VR Theory of the World

I can't take credit for this idea, I heard it in a podcast a few years ago (which I can no longer find).

The idea is best explained in an analogy:

Imagine you're engrossed in a virtual reality game. You're equipped with a headset and controllers and you're fully-immersed in the virtual world. You can see vivid landscapes, hear the sounds of this virtual environment, and feel the vibrations corresponding to your actions. It’s all-consuming. It feels real.

Then someone "in real life" calls your name. You snap back to your living room and your sense of what is real has suddenly changed.

Just like the VR experience, our real experiences are mediated by the senses our body provides: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and, in a way, our mind - which amalgamates these senses into a "me" experience.

So the theory is this:

What if our body is just a VR headset? What if there is a there is a broader existence, and we just can't access it because we don't have the senses to experience it.

This doesn't need to be esoteric. For example, what if we could sense magnetic fields as we were walking around? It's not so hard to imagine that in the distant future we could be equipped with a sensor to provide us this ability. How would that change our sense of who we are?

I find the concept fascinating. It's like we are an iceberg, and the human body is the "tip" poking out of the water. And if only we could look below the surface we would find some entire existence beyond our primitive five senses.