I don’t know if any of you have been following the progress of the imminent Oculus Rift and other associated virtual reality precursor technologies or not, but I was wondering if the forum could turn its mind to a virtual future, where your neighborhood is pixelated and your friends are ‘bots.

Mature VR tech is the next revolution, IMO.

I have no specific question. S’just, I gotta a boner for VR tech at the moment.

;p

>where your neighborhood is pixelated and your friends are ‘bots.

I would hope that in good quality VR, the pixelation wouldn’t actually be noticeable.

:)

esselte said:

I have no specific question. S’just, I gotta a boner for VR tech at the moment.

;p

I can’t see VR having much more use publicly than for sorting out boners. Other people seem to have greater tolerance for the suspension of disbelief that is required for VR to be effective. I find it hard to watch a movie without getting annoyed by all the pretending going on.

>Other people seem to have greater tolerance for the suspension of disbelief that is required for VR to be effective

You mean more imagination?

VR will start coming of age when we have effective brain/pooter interfaces that allow sense responses (vision, taste, smell, touch etc) to be plugged directly into the machine.

Bubblecar said:

>Other people seem to have greater tolerance for the suspension of disbelief that is required for VR to be effective

You mean more imagination?

I have plenty of imagination but seeing as my life contains an unusual degree of confusion I tend to avoid absorbing myself in imagination exercises. It is possible that if and when I can stabilise my circumstances I will find more time for these sorts of things.

An area that may use VR significantly is in training to develop reflexes.

Postpocelipse said:

An area that may use VR significantly is in training to develop reflexes.

Training simulators are currently probably the single largest application for the technology…

Construction project walkthroughs perhaps, change and see alterations on the fly

Bubblecar said:

VR will start coming of age when we have effective brain/pooter interfaces that allow sense responses (vision, taste, smell, touch etc) to be plugged directly into the machine.

Excellent. Humans will never need to leave the house at all.

Divine Angel said:

Bubblecar said:

VR will start coming of age when we have effective brain/pooter interfaces that allow sense responses (vision, taste, smell, touch etc) to be plugged directly into the machine.

Excellent. Humans will never need to leave the house at all.

Have you seen the movie Surrogates?

Is that the one with Bruce Willis? I think I saw it at the movies.

Divine Angel said:

Is that the one with Bruce Willis? I think I saw it at the movies.

yes… essentially big, fat slobs living their entire life through the eyes of a remotely control (surrogate) robot body

Or Wall-E, where we sit around being big fat slobs and get everything brought to us by robot.

Or fully automated hospital beds which are semisentient

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roujin_Z

>yes… essentially big, fat slobs living their entire life through the eyes of a remotely control (surrogate) robot body

Yes but with proper VR you wouldn’t be a big fat slob. Because you could eat as much virtual food as you liked, without gaining any weight (your brain would register not just the taste and smell but feelings of fullness and satiety), while living on a very modest real diet.

The promise of a genuinely transhumanist future though is to take human consciousness beyond such primitive needs and desires, and VR may eventually introduce us to sensual experiences that make scoffing food or having sex seem feeble and ridiculous.

I don’t think we’d replace sex, but it would be good for those lonely Japanese men who marry robots.

Divine Angel said:

I don’t think we’d replace sex, but it would be good for those lonely Japanese men who marry robots.

We would eventually, if we evolved beyond our present organic form. Or maybe even before then, if we could actually find a way of getting rid of it :)

Bubblecar said:

>yes… essentially big, fat slobs living their entire life through the eyes of a remotely control (surrogate) robot body

Yes but with proper VR you wouldn’t be a big fat slob. Because you could eat as much virtual food as you liked, without gaining any weight (your brain would register not just the taste and smell but feelings of fullness and satiety), while living on a very modest real diet.

The promise of a genuinely transhumanist future though is to take human consciousness beyond such primitive needs and desires, and VR may eventually introduce us to sensual experiences that make scoffing food or having sex seem feeble and ridiculous.

Something I reckon would make a good question to ask people would be:

Would you prefer to be uploaded in a virtual world were essentially you are god or hope an afterlife exists when you die