Congratulations on your first article! Nice read. I find this a far stretch of your argument. Maybe it's a part of me that I just don't want to happen, but even though communication is decentralized, face-to-face contact stays as important as ever. While something like Skype is popular, talking to someone in real life will always beat communication over the internet. I wouldn't want to give that up, would you?[...] it is easy to foresee a planet in the 2030s where all human interaction is hosted on this network of networks.
Thanks veen. Of course we still value talking face-to-face in physical reality. However, by the 2030s almost everything will be "online" (check out "The Internet of Things"). You will always be on the Internet, all the time. We all will be. Our watches, glasses, clothes, home appliances, cars, etc. Everything will be online. You will still interact face-to-face with people but almost all of your dialogue will be mediated in some way with the Internet. By the 2040s I should suspect the Internet to be deeply connected with you via "wetware". Actually, wetware will probably be 2030s as well. Also, don't forget the emergence of virtual reality (VR) and VR social media environments. VR environments will be able to mimic physical reality quite well by the 2040s.
I'm already nearly always online. Google Glass is further step in that direction. I know enough peers who are addicted to their phones, checking every minute to see if they have a message or mention in Whatsapp or Facebook. Glass, if it or a follow-up device is accepted by the mainstream, will only make that worse. I don't think I'd like a VR environment like that, even though the technology is very interesting. It will always be a mimic, a copy of the original. A painting can be gorgeous, but reality is what holds true beauty.
You know the saying, "You don't see with your eyes, you see with your brain?" For instance, your eyes see everything upside down, and your brain flips it around. That sort of thing. An interesting thought: What and how you experience -- otherwise known as your phenomenal experience -- is already a virtual reality. Your brain is making it all up, imperfectly, through a limited range of sense data of actual reality. And then the brain fools itself into thinking it's not! So you take all of this as given reality when it's not. Evolutionary explanation goes like the brain has no advantage to showing itself it's own processes. But you can sense it sometimes in a flash, the work happening behind the scenes. Ever been walking down the street and you pass a weird branch coming out of the chain-link fence, but you only see it in your peripherals? And you think, that's a troll witch. Fight or flight. You swivel to bring the figure into your full vision and your brain, like a series of lightning strikes, goes troll witch, troll, little person trying to touch you, weird branch. Oh, weird branch. Or, take some LCD. What I'm saying is this: reality does not hold beauty. The feeling and recognition of beauty is a subjective thing, a brain thing. And the brain can be tricked pretty good. VR will be an incredibly profound new medium of art/entertainment. The immersive effect of the Occulus Rift is well documented, and immersion, sufficient immersion is the goal because it opens us up emotionally to experiences as given experiences. Imagine VR moon, you're an astronaut. Look up and see the earth at the exact scale it would actually be at in relation to you. That experience is impossible otherwise. That experience could change your worldview. And that's the power of VR -- that it unlocks experiences that would otherwise be economically unavailable to you. Oculus Rift is merely the prototype, and the brain can fool itself into believing it's real. But imagine what could be possible twenty, thirty years from now? How would that change our relationship with real world objects or locales? What would be the point of real-world materialism and in effect, the economy?reality is what holds true beauty.
You've made some great points, and I do agree that the brain already experiences virtual reality. My university has a 3d theatre where you sit 4m from a 15m screen. I got the chance of sitting in the best spot, where my entire vision was filled with this gorgeous, 6*HD 3D screen. The same feeling of Oculus Rift but with much better graphics. And it looked very real, I thought I was actually moving while I sat in my chair. The power of tricking the mind is amazing, and very real. Maybe I have a different definition of beauty, but for me, beauty isn't purely based on what I can see. A structure can be beautiful by what value people give it, by how long it's been standing somewhere. A place can have value because you can't just teleport yourself there. Similarly, is the view on top of a mountain just as good if you didn't have to climb it? I doubt it.What I'm saying is this: reality does not hold beauty. The feeling and recognition of beauty is a subjective thing, a brain thing. And the brain can be tricked pretty good.
I buy that. In our moon simulation example, let's make it really good. Exact. Even you have to complete a simulated astronaut training program and fly there and it's all sufficiently plausible in it's realness. But even if you do this a hundred times, I think if you could actually go to the moon, and even if it's not any different from VR in any major way -- I think it's likely it would feel different. That you know nothing mediates your senses from reality, you would most likely pay a special type of attention to all it's details as real details. And you'd look up at the Earth and damn. That's it! What happens if you could fool your brain into believing that? Where does it become unethical in manipulation? Where does it all become nonsense? These are the things I struggle with.A place can have value because you can't just teleport yourself there.
That's some Matrix stuff right there. I think it really depends on what you intend to do with such an advanced VR technology. I wouldn't call it unethical if you use an immersive technology to gain experiences. As long as the participant knows it's fake, it seems ethical. To experience VR is to basically lie to yourself. You lie to your brain That doesn't mean it's necessarily bad: in a game of poker, you're lied to all the time. But that's because it is a part of the game, and everyone knows it happens. When you willingly enter a virtual reality, you know that it is just that: virtual, fake, never truly real. It gets unethical if someone is put into virtual reality without them knowing. When reality and virtual worlds are mixed up, when the line is blurred.
Couldn't agree more with you Floatbox. Fantastic points and great insight.
Interesting thought, a society where everybody is always connected through Google Glass or their phone. I suppose American society is already on that path, if it isn't already there. It makes me wonder about the implications for those who don't care for or reject the ubiquitousness of such connected technology. Will these people be socially isolated? I'm sure some may convert just to avoid the hassle but I think some would be left behind. I know I am resisting getting a smart phone because I spend plenty of time on the internet as it is. The last thing I want is to be distracted more.
Well, when I look at my generation, it's already ever-connected. Whatsapp is installed on 80% of the smartphones in the Netherlands, and used by nearly everyone I know. Late for class? Send an app to a classmate to let them know. Instant connections and communications, to and from nearly everyone. There are often days where I don't look at my phone for a while and have >100 missed messages (mostly in groupchats). But I have multiple friends without a smartphone. When we want to incorporate them in conversations, we need to contact them through other mediums, hoping they read it in time. It has happened that we wanted to plan something and couldn't get hold of a friend. They aren't left out but often missing out on conversations.
We'll see :)I don't think I'd like a VR environment like that, even though the technology is very interesting. It will always be a mimic, a copy of the original. A painting can be gorgeous, but reality is what holds true beauty.