From: fortony@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Felix Sebastian Ortony)
Subject: Imagination vs. VR (was Re: More on MUDs etc.)
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1991 06:01:10 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL



ssmoliar@iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:

>Let me now return to Felix's initial praise of the imagination.  Perhaps I am
>becoming too much of a conservative pessimist, but I continue to believe that
>there is no substitute for books.  One of the most important things you can
>bring with you from a good education is the discovery that books are NOT A
>PASSIVE EXPERIENCE.  Sitting and reading a book is only a part of what that
>book is good for.  A book only comes to life when you RETURN to it with the
>intention of CONSULTING it for some goal or another (even if the goal is to
>revive a pleasant memory associate with a poem you once read).  Some of this
>consultation is driven by what we may call "imaginative reading."  That is,
>a book is not simply a repository of facts but a trigger for our own thoughts.
>Consulting the book may be more a matter of seeking out that trigger again 
>than one of recalling the current population of Tibet.  (Isn't that right, 
>Agent Cooper?)

I agree almost completely with Stephen.  Books -- and I don't mean just
paper, I'm subsuming /etc/bible or whathaveyou into the word -- possess
a power given to them by their intrinsic use of language: only through
the use of such a vague tool as language can imagination be incited.  I
think this bodes badly for anyone who's trying to replace books with
virtual reality, just as any attempt, general or specific, to replace
language with pictures might fail.

>Given this perspective on what books are and how we use them, I believe it is
>valid to ask what sorts of new technologies can fill such massive and flexible
>shoes.  We certainly do not yet have such ready powers of consultation in the
>world of multimedia. (Anyone who ever took a music appreciation class probably
>remembers the teacher scratching the needle on the surface of the record while
>trying to find just the right passage to play for the class.)  Hypermedia
>promises us all the links to get what we need;  but "authoring," the technique
>of making sure all those links are available, remains a black art and there are
>still too many stacks out there which are essentially linear with only a few
>spurs (no more sophisticated than footnotes in a book).  Do we really expect
>Virtual Reality to be an improvement on books which works this time?  If so,
>then what will it be about Virtual Reality which will give us a better handle
>on consultation than we have had thus far with the equally promising
>technologies of multimedia and hypermedia?

The very important point to be made here is that in creating virtual reality,
we should not succumb to excessive excitement.  Hypermedia, in my opinion,
has been made so much more of a religion than a science that when the giant
promises of its early proponents fail to come true, it will be viewed as
something of a failure.  The field of educational computing has known for
some time that computers alone cannot teach men, that technology is no
substitute for inspiration and dedication.  I hope that virtual reality
is not going to go the way of the 8-track tape -- a technological idea
vaunted too heavily without a clear niche.

Lest I sound too pessimistic, I think virtual reality has the potential to
instigate a global revolution.  If I had any sort of money, I'd be investing
in virtual reality companies until my broker begged me to stop.  Though VR
can't and won't replace books and text as educational mainstays, it does
make possible amazing advances in visualization, exploration and 
experimentation.  Even with NASA struggling and the space station program
written off, I have a dream that may be more than just fantasy of walking
on Mars in my lifetime.

fortony@cs.uiuc.edu