What a bunch of hucky-pucky!

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . Before electronics people would read books and "get lost" in their imagination. . . .

Ahem. Before electronics? Plenty of us still get lost in books!

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I looked up the definition of "virtual: "Not, in fact."

‘Virtual reality is genuine reality’ so embrace it, says US philosopher

It is hard to imagine humans spending their lives in virtual reality when the experience amounts to waving your arms about in the middle of the lounge with a device the size of a house brick strapped to your face. But this is where humanity is heading, says the philosopher David Chalmers, who...

news.google.com

Not bad. Better: Almost, nearly, as good as, for all intents and purposes, similar to, approaching.

Another word I like: nominally: in name only.

 

[dreadnut]

I like what Miriam Webster says: too: "very close to being something without actually being it."

 

[fronobulax]

I like what Miriam Webster says: too: "very close to being something without actually being it."

So "limit f(x) -> 18 as x -> 21" kind of means f(x) is virtually 18?

 

[walrus]

I like what Miriam Webster says: too: "very close to being something without actually being it."

This also describes my guitar playing nicely, too!

walrus

 

[davismanLV]

This also describes my guitar playing nicely, too!

walrus

Mine TOO!!!

 

[beecee]

Taking it down a few intellectual notches.

I tried Oculus over the holidays. There was a climbing and kayaking "world" whatever.

I gasped as I looked down at 3,000' of exposure on a K-2 sim...and was thrusting my hips to help steer the kayak....much to the delight of those in attendance who don't kayak and had no idea of what I was doing

I swore my arms ached after that climb.

After that I went to bed and continued to read The Worst Journey in the World...in book form.

 

[dreadnut]

I think my dreams are kinda VR...holy cow.

 

[JohnW63]

"This also describes my guitar playing nicely, too!"

I'm a VG as well. In my mind, of course. But that's just my perception.

 

[bobouz]

I just love this cutting edge stuff.
Oh, hold on, I’ve got a call coming in on my I-Phone 4.

 

[Elderguilder]

I think my dreams are kinda VR...holy cow.

I was just going to mention this. I've had some dreams that were phenomenally like reality, the best ones where I'm flying like Superman (one has to be really careful of high voltage power lines). In one dream I was hanging from a tree branch over a deep pit with pointy spikes sticking up in it. And, I kid you not, I realized it was only a dream so I let go. I woke up, so I did live to tell about it, reality being as it is.

 

[davismanLV]

Those are my favorite dreams, when I can fly. I'm always going somewhere and then things start getting creepy or difficult and then I just lift off the ground and elevate above everything. Sometimes I just go enough off the ground to keep the people well below me, and sometimes I soar so high I can fly across the whole town and not even care about anything. I love those dreams..... and when I'm done I slowly come back down.... and plant my feet and keep walking and then I wake up.

 

[Nuuska]

After that I went to bed and continued to read The Worst Journey in the World...in book form.

You've changed your avatar to this aspic-shaking-machine - is there a hidden message involved?

 

[beecee]

You've changed your avatar to this aspic-shaking-machine - is there a hidden message involved?

With permission from the mods I shall veer.

I belonged to an old "athletic club'.... It was on the German side of town and with my last name our family wasn't allowed to join in spite of our partial German ancestry, in the late 90's it began to lose membership as the old guard died off so they opened it up a bit. My biggest reason for joining?? Best sauerbraten in upstate NY!!!
The gym was in basement, along with three meeting rooms decked out with crazy Germanic flags and crests from who knows when. The third floor was where the old faction still ruled. There was a private bar and two meeting rooms. I never saw the insideof the rooms but did sneak into the bar one Sunday morning....Cool old 30's finishes, better selection of booze behind bar.

There was the big bar and restaurant, ( and a 6 lane bowling alley), on the main floor. The gym was great....typical water leaking from overhead pipes, had a heavy bag, steam and sauna. I liked it, the downstairs was male only due to the fact that you hit the bottom step and you were in full view of the locker room. A lot of old geezers milling around on their way to shower or sauna. Actually had only allowed women in bar in past 15 years.

It was a throwback in many ways...but there were good points, no posturing, no spandex.

Anyway, we moved to far side of town and very inconvenient to get to and get home after the obligatory stop at the bar on the way out. Unfortunately they also lost the neighborhood.

So looking around New Years for some resolution to break I hit a few gyms in the area. I lift at home with heavy dumbells to keep in shape for the backpacking/canoe/kayaking/snowshoeing I love but my wife will moan when she stubs her toe on a dumbell....not sure why she needs to walk in the middle of the room but hey..

I'm kind of put off by the vibe of the chain gyms so I googled old fashioned gyms cny and that picture popped up. It reminded me of the old YMCA in downtown back in the mid to late 60s watching guys standing in one of them getting "fit" with a big cigar sticking out of their face while everything shook.

I'm at that age now....it made me laugh.

End of veer....sorry you asked?

 

[LeFinPepere]

Go ask Alice when she' ten feet tall....Don't know much about VR,never tried it.
People seem to have fun with it, ok, fine, entertainment .
I have other fish to fry, but , given the opportunity, I might enjoy it, you know, climbing the Himalayas and driving sports cars...
Nobody mentioned virtual sex,but I guess it's included in the package... .In my experience( The old-school Hendrixy-Exp, if you know what I mean!), stepping out of reality too much exposes to serious backlash....Then again, nobody knows for sure-as science shows-what reality is....vibrations of atoms that get shaped via your own particular brain-cells...Or maybe it's only a dream of some Elephant-headed ancient god, who knows?
Reading, dreaming, inventing, any art form, are VR...That's how it works, since ages, we've got to say:"what if?....."That's VR....(but, mind you: inexpensive, DIY, and unplugged!) My concern is that while we are goofing around with new plastic electrical devices, the guys who sell them take care of business to their advantage...
Remember Huxley's Brave New World ?The genetically-pre-defined Waspy A's leading, the average B's working, and the-(darker-skinned!)- C's and D's cleaning the mess,nobody complaining or thinking "there must be some kinda way out of here" ,thanks to the mandatory use of Soma ? The only electronic game I ever played was fun , but it consumed my time and I felt I was passively subjected to somebody else's imagination, I had no leeway ....Oh, I could rant like this for hours and get nowhere!!!Sorry , my Virtual Fellows at LTG, I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time, I'll give it right back one of these days!!!Didn't somebody write "have fun , that's all that counts.."?

 

[walrus]

I was just going to mention this. I've had some dreams that were phenomenally like reality, the best ones where I'm flying like Superman (one has to be really careful of high voltage power lines). In one dream I was hanging from a tree branch over a deep pit with pointy spikes sticking up in it. And, I kid you not, I realized it was only a dream so I let go. I woke up, so I did live to tell about it, reality being as it is.

Those are my favorite dreams, when I can fly. I'm always going somewhere and then things start getting creepy or difficult and then I just lift off the ground and elevate above everything. Sometimes I just go enough off the ground to keep the people well below me, and sometimes I soar so high I can fly across the whole town and not even care about anything. I love those dreams..... and when I'm done I slowly come back down.... and plant my feet and keep walking and then I wake up.

So, this is weird. When I was a kid, I, too, had dreams of flying like Superman - BUT - I was up there, going slower than the people walking below me! I'd push and push myself, but could never get any speed up. Cripes! I didn't mind waking up.

Clearly, a symptom of middle school angst and frustration. Or maybe my fear of heights. Whatever, it makes for a funny story.

I'm jealous of you guys flying around in your dreams!

walrus

 

[Guildedagain]

From the best "Low Budget" album of all time ;]

 

[dwasifar]

I was just going to mention this. I've had some dreams that were phenomenally like reality, the best ones where I'm flying like Superman (one has to be really careful of high voltage power lines). In one dream I was hanging from a tree branch over a deep pit with pointy spikes sticking up in it. And, I kid you not, I realized it was only a dream so I let go. I woke up, so I did live to tell about it, reality being as it is.

You had a lucid dream.

There are ways to learn to do that deliberately. I'm prone to bizarre dreams and nightmares, and over the years I've learned to be aware that I'm dreaming in just the way you describe, and wake myself up before things get too nasty.

There was one memorable instance in which I was fully aware that I was having a bad dream, but I couldn't get myself to wake up, and when it became difficult to talk in the dream, I realized I was talking in my sleep. So, still asleep and dreaming, I shouted, "I'm! Having! A nightmare! Wake me up! Wake me up!" And my wife heard it and woke me up.

 

[Midnight Toker]

This is getting philosophical fast.

Here's my take. There is physical reality, and there is perception. You form a mental model of reality through perception. This is what people are trying to say when they say everyone has their own reality. I think that's a bad and misleading way to put it, because it implies that perception and reality are the same thing.

For example: a given physical object may have a given physical attribute, let's say color. Now, color is notoriously subjective. You might see green one way, I see it another, someone who's colorblind sees it as gray, a dog or a bee or a bird will all see it differently. The physical characteristics and events that make the object "green," however, are fixed and external to perception: it absorbs certain frequencies of the radiation we call visible light, and reflects the frequencies we classify as green. These are attributes of the object. When we perceive those attributes, we call it green; but green to me or gray to you, the object itself isn't different. The object and its attributes are in physical reality; your perceptions are your interpretation or understanding of that physical reality. That understanding is necessarily incomplete and imperfect, because your senses are limited and your brain is finite.

I think elevating different imperfect perceptions of reality to the status of independent realities of their own is the height of hubris. We don't create a new reality just by seeing the external one incompletely, any more than taking a photo of a fish in the lake creates a new rectangular lake that's mostly a fish. Read Plato's Allegory of the Cave. The shadows on the wall are perceptions of reality, but they're only shadows; they're not a separate reality in their own right.

Yep.

Perception is just one individual person's "reality". If you were to sperately interview 4 people w/ a shared experience, you'll likely wind up w/ 4 different accounts. As more time passes by, those accounts tend to drift even further apart. Also, two people can read the exact same book containing...literal descriptions, yet will come up with differing images in their heads So what exactly is "reality"? And why must everything be "literal"? Humans aren't machines. We're loaded w/ flaws and contradictions. Just enjoy the ride and try not to take it too seriously.

Personally, I see no reason to get too analytical or dig your heels into requiring everything be literal. The story of human existence is built on perception and the art of story telling. You know...entertainment! VR is just a name. A branding, if anything. Vacuum cleaners don't clean vacuums, yet no one has ever complained.

I wouldn't doubt if the term "virtual reality" gets changed several times in the near future as new interactive tech is introduced and wants it's own branding. Heck, my father, who was a multi language professor was once part of an international group that was involved in what they then called "artificial intelligence". This was in the 1950's!! No, it had nothing to do w/ automation, robotics, or computing. And they weren't in an underground lab at Area 51! It was just a think tank for creating new words in ancient or dead languages for things that didn't exist in the times those languages were common.

 

[Cougar]

I reject anything that makes Zuckerberg richer.