Just how real is the Net?

[Kaden]

I haven't read through all of this thread yet, but wanted to respond to this.

We need to touch, feel, have intimate contact. Not only that, but humanity CRAVES novel nervous input. We drink, we do drugs, we exercise for the sheer joy of feeling the burn of it. Hell, how many physical hobbies do we have NOW even though we can do them virtually? Music, art, all of that we can synthesize in far more efficient and interesting ways than can be done with a physical form, but we still cling to physicality.

I think the base assumptions for this argument are completely invalid given the setting of the game. Efficiency has nothing to do with why people pursue the physical today and creates an example that refuses to take into consideration what would be massive societal shift.

People pursue the physical because there's no way to reproduce the stimulus it provides. Given that all stimulus is based on electrical impulses, it's an easy leap that, in a sci-fi/cyberpunk setting, implants that allow direct connection into a computer would be able to reproduce such impulses. If something tells your brain you're feeling joy, it doesn't matter if its a cognitive reaction to something good happening around you or its a computer chip telling your brain that it's receiving the same set of signals: you're feeling joy.

So, yeah. I'll keep reading, but this struck as a particularly important basis upon which arguments were being made (and may have well resolved itself further on in the thread and, if so, I apologize for beating a dead horse).