Experience Beamers - Exploring Full-Immersion VR - Part 1
MOLLY 2004:
Full-immersion virtual reality doesn't seem very inviting. I mean, all those nanobots running around in my head, like little bugs.
RAY:
Oh, you won't feel them, any more than you feel the neurons in your head or the bacteria in your GI tract.
MOLLY 2004:
Actually, that I can feel. But I can have full immersion with my friends right now, just by, you know, getting together physically.
SIGMUND FREUD:
Hmmm, that's what they used to say about the telephone when I was young. People would say, “Who needs to talk to someone hundreds of miles away when you can just get together?”
RAY:
Exactly, the telephone is auditory virtual reality. So full immersion VR is, basically, a full-body telephone. You can get together with anyone anytime but do more than just talk.
GEORGE 2048:
It's certainly been a boon for sex workers; they never have to leave their homes. It became so impossible to draw any meaningful lines that the authorities had no choice but to legalize virtual prostitution in 2033.
MOLLY 2004:
Very interesting but actually not very appealing.
GEORGE 2048:
Okay, but consider that you can be with your favorite entertainment star.
MOLLY 2004:
I can do that in my imagination any time I want.
RAY:
Imagination is nice, but the real thing—or, rather, the virtual thing—is so much more, well, real.
MOLLY 2004:
Yeah, but what if my “favorite” celebrity is busy?
RAY:
That's another benefit of virtual reality circa 2029; you have your choice of millions of artificial people.
MOLLY 2104:
I understand that you're back in 2004, but we kind of got rid of that terminology back when the Nonbiological Persons Act was passed in 2052. I mean, we're a lot more real than… umm, let me rephrase that.
MOLLY 2004:
Yes, maybe you should.
MOLLY 2104:
Let's just say that you don't have to have explicit biological structures to be—
GEORGE 2048:
—passionate?
MOLLY 2104:
I guess you should know.
TIMOTHY LEARY:
What if you have a bad trip?
RAY:
You mean, something goes awry with a virtual-reality experience?
TIMOTHY LEARY:
Exactly.
RAY:
Well, you can leave. It's like hanging up on a phone call.
MOLLY 2004:
Assuming you still have control over the software.
RAY:
Yes, we do need to be concerned with that.
SIGMUND FREUD:
I can see some real therapeutic potential here.
RAY:
Yes, you can be whomever you want to be in virtual reality.
SIGMUND FREUD:
Excellent, the opportunity to express suppressed longings…
RAY:
And not only to be with the person you want to be with, but to become that person.
SIGMUND FREUD:
Exactly. We create the objects of our libido in our subconscious anyway. Just think, a couple could both change their genders. They could each become the other.
MOLLY 2004:
Just as a therapeutic interlude, I presume?
SIGMUND FREUD:
Of course. I would only suggest this under my careful supervision.
MOLLY 2004:
Naturally.
MOLLY 2104:
Hey, George, remember when we each became all of the opposite gender characters in the Allen Kurzweil novels at the same time?
GEORGE 2048:
Ha, I liked you best as that eighteenth-century French inventor, the one who made erotic pocket watches!
MOLLY 2004:
Okay, now run this virtual sex by me again. How does it work exactly?
RAY:
You're using your virtual body, which is simulated. Nanobots in and around your nervous system generate the appropriate encoded signals for all of your senses: visual, auditory, tactile, of course, even olfactory. From the perspective of your brain, it's real because the signals are just as real as if your senses were producing them from real experiences.
The simulation in virtual reality would generally follow the laws of physics, although that would depend on the environment you selected. If you go there with another person or persons, then these other intelligences, whether of people with biological bodies or otherwise, would also have bodies in this virtual environment.
Your body in virtual reality does not need to match your body in real reality. In fact, the body you choose for yourself in the virtual environment may be different from the body that your partner chooses for you at the same time. The computers generating the virtual environment, virtual bodies, and associated nerve signals would cooperate so that your actions affect the virtual experience of the others and vice versa.
MOLLY 2004:
So I would experience sexual pleasure even though I'm not actually, you know, with someone?
RAY:
Well, you would be with someone, just not in real reality, and, of course, the someone may not even exist in real reality. Sexual pleasure is not a direct sensory experience; it's akin to an emotion. It's a sensation generated in your brain, which is reflecting on what you're doing and thinking, just like the sensation of humor or anger.
MOLLY 2004:
Like the girl you mentioned who found everything hilarious when the surgeons stimulated a particular spot in her brain?
RAY:
Exactly. There are neurological correlates of all of our experiences, sensations, and emotions. Some are localized, whereas some reflect a pattern of activity. In either case, we'll be able to shape and enhance our emotional reactions as part of our virtual-reality experiences.
MOLLY 2004:
That could work out quite well. I think I'll enhance my funniness reaction in my romantic interludes. That will fit just about right. Or maybe my absurdity response—I kind of like that one, too.
NED LUDD:
I can see this getting out of hand. People are going to start spending most of their time in virtual reality.
MOLLY 2004:
Oh, I think my ten-year-old nephew is already there, with his video games.
RAY:
They're not full immersion yet.
MOLLY 2004:
That's true. We can see him, but I'm not sure he notices us. But when we get to the point when his games are full immersion, we'll never see him.
GEORGE 2048:
I can see your concern if you're thinking in terms of the thin virtual worlds of 2004, but it's not a problem with our 2048 virtual worlds. They're so much more compelling than the real world.
MOLLY 2004:
Yeah, how would you know since you've never been in real reality?
GEORGE 2048:
I hear about it quite a bit. Anyway, we can simulate it.
MOLLY 2104:
Well, I can have a real body any time I want, really not a big deal. I have to say it's rather liberating to not be dependent on a particular body, let alone a biological one. Can you imagine, being all tied up with its endless limitations and burdens?
MOLLY 2004:
Yes, I can see where you're coming from.
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