Essay About Virtual Reality And Continuation Of Previous Developments

Virtual Reality – a one Way Ticket?
Virtual Reality – a one Way Ticket?
Virtual Reality – A one way ticket?
Virtual Reality is considered one of the most exciting technologies
today, constantly evolving and improving. According to Eric Drexler, a
world known pioneer in this field, VR is “A combination of computer and
interface devices (goggles, gloves, etc.) that present a user with the
illusion of being in a three dimensional world of computer generated
objects.” The term ^virtual reality,^ is not finite in its meaning,
but generally includes desktop VR, immersion VR, where the goggles and
gloves are used, and projection VR.
The virtual reality technology is not yet perfect and still too
expensive for the common man. The use of high-end VR is mainly
restricted to larger companies, and to special areas such as medical
surgery and pilot training. Home users are limited to desktop virtual
reality programs, which lets them navigate in three-dimensional worlds,
but seldom gives the feeling of actually being there. The entertainment
industry has yet to embrace the technology in full scale, but in his
book ^Virtual Reality^ Howard Rheingold states ^Used today in
architecture, engineering and design, tomorrow in mass-market
entertainment, surrogate travel, virtual surgery and cybersex, by the
next century ^VR^ will have transformed our lives.^
Will VR cause people to lose their grip on the real world, or is it
just a continuation of previous developments that took people to
imaginary places?
People seem to always have escaped to ^imaginary worlds^, to get a way
from the stress of real life and to relax. We have all experienced
Greek theatre, read novels and been to the cinema, and lived ourselves
into fiction stories that we identify with. Our imagination creates a
fiction world, which leads us away from real life for a moment of time.
In our own utopia, we forget contemporary problems of reality.
Even though the virtual reality technology creates a utopia for us to
explore, it is in a lot of ways different from other developments we
know so well today. June Deery, from the Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy says ^whereas in fiction we imagine and empathize, in
cyberspace we are supposed to ^actually^ step into the other world.^
This means that the other world is not created in our minds, but is
already there. We have to move in that world and take part in it, not
only with our mind, but by using our senses, such as seeing, hearing
and touching. These are our navigation tools. This world is imaginary
in the way that it is not of something real, but a result of the
programmer of that worlds imagination. It is ^virtual.^
In previous developments, such as theatre, novels and cinema we
passively follow a linear storyline, with a start and an end. The
author of it predetermines all the happenings in a particular story. We
have no participation in the play, but identify with it and our
imagination creates a generic feeling that we are a part of the story.
In virtual reality however, we do participate actively in a non-linear
story, we are a part of the plot. How the story evolves, depends on
what we do, and when we do it. What we get to see