I failed to make a key point in my last post about the very foundation of virtual reality, the brain-in-a-vat argument. But first I want to mention a 2021 documentary called A Glitch in the Matrix from filmmaker Rodney Ascher.
The documentary tackles frequent question since the Matrix came out in 1999, are we living in a computer simulation? I suspect many are surprised to hear that this question is hundreds of years old and was asked by the philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) in 1641. He asked what if a malevolent God or an evil demon, of “utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me.” This is the beginning of scepticism and is now called the brain-in-a-vat argument.
It is remarkable that this argument is even more meaningful now than it was for Descartes. For him is was a mental experiement to see how much could be doubted. Then and now, it is hard to take it very seriously. In the documentary you meet many who do. And that theme has become such a common trope in science fiction since the beginning of the 20c that it is part of our shared cultural experience.
While many fictional accounts assume some for of “jacking in” where the brain is interfaced directly though some neuronal interface, virtual reality tries to achieve the same end through a headmounted display and perhaps other peripherals such as data gloves (Jaron Lanier) or a body suit (Upload TV show). But regardless how it is done it is still toward the same end of intermediating all sensory input from the “real” world with that generated by the evil demon of a computer created world.
Some take it as a goal to create a direct brain-computer interface. Consider Elon Musk’s NeuraLink project. This is merely the latest and most semi-successful attempts.
Hilary Putnam offers a argument as to why we can reject this. But unless you want to jump feet first into this very old debate you might want to avoid it.I just needed to make this point simply because no discussion of VR, cyberspace, or the metaverse can avoid this traditional argument from scepticism.
I think it is safe to predict that brain-computer interfaces for consumers is very far off. In the meanwhile we will be left with clunky head mounted displays and very little haptic feedback from the many virtual worlds that exist.
Dale Fletter Blog Site 