Here is another relic from high school. Everyone in my high school had to write a senior thesis on a topic of their choice. I chose to do mine on "Man and His Desire for Virtual Realities". The thesis isn't really like it sounds though as I chose to come up with my own definition of virtual reality. This thesis has all the makings of a great reading: sex, violence, and dirty language. Hell, it was chosen to be bound and stored in my high school library for future generations. Check out the introduction below, and download the entire thesis (66 KB) if you are interested. You need Adobe Acrobat Reader Software to view the document.

Man and His Desire for Virtual Realities

Man has always sought something better. Whether it be the search for a better place to live, the hunt for a higher paying job, or simply the quest for a new favorite food, man is almost never satisfied with what he owns or has achieved. This search transcends all that man does. Not only does man seek something better, but man also searches for an outlet for his fundamental appetite of aggressive and sexual tensions. The great psychologist Sigmund Freud defined these underlying desires as the id. This id, as he called it, is so powerful that if not channeled, this force can completely control one’s actions and totally dominate one’s thoughts.

As mankind has progressed from its primitive form without restrictions to a complex society filled with laws and unwritten rules, the ability to satisfy the urges of one’s id has slowly diminished until its present state of almost non-existence; this inability to satisfy desires within the confines of reality has led man to seek other forms of release. As these limitations become too much, as reality becomes a burden, “one can try to re-create the world, to build up in its stead another world in which its most unbearable features are eliminated and replaced by others that are in conformity with one’s own wishes” (Freud 31)¹ . This new domain of thought and existence is called virtual reality.