Augmented Reality and Augmented Perception

Abstract

In this paper I argue that the term ‘Augmented Reality’ as a description of technologies that informationally augment our perception is misleading and possibly harmful. The paper begins with a characterization of the concept of ‘reality’ and describes three different philosophical phenomena that could be accurately described as ‘Augmented Reality’. The first section discusses the poet Wallace Stevens’ notion of how the poetic imagination can enrich our reality. The second section looks at the “sensibility theory” of moral and aesthetic value associated with McDowell and Wiggins, which is meant to explain how anthropocentric but objectively real values can enter into a naturalistic world. The third section examines Wittgenstein’s notion that someone who ceases laying down conditions upon the world and learns to accept it has enriched their reality. A fourth section then examines the claim of Augmented Reality technologies to be an ‘augmentation of reality’. I argue that the term reflects a dangerous confusion. When we see these technologies in contrast with the three different notions of what ‘augmenting reality’ discussed in the first three sections, we see that while Augmented Reality technologies can be incredibly useful and to that extent valuable, they also threaten to diminish our reality. The conflation of truly Augmented Reality with a technological augmentation of our perception is a moral temptation that we should avoid.