From: bobp@hal.com (Bob Pendleton)
Subject: Re: PHIL: Will ever VR be like reality? (Was Re: CULTURE: Simpsons do VR)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1993 17:30:04 GMT
Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.


>From article <1kav8aINNq24@shelley.u.washington.edu>, by diego@minerva.st.dsi.unimi.it (Diego Montefusco):
> 
> 
> In <9301260810.AA14500@ghost.dsi.unimi.it>, on Jan 26, you wrote:
> 
>> From: jpc@tauon.ph.unimelb.edu.au (John Costella)
>> Subject: Re: CULTURE: Simpsons do VR
>> Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 19:37:50 EST
>>
>> Rue the day when the virtual world is so believable that a mischievous
>> sysop can make you think you've taken off the gear when you haven't.
>> ;-)
> 
> Some says VR has a
> "selfreferential closure" (a neologism?): it can't contain anything
> you haven't put inside it (i.e. modelled).  It can't produce anything
> you have not written how to produce, you can't experience something
> that hasn't been programmed before.

I've seen a lot of people console themselves with the statement "A
computer can only do what it is programmed to do." Which is pretty
much what you are saying. People use this statement to convince
themselves that there are limits to the abilities of computers. And to
say that the limits are human limits because it is the humans who do
the programming.

But, they miss one important point. The statement has a word in it
that doesn't need to be there, see how the meaning of the following
statements are changed by just changing one little detail:

A computer can ONLY do what it is programmed to do.

A computer can do what it is programmed to do.

A computer can do ANYTHING it is programmed to do.

A computer can do ANYTHING it CAN BE programmed to do.

Interesting, isn't it?

Later in you posting you mentioned fractals. There lies the solution
to the problem you don't want solved.

A long time ago I built a program that used a random number generator
as the basis for a "dungeon" creation program. It would create a
unique environment for each random number seed it was given. It became
obvious that you could use lazy evaluation to generate a coarse
universe with local "seeds" that can be used to generate finer detail
and more seeds and those seeds can be used to...

Don't right it off just because you can't conceive of it.

				Bob P.
-- 
Bob Pendleton             | As an engineer I hate to hear:
bobp@hal.com              |   1) You've earned an "I told you so."
Speaking only for myself. |   2) Our customers don't do that.
                   <<< Odin, after the well of Mimir. >>>