterium. But with present technology, and the way your brain is presently set up, you'd have a lot more neurons involved in running away from a biological tiger.

Running would fill your whole vision with motion, not just a flat rectangular screen—which translates into more square centimeters of visual cortex getting actively engaged.

The graphics on a computer monitor try to trigger your sense of spatial motion (residing in the parietal cortex, btw). But they're presenting the information differently from its native format —without binocular vision, for example, and without your vestibular senses indicating true motion. So the sense of motion isn't likely to be quite the same, what it would be if you were running.

And there's the sense of touch that indicates th...

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