"Reality is that which is, 'virtuality' is that which seems to be." (Ted Nelson)

Traditionally, for something to be virtual meant that it possessed the powers or capabilities of something else. In the late 1950's, scientists developed what they called "virtual computers" -- machines quick enough to handle several users sequentially while giving each user the impression of being the only one using the computer.

In this same sense, a propagating information structure, such as a "glider" in the "game of life" (see cellular automata) is a virtual machine. For Christopher Langton, behaviors themselves can constitute the fundamental parts of non-linear systems, virtual parts, which depend on non-linear interections between physical parts for their very existence.

The Danish physicist Benny Lautrup distinguishes between "real" computer organisms and "virtual" ones. The virtual computer organisms are those designed to be completely dependent on a specific habitat inside the machine -- in games, in cellular automata, or in virtual environments such as the Tierra simulator. The environments for real computer organisms, known as computer viruses, are real computers, real hardware, mainframes, or networks.

Or is the virtual that which could be ? ......

...."Could be !"

If techno-usage stresses the dematerialized, computational capacities of the virtual, the philosophical tradition that passes through Bergson and Deleuze stresses the latent potentialities of the virtual.

Etymologically, virtual means full of virtue, virtue being taken here as the capacity to act.

Virtue / virtual / virtuous (see virtual reality ) Does the etymology of virtue from vir suggest anything?