User:Jlowe022/Draft:Hamlet on the Holodeck

Main Points Ch. 1
Murray highlights the fear and anxiety that comes with new technology. She presents these fears and anxieties through three examples in the chapter. She uses the holodeck from Star Trek's: Voyager as her main example. Her supporting examples derive from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 compares to Star Trek's holodeck in a sense that both offer this intellectual world. In Fahrenheit 451, parlor walls serve as this intellectual world where the main characters in the book have the chance to engage with their favorite soap operas. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World dives into a different aspect of the same intellectual world, but through the lens of heightening the senses in order to create a more immersive experience. Murray uses these analogies to show the dangers of these type of "intellectual worlds." These worlds come with the ability to be a part of a world we desire, but it also questions the effects of a persuasive medium. All of these analogies, especially Huxley's Brave New World brings home Murray's idea of the fears of new technology. These new virtual spaces don't present the unreal as real, but instead they create the illusion of what is true in this immersive experience. Furthermore these virtual spaces present our fears, problems, and even innermost desires into this fantasy space, making it harder to draw the line between the two worlds.