From: bannon@osage.csc.ti.com (Tom Bannon)
Subject: Re: PHIL: VR is Dead, Long Live VR
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1992 01:02:33 GMT
Message-ID: <BANNON.92Mar30190219@osage.csc.ti.com>
Organization: Texas Instruments


(Jeremy Riley) writes:
>   (Tom Bannon) writes:
>
>   > There is no such thing as 
>   > virtual or artificial reality
>   > what is called such now is 
>   > just the current state of
>   > human influence on what
>   > is perceived as "reality"
>   > just as we are born and
>   > open our eyes so we do
>   > again.  The question is
>   > what is "reality", what do
>   > we claim such, and the 
>   > advent of VR as a discipline
>   > seems to beckon us to an 
>   > unseen world behind a
>   > transparent door.
>
>   This particular idea of reality merely being a figment our minds is
>   crazy.  ...
  
Perhaps a re-reading of my prose-poem would clarify things.  I was talking
about the "real" reality that does and will evermore finely affect VR
participants - it is the idea of virtualness or artificialness imbued in the
very name of VR that I was questioning to the point of denial.  I can imagine
in the future that when I rob a virtual bank I could be committing a real
crime, with all the real consequences of chase, evasion, and confrontation in
the cyber plane.  Totally real things happening on a totally man-made medium.
Just because VR consequences may not extend to my physical body (,they may,)
will not make them any less real, just as in the "real" world.  (VR bullets
could destroy representations, resources, access, maneuverability, reputation,
etc.)

It's like "artificial intelligence".  What is the artificial part of the
intelligence?  There is none.  So it was produced by man-made machines,
big deal.

So, I would say, reality merely being a figment our minds is not an
unimaginable possibility ;-)

Tom