Abstract

Fast and intensive development of natural science (especially quantitative physics) and computer science make us think about the philosophy of nature. In this article we would like to show that a new subject of the philosophy of nature is the virtual world. The first step was to analyse some words like the following: virtuality, potentiality, reality. In this context we propose a definition of the virtual world as a real view created or reconstructed by intellectual or technical simulation. The next step was analyzed the objects and levels of virtual world. We emphasise the technical-communicational level and computer technology associated with it (the Internet, chat, blog, virtual shops); the second level is the biological level which is connected with the objects produced by the brain (thinking, imagination, research projects); the third level is the theoretical level with the virtual elements. On the ground of this classification we have shown that the virtual world and the objects are not homogeneous. The last part of this paper presents the beginning of the virtual world (creation or reconstruction in the intellectual and technical simulation). Our analyses are connected with Plato and his idealism, Aristotle and his realism, and Popper’s/Penrose’s proposition