#fdvr

The concept of time is viewed differently by everyone and everything. Most people see time in seconds, with each second defined using a specific cesium isotope. A plant cell sees time as cycles of mitosis, only concerned about performing each stage in succession. And still, people can experience the flow of time differently at certain moments, such as during a near-death experience, or a boring Sunday afternoon. How we perceived time is handled by our brains, so the obvious question arises; what if we could alter how our brain experiences the supposedly unchangeable flow of time?

Because there is little research done on this topic, we’ll have to rely on speculation, but it couldn’t hurt to consider the question. Before I begin, let’s set the stage. Let’s imagine we had FDVR with a basic simulation of a classroom. A clock sits on the wall, and you are handed a math test. Meanwhile, someone outside of FDVR slowly increases the simulation speed. It could be 1% every hour, until the simulation is running at 300% speed relative to real life. You are not allowed to leave FDVR during the experiment. Now, we must consider a few questions. Would you acclimate to the faster rate of time, and would it feel normal to you? Could you solve the math problems at the same speed? Would your brain simply work 3 times as fast as normal, and eventually without any adverse effects? Now imagine we suddenly booted you out of FDVR. Would reality be moving 3 times as slow to you? Could you now solve math problems in real life 3 times as fast as you could before? Would your reaction time be superhuman? And how long would this effect last? These are the questions that could have very interesting and exciting answers.

It reminds me of the experiment where people wore glasses that turned their vision upside down. At first they could hardly move without stumbling, but within a week of wearing them they were able to completely adapt, and do everything they could prior. If our Occiptial lobe could adapt to such radical changes, what about other parts of our brain?

Assuming that our little experiment proved successful, what applications could time manipulation have? Well, you know those people who wished there were more hours in the day? This would create those extra hours to complete work or relax. Soldiers could use it to train their reaction times, as can competitive gamers. Being able to think quicker and more critically can help everyone in every profession. Students can learn more, faster.

I want to end off with just a list of questions that are raised from the idea of time manipulation within FDVR:

 In our experiment, what if we continued raising the speed of the simulation? Would our brain continually adapt? Or is there a limit to how fast our brains can receive and interpret information? What would happen to a brain that couldn’t keep up? Would it be dangerous to ‘run’ the brain at that speed?

What if we went the opposite way, and decreased the speed of the simulation? Would we perceive real life as moving very fast? What applications could this have?

FDVR is interesting because we can manipulate phenomenon and forces that are beyond our reach in this world. Things like time, gravity, physical laws, and our innate capabilities. By being able to change this natural constants, we uncover questions and scenarios that can both excite and terrify us. Discussing these ideas is necessary in the effort to understand our own universe. 

Until next time,

Caliburn

Heya,

Welcome back to another volume of FDVR Issues. Today, we will be looking at simulating feeling, exploring its problems and interesting consequences. We’ll also take a look at how our senses could be read from and to.

Lets kick things off by investigating how sensation could be implemented. Because FDVR technology would almost certainty require some level of cranial implant, different areas of the brain must be linked to the implant in order to send and receive information. (non-invasive methods such as EEG do not receive brain signals perfectly, and they cannot send signals to the brain, which is required for FDVR). Unfortunately, the locations where our senses and movement is received and processed is spread out across the brain, meaning it would be more challenging to capture the sensory data from the brain than if it was all neatly set in one lobe. We can see this in this diagram of the human brain.

As you can see, movement is handled in the Frontal lobe, the ability to feel is found in the Parietal lobe, vision in the Occipital lobe at the back, and hearing in the Temporal lobe at the sides. Those are the most important senses for FDVR, but if we wanted full sensory control, we’d also have to access the Gustatory and Olfactory cortex's for taste and smell. It’s will be challenging to simultaneously access all these areas of the brain, while also not requiring exorbitantly expensive surgeries and equipment. An interesting solution to this issue is employing nanobots that harmlessly reside in the brain until the user wishes to enter FDVR. When that occurs, the bots to move into position all across the brain and transmit information to and from neurons. While this sounds like total science fiction (which right now it is), it is a viable solution, at least compared to other invasive methods.

Moving on, lets consider the sensation of feeling. More specifically, the feeling of pain. Pain is handled by many different parts of your brain, which makes sense as it’s a vital part of ensuring your survival. If we wanted to give the user pain in FDVR, one method could be to stimulate the thalamus, which acts like a relay center for pain. However, a much more important question is, do we want to simulate pain? Is it worth allowing pain in FDVR in order to move closer towards total immersion? Would you want to feel the pain of getting stabbed, or set on fire, or gasping for air underneath a vast ocean if it meant that your immersion was increased? I don’t know about you, but I don’t think so. For me, this raises the question of the limits of immersion, which I may get into at a later date. But moving back on subject, perhaps we don’t want to feel extreme or even moderate pain, but only slight pain to alert you to problems (like pain was designed to do). Another solution could be to just simulate pressure instead of pain, and let the brain do the rest. After all, the brain is often it’s own worst enemy. Being in situations in a simulation like getting stabbed or set on fire would probably cause your brain to experience pain of its own creation. Seeing a knife in your chest without feeling it would definitely freak out your brain.

Capturing the sensation and motor functions of the brain is the central goal of FDVR, and doing so will require an ingenious idea and a lot of testing. What ever solution is devised to create FDVR would have to go through a rigorous approval process to be cleared for public use. Technology that interacts with your brain this way has many ways it could go wrong, so safety is going to be the highest point of contention. You wouldn’t want anyone stuck in FDVR, right? That concludes Volume 2. Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Caliburn

Sources and Extra Reading:

https://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2039.htm#full_immersion_virtual_reality

Heya,

Welcome to a series where I will be examining various issues surrounding FDVR at multiple angles; from game design, legal problems, and other challenges. For today’s volume, we will be looking at the issue of game input, or more simply, how we interact with the software.

Before we begin, lets look how games today handle user input. For the majority of games, we use a controller. We press a button, moving our finger a small amount, and the character on screen can perform supernatural movements and abilities. There is an obvious disconnect, between what we do in real life and what occurs on screen. But games don’t feel disconnected, you can move your character pretty much exactly as you want to, at least usually. People can be drawn into games, feeling as if they are there, without so much as tapping a few buttons. This ability for games to give you that feeling  is one of the reasons they are so addicting.

Now, lets take a look at a game in FDVR. lets imagine a simple game, where you play as a spellsword who has both a sword and an open hand with which to cast magic. In a controller-based game (I’ll be calling these games CBG from here on out), when you want to swing your sword, you press a certain button, and when you want to throw a fireball, you press another button. But in a FDVR game, you may be able to swing your sword fine, but what if you wanted to throw a fireball? Do you program the game to unleash one once the user extends their arm? Okay, but that would most definitely result in annoying misfires every time the user does basic functions. Also, what if you have multiple spells, you can’t have all of them tied to the same action. What about using a voice command? That would be better, but it may get tiring to constantly be yelling “FIRE” as if you were James Rolfe playing Top Gun with the LaserScope. Plus, what if you say it differently, or can’t speak at that moment? The best option may be mentally thinking of a key word to activate the spell, but it still may be tiring or awkward to perform. Imagine if playing a CBG, but every time you wanted to cast a spell, you had to lift a 20 pound dumbbell. It would get annoying, be a painful experience, and most importantly, it wouldn’t be intuitive. The key word here is intuitive, just like a CBG is intuitive, whatever method that is used in FDVR must be as intuitive as possible.

While we can imagine FDVR games to somehow allow us to perform superhuman feats and have superhuman strength, we must realize that it has to be performed by a normal human. This is why something I have been calling the “Proxy” must be used. Essentially, the Proxy is the link between the user’s abilities and the software. Proxy’s, at least in this definition, have been used since the dawn of video games. Handheld controllers, DDR arrow pads, gun toys like the NES Zapper, VR headsets and tracking controllers. These were all steps, each one reducing the disconnection between the user and game. Eventually, we reach the asymptote, the point where the user and game are one and the same; FDVR. A rough visualization of this idea is this:

 So, you may be wondering, if the disconnection through the use of Proxy has been reduced to nothing in FDVR, why do I still call for the use of one? That is because we as humans, can’t do supernatural things naturally, hence the ‘super’ part of that word. Even if given the option, we can’t cast magic, have lightning fast reactions, and have perfect agility. It’s just not intuitive (there’s that word again, I told you it’s important). Therefore, we need a Proxy to bridge the gap to those supernatural abilities. For a clearer picture, I will list off a few examples of Proxy’s that could work in FDVR:

1) A magical staff from which you can select spells from and fire them off.

2) A mech that you can control with human movements that would result in it performing supernatural feats.

3) A Yu-gi-oh like card game where you move and place cards specific ways to tell your monster to attack in that specific way.

4) Basically any RTS game, issuing commands from a screen.

In all these examples, any human can perform the necessary action, but they result in effects that are much more impressive than what any of us can do. A Proxy allows the user to interact with their game in interesting and various ways.

Do I believe Proxies will always be needed? No. First off, many game genre’s don’t need them. Genres like pure adventure, RTS (which inherently needs a Proxy), and many simulation games. Secondly, as game design for FDVR is experimented with and perfected, I’m confident that eventually the disconnect between user and game would truly be 0. What would that look like? Well, it would be so there is not a single hint that the world you are in is a simulated one. Everything is ‘in world’, no menus, no reminders that you are just a passenger in the experience of the world; you would feel like you were meant to be part of the world. 

Thank you for reading FDVR Issues: Vol 1. I apologize about the length, I don’t think my next ones will be as long. I always find that imagining the problems FDVR would face is a lot of stimulating and interesting that just wildly speculating “what if” scenarios.

Until next time,

While it’s easy to imagine the possibilities of FDVR, there are genres/types of entertainment that simply aren’t optimized for this type of technology. Today, I’m going to discuss several types of entertainment content that fit FDVR naturally. 

Human Simulators - What do I mean by this? Well, simply put, I believe FDVR games about simulating human experiences will be the most popular genre of FDVR entertainment. And that is for the simple reason that you, and everyone else is also a human (hopefully). See, a FDVR game where you play as a bird will be difficult, because you obviously don’t know how to play it. Either the game will be so automated in gameplay it’ll be boring, or so free that it’s impossible to understand and play. But when the game is about playing as a soldier, you know that what you’re expected to do is achievable innately. That is, every soldier has been human, so it’s at least possible to understand and accomplish whatever you have to do. This is why simulator-style games will likely be the most popular game type.

Travel/History Experiences - While this is sort of a subset of Human Simulators, I feel that this deserves more discussion. Imagine being able to be in any place on Earth, at any point in time, with the press of a button. With FDVR, it’s no problem to design virtual worlds that look, sound, smell, taste, and feel like a real location. Why spend thousands on vacations when you can be there in a heartbeat? Of course, the tourism industry will take a hit from this, but there will be a large part of the public who fervently believe it’s not the same, to be somewhere in a virtual world and in real life. What they can’t argue with, however, is the ability to live in and experience any time in history. One can be  standing along Jefferson signing the Declaration of Independence,  enjoying aristocratic life of the Roman Empire, and watch the great pyramid’s being built. besides the amazing experience, it could also be the greatest teaching tool in history. Why do a Powerpoint on the French Revolution when you can bring your class right up to the guillotine (watch the blood!).

Ah, looks like we’re out of time space for now. Next time, i’ll be going into genres that would have a lot of trouble working with FDVR. And maybe i’ll expand this post with more genres.

It’s necessary for me to explain what I am referring to when I talk about FDVR. In short, think The Matrix (1999). A technology that allows your brain to receive sensory information (that is, vision, hearing, feeling, smell, taste, among other senses) that was not generated from the millions of receptor cells across our body, but rather from a computer. This can be done is variety of ways, from nano-machines that reside in our brain and activate when the user wishes to enter a virtual world, a helmet type device, or perhaps the aforementioned “Matrix” style of giant-hole-in-the-head that is designed to plug into a computer.

Whatever the method, the effect is the same; virtual worlds that are completely created by the computer. And when that is the case, when we control the means that a world is created, infinite possibilities begin to emerge.

It should be noted that this technology is not just speculation right now. Companies like Elon Musk’s Nerualink, which are working in the field of BCI (Brain Computer Interface) are linking man with machine in surprising new ways. I believe that within the next 10-15 years, as the brain is better understood, and BCI becomes more advanced, we will begin to see the early wisps of FDVR, and from then on we wouldn’t have to wait long to experience the technology for ourselves.

This blog will be working under the assumption that FDVR can/will exist, and will be going into the numerous issues, effects, and possibilities that come with this technology. Be it social, physical, or legal repercussions, I will be discussing all of these topics and more.

Caliburn