Dawn of the New Everything

The father of virtual reality explains its dazzling possibilities by reflecting on his own lifelong relationship with technology.

Bridging the gap between tech mania and the experience of being inside the human body, Jaron Lanier has written a three-pronged adventure into "virtual reality," by exposing its ability to illuminate and amplify our understanding of our species. An inventive blend of autobiography, science writing, philosophy, and advice, this book tells the wild story of his personal and professional life as a scientist, from his childhood in the UFO territory of New Mexico, to the loss of his mother, the founding of the first start-up, and finally becoming a world-renowned technological guru. Understanding virtual reality as being both a scientific and cultural adventure, Lanier demonstrates it to be a humanistic setting for technology. While his previous books offered a more critical view of social media and other manifestations of technology, in this book he argues that virtual reality can actually make our lives richer and fuller. Dawn of the New Everything is ultimately a look at what it means to be human at a moment of unprecedented technological possibility, giving readers a new perspective on how the brain and body connect to the world.