Photorealistic Graphics and Violence

Hypothetically: If we had photorealistic graphics, would you expect realistic damage modelling and related effects?

Let's say you're playing an FPS, and you shoot and kill an enemy that looks like a real person. Would you expect nothing less than realstic blood/gore?

If so, how do you think that would effect you? Would it be any different than now? Are there any moral implications here?

I myself don't know where I stand on this. I doubt we'll ever get true photrealism for characters anyways I fully expect it for environments, but our brains are incredibly adept at recognizing faces, and so to trick that well adapted process would be quite the feat.

Clearly a human face.

What the....?

If I'm wrong though, and we do achieve total photorealism, there's a part of me that is excited at the prospect (kind of sick I guess), but the other part of me is sort of revolted by the idea. At that point, Fox news might have a point.

Some would say that if it happened it would be no different than violent movies. But I disagree, due to the interaction aspect. When it's you pulling the trigger, or swinging the sword it's different. It involves [i]you[/i] personally. Perhpas though, it would differ if there was a game with photorealistic graphics that had you killing fantastical, fictional enemies (say, aliens), rather than humans. However, that then invokes in me a moral question: Isn't killing a living being still wrong? Would it be wrong to do so in a game? Is it wrong now? Or does the fact that games clearly do not look like real life mitigate some of the ethical issues? What about war games? In war, we deem murder to be okay (well, some do. I don't), and if the game was happening in the context of a war....it just gets muddled.

Speaking of war, could we end up with gaming realted post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?

From wikipedia:

PTSD is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event which results in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity, overwhelming the individual's psychological defenses.

PTSD is a less frequent and more enduring consequence of psychological trauma than the more frequently seen acute stress response. PTSD has also been recognized in the past as railway spine, stress syndrome, shell shock, battle fatigue, traumatic war neurosis, or post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Diagnostic symptoms include re-experiencing original trauma(s), by means of flashbacks or nightmares; avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma; and increased arousal, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger, and hypervigilance. Formal diagnostic criteria (both DSM-IV and ICD-9) require that the symptoms last more than one month and cause significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning (e.g. problems with work and/or relationships).

So, would we end up with gaming related post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? I'd like to think no, but perhaps the interactivty of gaming combined with the photorealism blur that line too much, and some would experience unexpected effects of this unprecedented advance in gaming technology?

What do you think?