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<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>CDNE Chapter 12 - Virtual Reality</TITLE>
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<p align="center"><FONT FACE="ARIAL" SIZE=5 COLOR="#0000a0"><B><font size="+2" color="#000000" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Chapter
12<br>
VIRTUAL REALITY</font></B></FONT > </p>
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<td>
<p><b><font face="Times New Roman">I will now talk</font><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><font size="3"></font></font></b><font face="Times New Roman">
about something that is horribly overestimated, but inevitably influential
when it comes to the future - at least when viewed as a phenomenon. I
hesitated for a long time before deciding to include virtual reality (VR)
in this book, but I realized that it obviously belonged to the subject
of electronic culture. The reason for my hesitancy is that this area of
research has been so hyped up and misunderstood that it has assumed almost
religious proportions.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Virtual reality was originally a term that
meant imagined reality. It's the same sort of reality that role-playing
enthusiasts occupy when they navigate an imaginary world. In its original
form, this artificial environment requires a considerable degree of imagination
and patience. VR has progressed from traditional pen-and-paper role-playing
games to interactive role-playing games on the Internet, so-called <b>MUD</b>s
(Multi-User Dungeons), and not until the 90's did the term become synonymous
with the technology that allows the creation of realities using computer-generated
sound and graphics. In a MUD, a certain protocol is established in order
to communicate directly with other people, which uses a language that
is an extension of the written word. It is possible to state which way
one wishes to communicate with a fellow player. For example, one can make
clear the one wishes an utterance to be taken ironically, coldly, or erotically.
One could write: "Say 'hiya!' in a humorous manner to X", by
which X receives a message like this: "Y says 'hiya!' to you in a
humorous manner". It is also possible to strike poses, and to emote
feelings. You might receive a message such as: "Y smiles an ironic
smile".</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">This mode of communication over the Internet
has had a decisive influence on the language that is used in written debate
in the electronic universe. The most well-known conventions include the
sign for humor, :-) (a smiley-face, sideways), and the sign for irony,
;-) (a winking smiley-face), as well as writing in ALL CAPITALS to indicate
shouting. In addition to these, a slew of more or less commonly accepted
symbols has arisen. This is the first step towards network-based transmission
of symbols with another meaning than the purely linguistic. It creates
the first possibility of using "tone of voice" and body language
in artificial worlds.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is an extension
of MUDs. It is possible to do pretty much the same things in IRC as on
a MUD, except it's a little closer to reality. Some set up private IRC
conferences and chat within an exclusive group, while others spend their
time on some of the many open groups, such as #Sweden, which works sort
of like a text version of phone chat, for Swedish speakers. Today, about
1,000 Swedes use IRC on a regular basis.<sup><a href="#FTNT1">(1)</a></sup>
IRC has a rigid technocratic hierarchy in which those who know more about
the system have more power, and can push other people around about as
much as they please. Democracy doesn't exist: on every channel there's
a number of "royalty" (so-called chan-ops, or channel operators)
who sometimes "fight" for control over the channel. In IRC there
is also the possibility of conducting information trading, which entails
trading information using one simple command: <i>/dcc send nick file</i>.
IRC has already developed into a subculture, with its own values and pecking
orders. A surprising number of women use IRC.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">This technology is just the first step of
a progression that will take us to infinitely more sophisticated forms
of communication than we know today. In experimental facilities, the imaginary
environments become more and more real, so much that many have started
to question the difference between real and imaginary reality, concluding
that it is mostly a matter of definition. But let's start at the beginning.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">No single person has been more important
to virtual reality as <b>Jaron Lanier</b>. Jaron moved to California in
1981, with the intention of living as a hippie and playing the flute on
the streets. Instead, he stumbled into a job as computer game programmer.
After some time in the field, he started a company called <b>VPL</b> (Visual
Programming Languages) with his own money and started a non-profit project
which involved developing a programming language. Programming languages
are the languages that people use to communicate with computers and tell
them what to do, Examples of common programming languages include BASIC
(Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), Pascal (after the mathematician
of the same name), and C (named by someone who thought the naming conventions
for programming languages had gotten out of hand).</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Now, Jaron didn't want to write any old
programming language, but THE programming language. He thought programming
was one of the most fun things he knew, but it was reserved for an all-too-small
group of people. He thought everyone should be able to program. Instead
of just allowing a tiny elite of programmers to build mathematical and
symbolic models of reality, he wanted to place this tool in the hands
of the common man, with a minimal amount of prerequisite knowledge. The
language was finally named <i>Mandala</i>. </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Many people that try using a computer for
the first time thinks the whole thing is too abstract and contains too
many theoretical concepts. A computer student I had once said: </font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><i>"You can tell me that this here
is a command, and that it has this and that property and works in such
and such a way. It's like telling me that this is a hammer, and it works
like so. I'll never understand unless I get to hold the hammer."</i></font></p>
</blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"> He hit the nail on the head. If people
won't adapt to computers, then computers would have to adapt to people.
If Mohammed won't come to the mountain, the mountain will have to come
to Mohammed. That was Jaron's idea: make the computing environment as
real as possible, remove that keyboard if it causes so much frustration,
and take away that two-dimensional screen if flat symbols are so hard
to understand. Create an entire reality around the user so that he or
she feels at home. The concept of virtual reality was born. Of course,
this idea was not entirely new. The first time the concept of VR came
up was supposedly in 1965, through <b>Ivan Sutherland</b> at Utah university.
But Jaron was the first one to try to realize these ideas, and make <i>money</i>
off them.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">VPL was founded in 1985. Since then, nothing's
been the same. In 1991, us regular people made our first acquaintance
with VR as <b>W Industries </b>released its computer game <i>Virtuality</i>
everywhere. Newspapers, radio, TV - everyone told the story about this
new and fantastic invention. It was also at thaat time that people started
making comparisons to William Gibson's novel, <i>Neuromancer</i>, and
discovered obvious similarities between the way the lead character, Case,
connected his brain to a computer to enter cyberspace, and the gols of
VR. That was when people seriously started questioning the direction our
society was heading, and it is also among the reasons that William Gibson
is such an important writer.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">All of it is not as strange as it is sometimes
presented. By applying sensors to the body that register all its movements,
the computer can sense how you move about and then generate sound and
visual impressions that agree with the way we're used to perceiving reality.
The sound is created by a quadrophonic sound system that allows us to
place sound spatially, and images are displayed three-dimensinally since
the computer draws an image for each eye. This is VR today; no more, no
less. Objects can be perceived as three-dimensional and sounds can be
generated as to make us think they came from the object in question. Nothing
strange there, just normal manipulation of our sensory capacities, just
like a computer screen or a loudspeaker, only more sophisticated and refined.
Machine-generated hallucinations or tangible dreams are other possible
terms for the technique.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Jaron, then, envisioned VR as a form of
programming language, primarily intended for creating models to facilitate
research and education, and to make the capacities of the computer more
accessible. This is not exactly how it turned out. Some inventions have
the ability to shock their inventors by turning out to have applications
far wider in scope than the inventor could ever dream about. Nuclear power
is probably the most frightening example of this. VR was transformed from
a programming language into a <i>medium</i>.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">We have a handful of media in our society.
We have various sorts of literature. We have theater and film. We have
radio and television. We also have <i>multimedia</i>, like computer games
and <i>hypertext</i>, which is a kind of improved text that allows us
to read text like a database instead of like a book. And now we have VR,
and that too is a form of medium. More specifically, it is the most powerful
medium that humankind has ever created. VR envelops you in all dimensions
and commands your complete attention, just as if it was your real life
that was involved. You can run, but you <i>cannot possibly hide</i> from
it. (Imagine what a fascinating medium for commercials: Depends diapers
chase you into a corner and suffocate you to death.)</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">When Jaron was well underway with his project,
he realized that he needed help to complete it. He enlisted the aid of
the MIT media lab, which had already helped in enlightening the world
through the <i>graphical interface</i>. (An interface is the set of things
that exist as a bridge between the computer and the user, like the screen
and the mouse). This was later to be used by Xerox, Macintosh, and Microsoft
(in that order), and we nowadays know it under such product names as <i>System
7 </i>and <i>Windows</i>. The military got into the action, as usual.
They had already experimented with flight simulators to train pilots before
sending them into action. VR was viewed as a possibility of improving
the simulators, and even to develop very accurate systems for <i>remote
presence</i>, in which a pilot might be able to steer a plane into enemy
territory while physically being located in a bunker back home in HQ.
Such a system would be an economical way of maintaining pilot ranks, as
well as permitting them to build planes that could stand physical stress
way beyond the tolerance of any human pilot. Like RC planes, but cooler
(and much more dangerous). Therefore, the military blew a huge load of
money on VR research. War, as always, has a way of making technological
research move by quantum leaps and bounds.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">It's difficult to say what importance VR
will have in the future, In a way , it changes nothing - we all experience
VR every night, in dreaming. The difference is that in VR we can control
the content, and employ highly <i>tangible</i> dreams for our own purposes.
One of the greatest areas of VR application is therefore in psychology,
since dreams has a primary importance in the study of the human mind.
It is quite reasonable to expect VR to be used in very sophisticated therapy.
<i>Or</i> brainwashing, if that's what's desired. Brainwashing is not
always a negative thing; in inpatient psychiatric care, rapists and killers
are treated with a very advanced form of brainwashing to cure pathological
behaviors. Such care can certainly be improved and become more effective
with VR. Conversely, VR can be abused.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">As a medium, VR holds enormous potential.
When we communicate across electronic links, we don't feel as if we actually
meet someone. The anonymity that goes with a telephone receiver allows
us to spit out the most daring utterances, since we don't feel physically
intimidated. When we speak on the phone, we are constantly distracted
by other events in our surroundings. When we communicate via Internet,
it is impossible to use any form of real body language or tone of voice.
The only way to communicate feelings in an electronic conference is by
writing lightning-quick and misspelled sentences to express upset, or
using typographical conventions to communicate states of mind.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">In VR, we can use as much body language
as we want to. We can make the encounter totally similar to reality, as
if we were meeting in the same room. We can make it <i>more</i> than real
- we can inflate ourselves to twice our size if we want. We can disguise
ourselves as anyone, and decide exactly what the room should look like.
I can experience it as if we're at your place, and you could feel as if
you were at my place. We can actually be in two places at once, so that
both of us feel at home! (Translator's note: the old line that goes "your
place or mine" would become obsolete.). I could be at a steel mill,
with the noise in the background, and you can be in the forest listening
to the birds singing. I think you're sitting on a treestump, and you think
I'm sitting on an anvil. Anything's possible.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">In sociology, the science that studies the
relations between humans, the concept of <i>symbols</i> is used to denote
that exchange of information between people that goes deeper than language.
As opposed to language, such symbolisms cannot at present be stored or
synthesized. This is one reason for inventing written languages. A language
that can be stored enables a cultural heritage that spans generations,
and gives humanity a so-called <i>collective consciousness</i>. The concept
of a <i>symbol</i> includes, in addition to spoken and written language,
body language such as glances and involuntary movements (in linguistics,
gestures and such are called <i>paralinguistics</i>).</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">Symbolic language between people consists
of genetic as well as learned components. Animals that cannot speak or
write communicate exclusively through "primitive" symbolisms
of the sort I just mentioned. Symbols can be thought of as the bonds that
tie people together in groups, societies, and entire systems of societies.
Not unexpectedly, symbols figure heavily in AI research; most AI researchers
view all of a person's consciousness as the construct of a flow of symbols
in one form or another, and intelligence itself as one great information-processing
system. (But I've already talked about that…)</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">The goal of virtual reality is that all
symbols should be able to be stored and synthesized. It's supposed to
become the perfect medium of communication between people - even better
than reality. And this is perhaps what makes it so frightening. The computer
offers the possibility of twisting symbolic language. If you control the
computer, you could use it to appear as great and conceited as possible,
and your own picture of reality would be distorted so that other people
appeared as dorks. The line between illusion and reality could become
fuzzy indeed. </font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">It is completely impossible to predict what
this would do to our way of perceiving the world, and other persons in
particular; the only thing that's certain is that it <i>will</i> change.
Sometimes, people speak of the cultural or sociological <i>atomic bomb</i>,
where VR is a threat that could destroy all our norms or even our entire
perception of reality. Any prediction in this field at present must be
considered pure speculation, since no one communicates by VR to any great
degree.</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">However, sci-fi authors already warn us
of the dangers of VR. One of the first examples is Philip K. Dick's short
story called <i>Wholesale Memories</i>, later made into the movie <i>Total
Recall</i>, and other examples include the <i>Illuminatus!<sup><a href="#FTNT2">(2)</a></sup></i>
trilogy, our beloved <i>X-Files</i>, and the movie <i>Videodrome</i> (1982).
All of these are based on the horrific scenario of not knowing what is
real and what is imagined<sup><a href="#FTNT3">(3)</a></sup> - in other
words, <i>paranoia</i> based on reality. I have myself written a short
story in this vein, and begun another which I never completed:</font></p>
<blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><i>"Sometime that year, a group of
eager scientists inserted the first Carcer chip into the skull of a
deaf-dumb and quadraplegic test subject. When the affluent layers of
society gradually migrated towards a better, artificial world, these
slaves, people whose will would never make itself known due to the iron
grip of the Carcer chip, would be left behind to run the power plants,
the farms, the food processing plants, and all the other necessary societal
institutions.</i></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><i>Many free persons understood that the
Carcer project was inhumane from beginning to end, that the people
in the bonds of the chip no longer had a will of their own. Yet they
were reluctant to leave the material well-being that they had built
for years in a world that didn't exist. Their brains were connected
to the machines by electrodes, and their peripheral nervous systems
with its arms, legs, and eyes, were disconnected. Physically, they lived
out their days suspended in a tank filled with isolating liquid kept
at body temperature.</i></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman"><i>The freedom of a number of less privileged
individuals was worth sacrificing for the free men and women that now
lived in invulnerable bodies made of data, and who mentally controlled
political events. (…bla bla bla)"</i></font></p>
</blockquote>
<p><font face="Times New Roman">But - to be honest - don't worry. People
are rather sensible beings, all things considered. There is no reason
to suspect that we wouldn't be able to exploit this new resource in a
reasonable fashion. However, virtual reality in combination with AI gives
us a new picture of the importance of human beings vs. society, which
is the subject of chapter 15.<br>
</font> </p>
<hr>
<font color="#666666"><a name="FTNT1"></a> 1. This number is constantly
rocketing upwards.<br>
<br>
<a name="FTNT2"></a> 2. Fredric Jameson has claimed that the entire cyberpunk/tech
noir genre is simply a reformulation of the theme illustrated in <i>Illuminatus!</i>,
which is a global network of interwoven organizations and informal circles
(which actually exist in some form) described as a metaphor inside the computer
- the electonic network. The incomprehensible electronic organism becomes
a model for the incomprehensible power. I don't agree. The computer is fascinating
in itself, and one is not a symbol for the other. Possibly, you could view
the two as an important concept-pair.<br>
<br>
<a name="FTNT3"></a> 3. One philosopher who's written a great deal about
the dissolution of reality in a kind of "virtual reality" or "hyperreality"
goes by the name Jean Baudrillard.</font><font size="3"></font></td>
</tr>
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