Right before our eyes, this thing that we call the world has been irrevocably altered, along with the "reality" we have counted on. Virtual reality is so permeating our lives that one day soon we may find it impossible to distinguish the virtual from the real.
(Via KurzweilAI.net.)
I think VR is perhaps the most portentous technology on the planet. Like nuclear energy before it, VR is so powerful, so alluringly potent, that it challenges our continued existence at the same time it suggests new and better ways of coexisting with the "real" world.
2 comments:
I think we have already reached the day where we find it impossible to distinguish the virtual from the real. Not everyone all the time, of course, but the old saw about "fool some people all the time..." fits here.
For example, a large percentage of Americans (although it's probably not a peculiarly American trait) do not believe an important event has happened until they see it on the news -- even if they also witnessed it firsthand.
Also, ask any TV or movie star about how many people cannot, or do not, realize that the characters they play are fictional and don't really exist. We like to imagine that people who do this are insane or stupid, but the fact is that most of those folks are neither.
Another variant is the suprisingly large number of David Blaine fans who truly believe that he has supernatural powers.
Should I even bring up religion?
(just because I'm in a rambling mood...)
Most of my examples had nothing to do with VR in a technological sense, but in a basic sense, I don't think it matters much what the mechanism of reality mediation is, just that it happens.
That said, I'm beginning work on a wearable computer system intended for reality augmentation, and is no more obtrusive than an external hearing aid (effectively invisible to you and the people around you).
This interests me philosophically, because although a part of me wonders about the dehumanization aspect of all this, my gut tells me that it is necessary in some sense. In a sense, it increases humanity because it allows a greater awareness of and presence in your environment.
That it does this through introducing VR aspects strikes me as an interesting contrast.
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