From: mauah@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr I D Bygrave)
Subject: Re: PHIL: Will ever VR be like reality?
Date: 29 Jan 1993 12:27:06 -0000
Organization: Computing Services, University of Warwick, UK



In article <1kav8aINNq24@shelley.u.washington.edu>
diego@minerva.st.dsi.unimi.it (Diego Montefusco) writes:

>[VR] can't contain anything
>you haven't put inside it (i.e. modelled)...

The real world doesn't contain anything that nature(God?) didn't put
there. Not so much of a limitation. Lucky for God, the real world is
powerfull enough to implement the totality of Its creation. Not so for
most VR model builders.

>You CAN'T
>put EVERYTHING in a computer system.

You can't percieve everything in the real world. I would say that it
is not a physical imposibility for a (big enough) computer to store
the sum of the sensory input of one humans life (being finite). What I
mean is that computers can model a subset of the universe. There is no
physical law which limits this to less than the subset of the universe
that a human experiences.

>Or at least I DON'T WANT to
>believe this is possible!

Why? 

-Ian D. Bygrave Undergradate Computer Science at University of Warwick, UK
	mauah@csv.warwick.ac.uk
        ibygrave@dcs.warwick.ac.uk
"We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny
 of the selfish replicators"-Richard Dawkins. The Selfish Gene.