Virtual Reality Essay, Research Paper

Virtual RealityEscapism and Virtual Reality Overview of virutal relaity and some of the perils it puts humanity in for the future after 1991 (5000 words)—– ABSTRACT—–The use of computers in society provides obvious benefits and somedrawbacks. `Virtual Reality’, a new method of interacting with any computer,is presented and its advantages and disadvantages are considered. The humanaspect of computing and computers as a form of escapism are developed, withespecial reference to possible future technological developments. Theconsequences of a weakening of the sense of reality based upon the physicalworld are also considered. Finally, some ways to reduce the unpleasantaspects of this potential dislocation are examined. A glossary of computingterms is also included. Computers as MachinesThe progression of the machine into all aspects of human life has continuedunabated since the medieval watchmakers of Europe and the Renaissance studyof science that followed Clocks . Whilst this change has beenexceedingly rapid from a historical perspective, it can nevertheless bedivided into distinct periods, though rather arbitrarily, by some criteriasuch as how people travelled or how information was transferred over longdistances. However these periods are defined, their lengths have becomeincreasingly shorter, with each new technological breakthrough now taking lessthan ten years to become accepted (recent examples include facsimilemachines, video recorders and microwave ovens). One of the most recent, and hence most rapidly absorbed periods, has been thatof the computer. The Age of Computing began withCharles Babbage in the late 19th century Babbage , grew in thecalculating machines between the wars EarlyIBM , continued during thecryptanalysis efforts of World War II Turing,Bletchley andfinally blossomed in the late 1970’s with mass market applications in thedeveloped countries (e.g. JapanSord ). Computers have gone through several`generations’ of development in the last fifty years and their rate of changefits neatly to exponential curves Graphs , suggesting that the length ofeach generation will become shorter and shorter, decreasing until someunforeseen limit is reached. This pattern agrees with the more generaldecrease of length between other technological periods. The great strength of computers whether viewed as complex machines, or moreabstractly as merely another type of tool, lies in their enormous flexibility. This flexibility is designed into a computer from the moment of its conceptionand accounts for much of the remarkable complexity that is inherent in eachdesign. For this very reason, the uses of computers are now too many to everconsider listing exhaustively and so only a representative selection areconsidered below. Computers are now used to control any other machine that is subject to avarying environment, (e.g. washing machines, electric drills and carengines). Artificial environments such as hotels, offices and homes aremaintained in pre-determined states of comfort by computers in the thermostatsand lighting circuits. Within a high street shop or major business, everyfinancial or stockkeeping transaction will be recorded and acknowledged usingsome form of computer. The small number of applications suggested above are so common to ourexperiences in developed countries that we rarely consider the element whichpermits them to function as a computer. The word `microprocessor’ is used torefer to a `stand-alone’ computer that operates within these sorts ofapplications. Microprocessors are chips at the heart of every computer, butwithout the ability to modify the way they are configured, only a tinyproportion of their flexibility is actually used. The word `computer’ is nowdefined as machines with a microprocessor, a keyboard and a visual displayunit (VDU), which permit modification by the user of the way that themicroprocessor is used. Computers in this sense are used to handle more complex information thanthat with which microprocessors deal, for example, text, pictures and large amounts ofinformation in databases. They are almost as widespread as the microprocessorsdescribed above, having displaced the typewriter as the standard writing toolin many offices and supplanted company books as the most reliably current formof accountancy information. In both these examples, a computer permits alarger amount of information to be stored and modified in a lesstime-consuming fashion than any other method used previously. Another less often considered application is that of communication. Telephonenetworks are today controlled almost entirely by computers, unseen by thecustomer, but actively involved in every telephone call phones . Thelinking of computers themselves by telephone and other networks has ledpeople to communicate with each other by using the computer to both write thetext (a word-processor) and to send it to its destination. This is known aselectronic mail, or `email’.The all pervasive nature of the computer and its obvious benefits have notprevented a growing number of people who are vociferously concerned with therisks of widespread application of what is still an undeniably noveltechnology comp.risks,ACMrisks . Far from being reactionary prophets ofdoom, such people are often employed within the computer industry itself andyet have become wary of the pace of change. They are not opposed to the use ofcomputers in appropriate environments, but worry deeply when critical areas ofinherently dangerous operations are performed entirely by computers. Examplesof such operations include correctly delivering small but regular doses ofdrugs into a human body and automatically correcting (and hence preventing)aerodynamic stability problems in an aircraft plane1,plane2 . Bothoperations are typical `risky’ environments for a computer since they containelements that are tedious (and therefore error-prone) for a human being toperform, yet require the human capacity to intervene rapidly when theunexpected occurs. Another instance of the application of computers to aproblem actually increasing the risks attached is the gathering of statisticalinformation about patients in a hospital. Whilst the overall information aboutstandards of health care is relatively insensitive, the comparative costs oftreatment by different physicians is obviously highly sensitive information. Restricting the `flow ‘of such information is a complex and time-consumingbusiness.Predictions for future developments in computing applications are notoriouslydifficult to cast with any accuracy, since the technology which is driving thedevelopments changes so rapidly. Interestingly, much of what has beendeveloped so far has its conceptual roots in science fiction stories of thelate 1950’s. Pocket televisions, lightning fast calculating machines andweapons of pin-point accuracy were all first considered in fanciful fiction. Whilst such a source of fruitful ideas has yet to be fully mined out, andindeed, Virtual Reality (see below) has been used extensively Neuromancer and others, many more concepts that are now appearing thathave no fictional precursors. Some such future concepts, in which computers would be of vital importance,might be the performance of delicate surgical procedures by robot, controlledby a computer, guided in turn by a human surgeon; the control of the flow oftraffic in a large city according to information gathered by remote sensors;prediction of earthquakes and national weather changes using large computersto simulate likely progressions from a known current state weather ; the development ofcheap, fast and secure coding machines to permit guaranteed security in internationalcommunications; automatic translation from one language to another as quickly as the wordsare spoken; the simulation of new drugs’ chemical reactions with the human body. These are a small fraction of the possible futureapplications of computers, taken from a recent prediction of likely developmentsJapanFuture . One current development which has relevance to all the above, is the conceptknown as `Virtual Reality’ and is discussed further below. Virtual RealityVirtual Reality, or VR, is a concept that was first formally proposed in theearly Seventies by Ted Nelson ComputerDreams , though this work appearsto be in part a summary of the current thinking at that time. The basic ideais that human beings should design machines that can be operated in a mannerthat is as natural as possible, for the human beings, not the computers. For instance, the standard QWERTY keyboard is a moderately good instrument forentering exactly the letters which have been chosen to make up a word andhence to construct sentences. Human communication, however, is oftenmost fluent in speech, and so a computer that could understand spoken words(preferably of all languages) and display them in a standard format such asprinted characters, would be far easier to use, especially since the skills ofspeech exist from an early age, but typing has to be learnt, often painfully. All other human senses have similar analogies when consideringtheir use with tools. Pictures are easier than words for us to digestquickly. A full range of sounds provides more useful information than beepsand bells do. It is easier to point at an item that we can see than to specifyit by name. All of these ideas had to wait until the technology had advancedsufficiently to permit their implementation in an efficient manner, that is,both fast enough not to irritate the user and cheap enough formass production. The `state of the art’ in VR consists of the following. A pair of ratherbulky goggles, which when worn display two images of a computer-generatedpicture. The two images differ slightly, one for each eye, and provide stereovision and hence a sense of depth. They change at least fifty times persecond, providing the brain with the illusion of continuous motion (just as withtelevision). Attached to the goggles are a pair of conventional high-qualityheadphones, fed from a computer-generated sound source. Different delays inthe same sound reaching each ear provide a sense of aural depth. There isalso a pair of cumbersome gloves, rather like padded ice-hockey gloves, whichpermit limited flexing in all natural directions and feed information aboutthe current position of each hand and finger to a computer. All information from the VRequipment is passed to the controlling computer and, most importantly, allinformation perceived by the user is generated by the computer. The lastdistinction is the essence of the reality that is `virtual’, orcomputer-created, in VR. The second critical feature is that the computer should be able to modify the information sent to the user according to the information that it received from the user. In a typical situation this might involve drawing a picture of a room on thescreens in the goggles and superimposing upon it a picture of a hand, whichmoves and changes shape just as the user’s hand moves and changes shape. Thus,the user moves his hand and sees something that looks like a hand move infront of him.The power of VR again lies in the flexibility of the computer. Since thepicture that is displayed need not be a hand, but could in fact be any created objectat all, one of the first uses of VR might be to permit complex objects to bemanipulated on the screen as though they existed in a tangible form. Representations of large molecules might be grasped, examined from all sidesand fitted to other molecules. A building could be constructed from virtualarchitectural components and then lit from differing angles to consider howdifferent rooms are illuminated. It could even be populated with imaginaryoccupants and the human traffic bottlenecks displayed as `hot spots’ withinthe building.One long-standing area of interest in VR has been the simulation of militaryconflicts in the most realistic form possible.The flight simulator trainers of the 1970’s had basic visual displays and large hydraulicrams to actually move the trainee pilot as the real aeroplane would have moved. This hasbeen largely replaced in more modern simulators by a massive increase in the amount ofinformation displayed on the screen, leading to the mind convincing itself that the physicalmovements are occurring, with reduced emphasis on attempts to provide the actual movements. Such an approach is both cheaper in equipment and more flexible in configuration, sincechanging the the aeroplane from a fighter to a commercial airliner need only involvechanging the simulator’s program, not the hydraulics. EscapismEscapism can be rather loosely defined as the desire to be in a more pleasantmental and physical state than the present one. It is universal to human experienceacross all cultures, ages and also across historical periods. Perhaps for thisreason, little quantitative data exists on how much time is spent practicingsome form of escapism and only speculation as to why it should feel soimportant to be able to do so. One line of thought would suggest that all conscious thought is a form ofescapism and that in fact any activity that involves concentration onsensations from the external world is a denial of our ability to escapecompletely. This hypothesis might imply that all thought is practice, in some sense, forsituations that might occur in the future. Thoughts about the past are onlyof use for extrapolation into possible future scenarios. However, this hypothesis fails to include the pleasurable parts of escapistthinking, which may either be recalling past experiences or, more importantlyfor this study, the sense of security and safety that can exist withinsituations that exist only in our minds. A more general hypothesis would note theseparate concepts of pleasure and necessity as equally valid reasons for anythought. Can particular traits in a person’s character be identified with a tendency toescapist thoughts that lead to patterns of behaviour that are considered extremeby their society? It seems unlikely that a combination of hereditaryintelligence and social or emotional deprivation can be the only causes ofsuch behaviour, but they are certainly not unusual ones, judging by the commonstereotypes of such people. The line of thinking that will be pursued throughout this essay is theidea that a person who enjoys extreme forms of escapist thoughts will often feel mostcomfortable with machines in general and with computers in particular.Certainly, excessive escapist tendencies have existed in all societies andhave been tolerated or more crucially, made use of, in many different ways.

For instance, apparent absent-mindedness would be acceptable in ahunter/gatherer society in the gatherers but not for a hunter. A society witha wide-spread network of bartering would value a combination of both theability to plan a large exchange and the interpersonal skills necessary toconclude a barter, which are not particularly abstract. In a society withcomplex military struggles, the need to plan and imagine victories becomes anessential skill (for a fraction of the combatants).Moving from the need for abstract thought to its use, there is a scale ofthought required to use the various levels of machines that have beenmentioned earlier. A tool that has no electronics usually has a function thatis easy to perceive (for example, a paperclip). A machine with amicroprocessor often has a larger range of possible uses and mayrequire an instruction manual telling the operator how to use it (e.g. amodern washing machine or a television). Both of these examples can be usedwithout abstract thought, merely trusting that they will do what they eitherobviously do, or have been assured by the manual that they will do. The next level is the use of computers as tools, for example, forword-processing. Now a manual becomes essential and some time will have to bespent before use of the tool is habitual. Even then, many operations willremain difficult and require some while to consider how to perform them. A`feel’ for the tool has to acquired before it can be used effectively. The top level of complexity on this scale is the use of computers as flexibletools and the construction of the series of instructions known as programs tocontrol the operation of the computer. Escapist thoughts begin when theoperations of the programs have to be understood. In many cases, it is eithertoo risky or time-consuming to set the programs into action withoutconsidering their likely consequences (in minute detail) first. Such detailedcomprehension of the action of a program often requires the person constructing the lists ofinstructions (the programmer) to enter a separate world, where the symbols and values of theprogram have their physical counterparts. Variables take on emotional significance androutines have their purpose described in graphic `action’ language. A cursory examination ofmost programmers’ programs will reveal this in the comments that are left to help themunderstand each program’s purpose. Interestingly, even apparently unemotional peoplevisualise their programs in this anthropomorphic manner Weizenbaum76,Catt73 . Without this ability to trace the action of a program before it is performed inreal life, the computing industry would cease to exist. This ability is soclosely related to what we do naturally and call `escapism’, that the two havebegun to merge for many people involved in the construction of programs. For some, what began as work has become what is done for pleasurable relaxation, which is afortunate discovery for large computer-related businesses. The need for time-clocks andforemen has been largely eliminated, since the workers look forward to coming to work,often to escape the mundane aspect of reality. There are problems associated with this form of work motivation. One majordiscovery is that it can be difficult to work as a team in this kind ofactivity. Assigning each programmer a section of the project is the usualsolution, but maintaining a coherent grasp of the project’s state then becomesincreasingly difficult. Indeed, this problem means that there are nowcomputers whose design cannot be completely understood by one person MMMonth . Misunderstandings that result from this problem and theinherent ambiguities of human languages are often the cause of long delays incompletion of projects involving computers. (The current statistics are thatcost over-runs of 300 are not uncommon, especially for larger projects andtime over-runs of 50 are common SWEng ). Another common problem is that of developed social inadequacy amongst groupsof programmers and their businesses. The awkwardness of communicating complexideas to other (especially non-technical) members of the group can leadthem to avoid other people in person and to communicate solely by messages andmanuals (whether electronic or paper). Up to now, most absorption of the information necessary to `escape’ in thisfashion has been from a small number of sources located in an environment fullof other distractions. The introduction of Virtual Reality, especially withregard to the construction of programs, will eliminate many of these externaldistractions. In return, it will provide a `concentrated’ version of the worldin which the programmer is working. The flexible nature of VR means thatabstract objects such as programs can be viewed in reality (on the goggles’screens) in any format at all. Most likely, they will be viewed in a mannerthat is significant for each individual programmer, corresponding to how he orshe views programs when they have escaped into the world that contains them. Thus, what were originally only abstract thoughts in one human mind can now bemade real and repeatable and may be distributed in a form that has meaning forother people. The difference between this and books or paintings is the amountof information that can be conveyed and the flexibility with which it can beconstructed. The Dangers of Virtual RealityAs implied above, the uses of Virtual Reality can be understood in two ways. Firstly, VR can be viewed as a more effective way of communicating concepts,abstract or concrete, to other people. For example, as a teaching tool, a VRinterface to a database of operation techniques would permit a surgeon to tryout different approaches on the same simulated patient or to teach a junior basic techniques. An architect might use a VR interface to allow clients towalk around a building that exists only in the design stage ArchieMag . Secondly, VR can be used as a visualisation tool for each individual. Our ownpreferences could be added to a VR system to such an extent that anyone elseusing it would be baffled by the range of personalised symbols and concepts. An analogy to this would be redefining all the keys on a typewriter for eachtypist. This would be a direct extension of our ability to conceive objects,since the machine would deal with much of the tedious notation and the manysymbols currently necessary in complex subjects such as nuclear physics. Inthis form, VR would provide artificial support for a human mind’s nativeabilities of construct building and imagination. It is the second view of VR, and derivations from it, that are of concern tomany experts. On a smaller scale, the artificial support of mental activitieshas shown that once support is available, the mind tends to become lazy aboutdeveloping what is already present. The classic case of this is, of course,electronic calculators. The basic tedious arithmetic that is necessary tosolve a complicated problem in physics or mathematics is the same whetherperformed by machine or human, and in fact plays very little part inunderstanding (or discovering) the concepts that lie behind the problem. However, if the ability to perform basic arithmetic at the lowest level isneglected, then the ability to cope with more complex problems does seem tobe impaired in some fashion. Another example is the ability to spellwords correctly. A mis-spelt word only rarely alters the semantic content of apiece of writing, yet obvious idleness or inability in correct use of thesmall words used to construct larger concepts often leaves the reader with asense of unease as to the validity of the larger concept. Extending the examples, a worrying prediction is that the extensive use of VRto support our own internal visualisations of concepts would reduce ourability to perform abstract and escapist thoughts without the machine’spresence. This would be evident in a massive upsurge in computer-relatedentertainment, both in games and interactive entertainment and would beaccompanied by a reduction of the appreciation and study of writtenliterature,since the effort required to imagine the contents would be more than wasconsidered now reasonable. Another danger of VR is its potential medical applications. If a convincingset of images and sound can be collected, it might become possible to treatvictims of trauma or brain-injured people by providing a `safe’ VR environmentfor them to recover in. As noted Whalley , there are severaldifficult ethical decisions associated with this sort of work. Firstly, thedecision to disconnect a chronically disturbed patient from VR would becomeanalogous to removing pain-killers from a patient in chronic pain. Anotherproblem is that since much of what we perceive as ourselves is due to the waythat we react to stimuli, whatever the VR creator defines as the availablestimuli become the limiting extent of our reactions. Our individuality wouldbe reduced and our innate human flexibility with it. To quote Whalley Whalley directly, quote “ virtual reality devices may possess the potential todistort substantially [those] patients’ own perceptions of themselves andhow others see them. Such distortions may persist and may not necessarily beuniversally welcomed. In our present ignorance about the lasting effects ofthese devices, it is certainly impossible to advise anyone, not only mentalpatients, of the likely hazards of their use.” quoteFollowing on from these thoughts, one can imagine many other abuses of VR. `Mental anaesthesia’ or `permanent calming’ could be used to control long-terminmates of mental institutions. A horrendous form of torture by deprivation ofreality could be imagined, with a victim being forced to perceive only whatthe torturers choose as reality. Users who experienced VR at work as a tool maychose to use it as a recreational drug, much as television is sometimes usedtoday, and just as foreseen in the `feelies’ of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World BNW . ConclusionsComputers are now an accepted part of many peoples’ working lives and yetstill retain an aura of mystery for many who use them. Perhaps the commonestmisapprehension is to perceive them as an inflexible tool; once a machine isviewed as a word processor, it can be awkward to have to redefine it in ourminds as a database, full of information ordered in a different fashion. Some of what people find difficult to use about today’s machines will hopefully bealleviated by the introduction of Virtual Reality interfaces. These shouldallow us to deal with computers in a more intuitive manner. If there ever comes a time when it is necessary to construct a list of tests todistinguish VR from reality, some of the following observations might be ofuse.The most difficult sense to deceive over a long period of time will probably bethat of vision. The part of the human brain that deals with vision processinguses depth of focus as one of its mechanisms to interpret distances. Flatscreens cannot provide this without a massive amount of processing todeliberately bring the object that the eyes are focussed upon into a sharperrelief than its surroundings. Since this is unlikely to be economical in thenear future, the uniform appearance of VR will remain an indication of itsfalsehood. Another sign may be the lack of tactile feedback all over the body. Whilstmost tactile information, such as the sensation of wearing a watch on one’swrist, is ignored by the brain, a conscious effort of detection will usually reveal itspresence. Even the most sophisticated feedback mechanisms will be hard-pressed to duplicatesuch sensations or the exact sensations of an egg being crushed or walking barefoot onpebbles, for example.The sense of smell may prove to be yet another tell-tale sign of reality. Thehuman sense of smell is so subtle (compared to our present ability torecreate odours) and is interpreted constantly, though we are often unaware ofit, that to mimic the myriad smells of life may be too complex to ever achieveconvincingly.The computer industry will continue to depend upon employees who satisfy somepart of their escapist needs by programming for pleasure. In the near future,the need for increased efficiency and better estimates of the duration ofprojects may demand that those who spend their hours escaping are organised bythose who do not. This would lead to yet another form of stratification withina society, namely, the dreamers (who are in fact now the direct labour force)and their `minders’. It should also encourage societies to value the power ofabstract thought more highly, since direct reward will be seen to come fromit. Virtual Reality is yet another significant shift in the way that we canunderstand both what is around us and what exists only in our minds. Aconsiderable risk associated with VR is that our flexibility as human beings means that we mayadapt our thoughts to our tool, instead of the other way round. Thoughcomputers and our interaction with them by VR is highly flexible, this flexibilityis as nothing compared to the potential human range of actions. Acknowledgements: My thanks go to Glenford Mapp of Cambridge UniversityComputer Laboratory and Olivetti Research Laboratory, Dr. Alan Macfarlane ofthe Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University, Dr. John Doarand Alan Finch for many useful discussions. Their comments have been fertilestarting grounds for many of the above ideas. This essay contains approximately 4,500 words, excluding Abstract, Glossaryand Bibliography. Glossary Chip for microchip, the small black tile-like objects that make electronic machines. Computer machine with a microprocessor and an interface thatpermits by the user. Database collection of information stored on a computer which permits. to the information in several ways, rather like having multiple in a book. Email mail. Text typed into one machine can be transferred to another remote machine. Microprocessor stand-alone computer, with little option for change by the user. Program series of instructions to control the operation of a microprocessor. Risk often unforeseen dangers of applying computer-related technology new applications. Stand-alone to the rest of the electronic world. User human who uses the machine or computer. VDU Display Unit. The television-like screen attached to a computer. Virtual to mean `imaginary’ or `existing only inside a computer’ VR Reality. Loosely, an interface to any computer that the user to use the computer in a more `involved’ fashion. Word processor application of a computer to editing and printing text. Clocks L. Mumford, Technics and Civilisation , Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1963, pp.13–15. 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