If virtual places are not created by dividing physical space, and there is no larger sensuous or physical continuum from which virtual worlds are cut, then what is outside a virtual world?

1. In a straightforward sense there is no outside at all for a virtual world. If the virtuality had an edge, and there was something "outside" to be encountered by going to that edge, then what was outside would be part of the virtuality. (This issue has a long history; see Casey 1997.)
2. In a second sense, what is outside the virtual world is other virtual places that it might be linked to, but such links do not cross any physical space. If virtual worlds are not linked, then there is no distance or direction between them.
3. In a third sense, what is outside the virtual world is the world of physical causal interactions busily sustaining the virtual experience. But that inside/outside relation is not like the relation between the inside and outside of a house. It is more like relation between a dream and waking life.

Index
virtual areas for places
Place theory outline

(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001