From: awm@milton.u.washington.edu (Andrew MacDonald)
Subject: Re: VR (mis)-defined (was: VR defined)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1991 17:55:49 GMT
Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab


In article <9110170704.AA19109@milton.u.washington.edu> hlab@milton.u.washington
.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab) writes:
>From: strength@milton.u.washington.edu (Julian Bleecker)
>
>VR is MOST CERTAINLY something new.  Get beyond "technology" and,
>as Jacques Ellul termed the idea, consider "techniques" which
>is a piece of "hardware" AND all of the issues that surround it.
>Please.
>
>-julian
>
>julianb@hitl.washington.edu
>
>please write back.


I disagree that VR is something new, but I strongly agree that
techniques are more important in making definitions than is
technology.  Specifically, virtual reality (or a virtual world or
virtual space) is a place your mind goes, a state of mind which
cannot be defined in words; we should describe the methods used to
get to into virtual reality.

Before going into virtual reality, I'm going to attempt to define
reality (a risky proposition at best, so bear with me).  Our brain
believes in a "real" world because it observes cause and effect and
derives rules which govern the behavior of the objects it sees.  In
many cases, these rules are wrong (e.g., heavier objects fall faster
than light objects).  In some cases we encounter rules which we know
to be true from experiment, but which the mind cannot get an
intuitive grasp of (e.g., wave/particle duality).  In many cases the
rules of "reality" change from generation to generation, or in an
individual over the course of a lifetime.

The mind can maintain many sets of rules simultaneously, each one
called into use at the appropriate time.  The rules for dining with
the president are different from those for eating pizza with your
friends; exchanging either one for the other would be considered
rude.

In a similar way, the mind can build a set of rules that applies to a
given situation, and "swap out" the real world rules it has been using
in favor of the new paradigm.  When the new rules are truly
internalized, abstract concepts become concrete, and one no longer has
to make the conversion between the real world representation (e.g. the
word "dog"), and the underlying meaning (a dog).  When one is
intensely involved in reading, one doesn't think in terms of words and
letters, but of objects and concepts.

How we use the rules our mind creates determines the technique for
getting into virtual reality.  I believe there are two orthogonal
methods, which I will call the psychological method and the
engineering method.  Under the psychological method, we enter
VR when we substitute abstract rules for the rules we have built up
for the physical world.  Under the engineering method, we fool the
mind into believing reality has altered by exploiting the
interaction of the senses and the real-world rules.  (I know the
engineering definition contains a great deal of psychological
manipulation; perhaps someone can think of a label other than
"psychological" for the first method.)

Any time the abstract rules become the real world, we have virtual
reality.  A child reading Tarzan, a chess master performing a
checkmate, a freshman integrating functions, a hacker playing rogue,
all of them pass into a virtual world when the internal logic of what
they are doing overcomes their internal representation of the external
world.  What they are doing becomes the external world.  They don't
see pages or kings or pencils or keyboards; they have made their own
reality.  Humans have lived in virtual reality since they became
conscious.

Similarly, when our senses are presented with data consistent with
our rules for interpreting the physical world, we enter someone
else's reality.

Most of what this newsgroup talks about combines these two
techniques to put people into realities where the real world doesn't
quite apply.  Enough of the engineering method is used to make
people comfortable with staying in the world (in a way that a purely
psychological method like mathematics wouldn't), but some of the
psychological method must be used to keep things interesting (if
things were just like the real world, you would become bored with
virtual worlds and want to go back to the physical one).  Building
the proper balance for a given occasion will be one of the hardest
problems to solve in VR.

Andy
awm@hitl.washington.edu