The fictional and the virtual

Abstract

What is the relationship between fictional worlds, much discussed by philosophers, and virtual worlds, such as those seen in videogames and the online community Second Life? Some recent writers have argued that videogame and online worlds are virtual rather than fictional. Espen Aarseth claims that virtual worlds and the objects that populate them are "ontologically different" from fictional worlds and objects. In this paper I survey some of the more metaphysically adventurous things that have been said about the ontological status of virtual worlds, and then come to my own hopefully more sane conclusion: the fictional and the virtual are somewhat overlapping categories, the former deriving from the representation of things with an imagined existence only, and the latter from the ability of computers to represent imaginary and real things in a robust and articulated way