From: Dwayne (dwayne@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Apr 13 1999 - 01:39:13 MDT
Hiyas,
I fwded one of the posts to a friend of mine who isn't on the list, but
is intensely into VR (he wrote the Obsidian 3d game system
(http://www.zog.net.au/obsidian I think) so thought you guys might be
interested in his comments.
He's jon@central.warehouse.net
if this really stresses people out, sorry, but hey, it's the net.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Matrix Shmatrix
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 01:03:10 -0400
From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <mike@lorrey.com>
Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
Organization: http://www.lorrey.com http://www.artlocate.com
To: extropians@extropy.com
References: <19990412125127.A27921@eskimo.com>
<4.1.19990412145031.009bf740@econ.berkeley.edu>
Robin Hanson wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >Its a classic promise/warning piece of fiction. This is what VR will be
> >like, indistinguishable from reality as we know it ...
>
> I couldn't disagree more. A world of people who don't know they aren't
> living in a 1990 city is vastly different from most real future VR, IMHO.
> Sure the tech could make things look that vivid, but ...
> 1) Most VR will not be used for role playing.
How does he know ?
I'll tell you how: he doesn't.
Also, define 'role playing' once you have VR in the picture.
> 2) Most role playing will not be faithful simulations of history.
There were lots of doubts expressed in this film about
how 'faithful' the 'simulation' was.
Trouble with VR is, it immediately makes lots of
ordinary words become extremely loaded, among these:
faithful
simulation
history
> 3) Most history simulation role playing VR will not be done by
> amnesiacs who honestly don't remember that its just a simulation.
Oh, so you'd have a little reminder process that every
morning would remind you that you are in VR ?
If the 'simulation' was that strong, it would take a very
strong mind NOT to forget over time.
> 4) Most amnesia history role playing won't be done with thousands of
> people over decades of time.
I don't care.
VR is for playing Gods anyway.
Aw, Robin, you're being way to literally minded here. VR is already used
for role playing in VR chat, and the trend in video games is that VR
will be the state of the art in video games, and role playing is the
form of long duration gaming of choice.
Sex and Action Games will be the primary drivers for VR.
The Military and Medical sides of things will pincer in
from their own high-budget-but-shortsighted angles, and
the two will eventually meet and produce IT.
Then all the technology will be thrown out a few years
down the track as UpLoading becomes possible.
As for the amnesia part, well, think about this: Take an 8 year old kid
and stick him on a VR system for his education and entertainment, heck
even for use for his physical fitness training, and by the time he's 18
he won't know what is really reality. Real reality will seem blasé,
generic, vanilla compared to VR.
Different.
We need to get people away from this Black/White Real/Fake
mentality. A VR world is in a _different_ universe, not
necessarily a better or worse one.
>
> Really, instead of role-playing, VR will mostly be used to fascilitate
> other goals. Shopping, travel, social gatherings, sales meetings, etc.
All that boring shit nobody cares about.
VR will be able to 'tart it up' somewhat, but it won't
be VR's main stock in trade. 'Role playing', a very crude
term here, _is_ primarily what it will be used for, its
just that 'Role Playing' will merge into normal life.
Well, post Direct-Injection and on into UpLoading anwyay.
> All where people know what year it is and aren't pretending otherwise.
> Worlds will be chosen to fascilitate these processes. Physical laws
> can easily be broken, but deviations would be limited by our vast
> cognitive investment in dealing the familiar laws.
Robin, you're acting WAY too grown up for this.... "SALES MEETINGS!" for
gawds sakes!!!!! eeewwwwwww......
Plus people will gradually get used to having a defineable physics
too.
And for gawds sake, all of you:
Permutation City
&
Diaspora
Both by Greg Egan. They say EVERYTHING there pretty much is to be
said about VR, and also about the metaphysics that make VR a part
of
information
physics and the universe at large.
Jon
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:03:32 MST