Virtual Reality

[Haloquine]

Having spent quite a bit of time on Gaia, I've found that to some degree I've started occasionally thinking of it in the same terms I do the 'Real world'. So I thought it worthwhile starting a discussion on the philosophical implications of this. Please bear with me while I get my thougths down!

1. Our experience of the 'real world' is through our senses.

2. For the majority of people, the key sense we experience the world through is sight. (I'll explain)

3. We may, as individuals, be kinesthetic or auditory based, but for the majority of sighted people, we see and accept the world at face-value. We have to in order to function practically. We may question this, but we can't question this every second of every day... and we see more of the world than we touch, so sight ranks high in our experience of the world.

4. So, somewhere based on visual virtual reality has the same opportunity to be accepted on face value. We know, at some level, that it is not the same as 'RL', but we suspend disbelief to a degree in order to interact with people. In effect, we begin to treat it as another world similar in certain ways to the 'RL' one. (Do we suspend disbelief to act in the real world?)

5. We are also interacting with people, through a slightly different media to many of our interactions, but not drastically different - we use visuals Avatars, houses, signatures, font colours, etc.) to present a style, we use words to communicate ideas. (Also, compare texts, msn/aim etc., and forum based communication)

6. We assume a personality for the person we communicate with, just like in RL. We present a personality, again, just like in RL. We may present ourselves differently to in RL, but we still present something, and sometimes people feel who they can be online is closer to who they actually are. (A question on whether we are what we do or how we think.)

7. A friend mentioned that there are differences in that we've all come online with some kind of similarity of agenda and moral structures. But that applies only in so far as we might all go to a social place in RL with similar agendas/morals, our agendas/morals can be vastly different in both cases. In both cases we do go with the intent to be in a place where there are other people... even if we might have a safety buffer online.

8. So, the questions; what are the distinctions between RL and VR, beyond the 3D physical interactions (we can't eat Gaian food, or really hug each other, for example)?
What does this mean for theories on the nature of our knowledge of the world? i.e. Could we say that we know Gaia in the same way we know our home-towns, and if so, what does this mean for theories on knowledge or the nature of reality?

A guideline; please don't post absolutes (eg "there is no reality" or "of course VR isn't real") unless you have darn good reasons to back it up, absolutes tend to get boring and cliched.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[Amenubis]

Read Jean Baudrillards "Simulacra & Simulation" which purports that everything we as humans do now IS a simulation of what used to be real.

Personally, I believe that we have always projected our sense-ability onto other scenario's and objects. For instance, when a child is young, they begin to emulate maternal behavior onto a doll, treating the doll as a real human. You can see this in most religion as well. We project a deified version of ourselves (god) onto something that we can't explain or have no means to verify. I would say it's absolutely possible to create a functioning virtual reality world, as it is obviously in our nature to copy.

Everything IS "abstract", in it's own right anyway, it's only left up to us if we want to properly emulate what everyone tells us is "correct".  

[Haloquine]

Thanks for the reminder, I'd forgotten about Baudrillard! Didn't he talk about Disneyland...

What is the comparison between Gaia and Disneyland? They're both VR. I suppose Gaia is more user-created, to a degree. Although not to the extent of something like furcadia, where you can create your own items, and there are no monetary issues. (Everyone has access to the same stuff when building their own worlds within the game).

 

[Amenubis]

Yes, his theory of Disneyland was that "it" was created as the ultimate form of hyperreal, where, once inside, you're in some sort of queer, focused fantasy that attempts to create itself as a literal "world".

Alot of what he said was based on his theory of Simulation; that, at this stage in humanity, our search for meaning is fruitless because "meaning" has only been replaced by a copy. It's somewhat difficult to explain shortly.

A very accurate assessment he made on Absolute-advertising is intriguing as well. He states that the meaning or "real" of anything is immediately destroyed on it's being captured in the lens. In video (which it doesn't take an intellectual to figure out) Frames are moved, separated, omited and then formed back into itself to create a "video". The "video" is then repeated, copied, and becomes THE situation it captured. Only a theory, but if you pay close enough attention, it's surprisingly accurate.  

[Haloquine]

I have looked at Baudrillard briefly, and his theories definitely bear looking at. I'm wondering if he said that the video you mention became the situation, or if it became a new situation that took precedence in peoples priorities over what it was copied from... would you mind clarifying your take on that for me?

I must admit, my initial post was thinking more about Heidegger. His notion of World is, crudely, that our world is the system of relationships and interests that we live within. It isn't about the physical world we live in, its what we care about.

So a lover in the next country may be closer to us than a picture on the wall, the keyboard we type on is further from us than the person we are writing to or the point we are writing about. People we pass in the street and never see again are less real than people we talk to for a week, even if its only on a forum.

So if our world is made up of what we care about and our relationship to them then what is real to us is dictated by that, and so a 'Virtual World' could become more real than 'the real world'. Which I guess goes back to Baudrillard (who I will be reading over the next couple of weeks I think).

So, could Gaia be more real than, say, a foriegn country? What about the country you live in? What does that say about theories on knowledge? Theories on the world? Could this become a decent basis for parallel world theories, with both worlds equally real but structured differently?

 

[AbrAbraxas]

our mind are designed to create worlds. many writers and philosophers have asserted such(including, Tim Leary and Carlos Castaneda off the top of my head) there is a chaos of data around us and our minds sift through it to create our own form of reality. it may be influenced by the opinions of others or by the books we read or the television or movies we enjoy. in fact audio-visual media is a virtual reality of its own, how many times have you finished a movie or show and felt that you were present and involved to find yourself returned to 'reality'. through experimental philosophy(as opposed to lyrical book philosophy) we can learn how to create our own realities or of more importance to break through this virtual reality that we live in and discover a deeper and broader reality, like that of the escape from the cave from plato, the escape from samsara in tibetan buddhism, or maya in hindu, or heaven in judao-christianity and islam(and more). this cosmic consciousness is said to be more real than the virtual reality that we live in yet in escaping the virtual or relative nature of life as we now know it we see life differently not as something to be shunned or avoided but something to be transcended and included. this life and this body though relative it is the vehicle to higher life and awareness.  

[Haloquine]

So, in your opinion, everything is Virtual Reality? There is no 'Real Reality'? Doesn't that then make VR as close to what we can get as RR, and thus we may as well call VR Reality?

People die because they've gotten so absorbed in a game they forget to eat, for them, you might say, the game has become reality. But then there is a difference between a VR game and RL, isn't there? But what is it?

We may well be designed to create worlds, but is there anything that makes one world more real than another?

 

[AbrAbraxas]

reality IS real. our experience of it is the virtual or relative part. our mind creates and interacts with a version of reality that is not absolute, but assumed. thouch i dont believe that i have accomplished it myself, i think that through discipline and unlearning we can discover that which lies beneath and is truth, it is true reality. not a thought or group of words but the experience of reality. i beleive that some saints of all cultures have experienced it though when they return to thier normal awareness they bend the experience to thier understanding, they classify it in terms of thier culture and expectations. i think first we may need to become aware that reality is not what we think it is, never can we think reality, because words fall short of reality, they are only symbols of communication. after we see that the relity we know is not absolute we find that we have control of how we live in the world and through experiements in that we have the opportunity to leave behind our ego driven awareness, our assumptions and expectations and live the here and now, perhaps to come into contact with true reality. it is not something decided upon but something that is, has been and always will be.
it is possible to take any source of world structuring more or less artificial and have it take place of reality, drug use and gaming have a lot in common. it alters the systems of your mind. i have seen people who have higher priorities on video games than exterior interaction with people. also scizophrenics have extremely altered awareness of reality.
all for now
good day  

[AbrAbraxas]

part of your question is where does gaia fall into virtual reality. our experience of reality takes plae on a numbers of levels simultaneously. in common human(face-to-face) interaction we are communicating physically, emotionally, and mentally. on gaia all communication though might be about emotions is through the mental faculty, through words and the highly developed gui (graphic user interface) keeps us involved and interested, but it is still only mental communication. you cannot see facial expressions, or hear inflection in the voice, nor have eye contact. a lot is missing, but there is nothing wrong with mental communication, it has been common for perhaps as long as we could write. gaia in fact has many advantages over old time correspondance, a tradition of educated people of all cultures.  

[Haloquine]

I know I haven't responded to Abrabraxas yet, I do plan to eventually. I did find something I wanted to share here though;

While I was reading this Website - io9 (which I heartily recommend) I came across this article

From which they linked to Rudy's Blog where is was found.

Rudy Rucker is a sci-fi writer, beyond that I know nothing much about him - yet - and this article is about the difference between VR and RR - and basically why VR will never be as good as RR. In a nutshell; RR is a better computer, and if we could replicate everything, why would we want to anyway?

This deals mostly with the love of the idea that we could and will replace reality with a better VR. There might be merit in this idea, but I'm not sure. creating decent VR would be brilliant for games, learning relaxation, training etc. But a replacement for reality? Nah.

 

[AbrAbraxas]

sorry to pile more upon more but i have been reading a book that addresses this topic. the book is "the complete idiot's guide to Toltec Wisdom" by Sheri Rosenthal and chapter five is called Your World is a Virtual Reality, as i have already digested a number of books from which she also draws her information this might sound very similar to something that i have already said, but i would like to use some references here.
first there is quote, one which i used to love but had forgotten until i saw it here,

"all that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream." - E.A. Poe

the concept presented in this book, which is the same as i tried to say before, is that there is a reality, but what we perceive as reality is a virtual representation.
"Our virtual reality is a replication of what is outside of us, but a replica that is limited to the capabilities of the organs that are doing the perceiving."
"According to the Toltec, the function of the mind is to create what we can call a virtual reality. If we understand this, we can totally change the way we interact with our reality and perceive our world. The ancient toltecs realized that when they shifted levels of awareness that what people see in the first attention is simply a construct, an illusion. But they did not call this a virtual reality, as they did not have computers in ancient times; instead they said that we were dreaming all the time, which is another way of describing the function of the mind."

and here is a quote from Albert Einstein - "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."  

[whynaut]

Haloquine

Rudy Rucker is a sci-fi writer, beyond that I know nothing much about him - yet - and this article is about the difference between VR and RR - and basically why VR will never be as good as RR.

I believe that Hume said something similar, in that our memories (which is a type of VR in itself) will never be good as the actual experience because memories only try to simulate the actual event, or something to that effect. It has been so many years since I read Hume that if anyone had a more direct quote from Hume it would be most appreciated.

Anyways, I am so glad that someone brought up Baudrillard because he states that we should not make too hard a distinction between reality and simulation anyway as eventually things are becoming hyperreal.

I went to Wonder-Con in February and found the Gaiaonline booth. People there were meeting friends from online and continuing conversations they had left off online. And not only that, but I noticed the people had on airs that were reminiscent of how only people online would interact, even going so far as to add "omg" and "rotflol" to their vocabularies.

So here we have Gaia, which is a simulation of real life. Then at the Gaia booth people were simulating their online personas in real life. biggrin I thought this so perfect an example of Hyperrealism as I ever saw it. The real becomes a simulation of a simulation of the real. And if that is the case, then Gaia is no longer a simulation of real life because real life (at least for these people) becomes defined by the simulation.

So in answer to your question of how real Gaia is? It is as real as anything else lol  

[AbrAbraxas]

whynaut

So in answer to your question of how real Gaia is? It is as real as anything else lol

i think that sums it up pretty well xd  

[Femme Fatale Gunslinger]

What if our "real life" is a virtual reality? What if we really are not here? What if Descartes conclusions of the self were incorrect, he himself claimed accurately that our senses are deceptive and can lead us astray. The only way we can assume that this "reality" we are in is real is because we sense it. He also claimed "I think therefore I am" meaning since he is a thinking being he exists, but where do we exist?

Going back to the senses; we can also sense things in our dream state just as much as what we are feeling at this very moment; only thing is eventually we wake up from the dream. Will we wake up from this dream? Is death the final awakening?

Also, doesn't life ever feel like a virtual game to you? We have one life so we have to be cautious, we go around collecting coins to buy things with, there are tons of levels to go through; what if we are all characters in a game controlled by fate?  

[Niniva]

Femme Fatale Gunslinger

What if our "real life" is a virtual reality? What if we really are not here? What if Descartes conclusions of the self were incorrect, he himself claimed accurately that our senses are deceptive and can lead us astray. The only way we can assume that this "reality" we are in is real is because we sense it. He also claimed "I think therefore I am" meaning since he is a thinking being he exists, but where do we exist?

Going back to the senses; we can also sense things in our dream state just as much as what we are feeling at this very moment; only thing is eventually we wake up from the dream. Will we wake up from this dream? Is death the final awakening?

Also, doesn't life ever feel like a virtual game to you? We have one life so we have to be cautious, we go around collecting coins to buy things with, there are tons of levels to go through; what if we are all characters in a game controlled by fate?

The brain in a Vat theory.

Decarte........you skeptic you.