Reality & virtuality

The distinction between reality and appearance, virtuality and reality is of fundamental importance for people and their view of the world. However, advances in digitalization, media communication and artificial intelligence are creating increasingly ambivalent spaces of experience in which the distinction between reality and appearance, original and simulation, physical and virtual presence is beginning to dissolve: artificial intelligence that simulates subjectivity, psychotherapeutic support in the form of chatbots and the metaverse as "Second Life" are just a few examples of how the boundary between fact and fiction is becoming increasingly blurred.

The symposium will address questions such as: What is reality? What forms of virtuality can we distinguish? What effects does the disembodiment of communication have in different areas of society?

The program

10:00 a.m.
Welcome

10:15 - 11:00 a.m.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Fuchs, Jaspers Institute, University of Heidelberg
What becomes of the body? Virtualization and embodiment in contemporary culture

- Discussion/coffee break -

11:30 - 12:30
Prof. Dr. Eva Weber-Guskar, Ruhr University Bochum
Social chatbots: All fictional? On the possibility of an emotional relationship with a virtual counterpart

12:30 p.m.
Discussion/ Lunch break

14:15 - 15:00
Prof. Dr. Bert te Wildt, Psychosomatic Clinic Kloster Dießen, Technical University of Munich
Agony of the real - How media theory predicted the implosion of reality

- Discussion / coffee break -

15:30 - 16:15
Dr. Nicole Liebers-Trappe, expert for media and science communication
Love in transition: How feelings are developing for AIs and what this means for us

- Discussion -

16:30 - 18:00
Doris Dörrie in conversation with Prof. Dr. Thomas Fuchs
The Uncanny Valley. When does it get scary?

6:00 p.m.
End of the event

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