From: awm@netcom.com (Andrew MacDonald) Subject: Re: INDUSTRY: Virtual Reality is Dead! Long Live Virtual Reality! Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 16:23:24 GMT Message-ID: Organization: NETCOM On-line services In article brundage@ipac.caltech.edu (Michael Brundage) writes: > In article <19970518003000.UAA12113@ladder02.news.aol.com>, vrevnts@aol.com > (Vrevnts) wrote: > > Expanding the definitions to make sure that VR will not die doesn't > > really seem to be the best way to go. In fact, it's almost the right > > time (or late even!) to create the true definition of VR. How many > > VRML web-sites meet the most standard VR criteria of being immersive > > AND interactive? Very few from what I've seen. "Text based VR??? > > Wouldn't that make all printed materials virtual reality? > Text-based VR's such as MUDs have been around a > lot longer than any of the computer-graphics laden VR's, and I think one > could even persuasively argue that they led researchers to imagine (and > make the technological leaps necessary to create) the more high-tech VRs. I think that MUDs fall into the category of what I would call "compelling experience," but not into VR. I define a compelling experience (CE) as one where the rules of the situation override the common sense rule of every day life. A couple of examples: a chemistry-major friend of mine played Rogue (or some other dungeon game) for an entire weekend; later in the week, his experiment in the lab was going badly, and he looked for the 'q' key to abort, transfering the game rule to the real world. Chess players are said to dream chess boards and make associations equally as odd as my friend did. I've had similar experiences after playing computer games for long periods. Some have argued that because MUDs are CEs that they must be VRs. But while VR might be CE, I don't think CE is necessarily VR. VR is virtual REALITY, an attempt to fool the SENSES, not the mind. I know, we can argue about how much of sensation is in the mind, vs the sense organs. But to me, the essence of VR is verisimilitude, not interaction, not computer-aided mediation, but pure immersion. If your senses tell you it's real while your mind still operates with real-world assumptions about space, time and causality, that's VR; if your mind adopts a new set of rules about space, time and causality despite the fact the senses are telling it otherwise, that's CE. Perfect VR: the Holodeck. Perfect CE: madness. Andy MacDonald awm@netcom.com