From: vanevery@blarg.net (Brandon J. Van Every) Subject: Re: PHIL: Reality Date: 30 Apr 1996 06:54:52 GMT Message-ID: <4m4dfs$mrc@guysmiley.blarg.net> Organization: Blarg! Online Services 206/441-9109 J.P.Wann@RDG.AC.UK wrote: : From: thaliap@compnt.cs.unp.ac.za wrote: : > I'm doing a seminar on "Virtual reality and the changing : > concept of what is real". : > - what is real? : > - Is it important to know what is real? : > - How do we know something is real? : > - If we put virtual reality headgear on a baby from the moment it was : > born...would that be their real world? : > Like many of us, I have responded to the original poster about "what is real." Unlike many of us, I did it in private e-mail. I don't want to rain on people's parades about real vs. non-real (well, not too much :-) but I would like to try to re-focus this discussion as it impacts upon "Virtual Reality." If I were to put on my sociocultural anthropology hat, I could pontificate at great length about what is real and what is constructed. Instead, I'd like to use this as an opportunity to point out why the whole term "Virtual Reality" is so problematic. It allows anyone and everyone to refer to a collection of hardware devices and interaction techniques as a metaphor - or scapegoat - for "reality." It allows laymen to assume that they know something about the science of VR. It also cuts the other way - it allows VR scientists to assume that they know a lot about the nature of "reality" as it is perceived and operated on by human beings. Often, they know nothing of the sort, or at least their work is focused on a microcosm of easily measured "reality" such as FOV's and so forth. I have no problem with people measuring FOV's and other user interface effects as a tractable means of improving the technology. That's good work and it needs doing. But when VR scientists fool themselves into believing that this limited class of phenomena is "reality," they are sadly mistaken. They cut themselves off from quite a number of research possibilities that the social sciences are generally more adept at. The term "Virtual Reality" is an unfortunate historical accident. It subsumes everything and defines nothing. I think the scientists would be much better off with a term like "Immersion Hardware." Then IH could be all the rage, it would be easy (easier?) to talk about immersion in terms of hardware capabilities, and it would be much more difficult for marketers to twist the term to describe everything and anything. Cheers, -- Brandon J. Van Every | Check out Free3d, my 100% efficient, 100% portable | 3d lib, at . 3d Computer Graphics | C++ UNIX X11 Motif | E-mail: vanevery@blarg.net