The book is a compendium of thinking on virtuality and its relationship to reality from the perspective of a variety of philosophical and applied fields of study. Topics covered include presence, immersion, emotion, ethics, utopias and dystopias, image, sound, literature, AI, law, economics, medical and military applications, religion, and sex.

As this comprehensive and multidisciplinary book makes clear, virtuality has a pedigree that pre-dates the computer age and modern virtual worlds, a pedigree that can be traced back to classical mythology and beyond. Equally, the concept of virtuality is not the province of one field of study alone but is the foundation and driving force of many, both theoretical and applied.