From: jwtlai@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Jim W Lai)
Subject: Virtual Worlds as Dreams
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 01:33:57 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Aug28.013357.29129@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo



In article <1991Aug27.194350.16355@milton.u.washington.edu> fortony@herodotus.
cs.uiuc.edu (Felix Sebastian Ortony) writes:

>Or, rather, direct interface without filtering.  Were [dreaming] really a
>condition of no interface, no information would pass from any point to
>any other point.  As it is, while dreaming, some part of you is communicating
>with some other part.

The hard part of any discussion of this sort is that psychology has not been
able to provide us with hard bounds on parts of the thinking brain, aside from
certain sensory-motor areas.

>I'd even go further than that and suggest that your
>thoughts are strongly filtered [...]

Perhaps a better terminology would be a "reality filter" then?  Filters can
be passive (merely transmitting part of the information) or active (additional
information is arrived at via induction and deduction; information may also
be lost as well).

>In common bondage terminology, this sort of escape mechanism is called a
>'safeword'.  That's one reason why virtual reality will never be exactly
>like reality -- it'll have to have externalized controls to return the
>explorer to reality when she issues the safeword signal.  I wonder what
>sort of mechanism that would be?

Perhaps there won't be such a mechanism, and "Total Recall" we be reality.
Or a close approximation.

Some really tough questions for any would-be visionaries: How will humans
adapt and evolve in VR?  What will be the selection pressures, if any?  And
will we need to be certified by the APA or FDA before entering hi-fi VRs?

Will VR make the Village of Prisoner fame possible in a way never before?  The
hi-fi VR is personal and physically isolating in its nature, though it allows
a form of sharing when networked or recorded or stored/transmitted in some
way.

Garbage-in, garbage-out, right?  Hi-fi VR allows people to exist, cut off
from (allow me the use of the term) Reality Prime.  A form of programming
not possible with brainwashing techniques nor television.

Tomorrow I will no doubt wake up in disgust and realize that someone has
already written about this and is making oodles of electronic currency on
the hardcover sales.