Virtual reality technology, which was considered absolutely fantastic a decade ago, is gradually becoming a part of everyday life. Virtual attractions and virtual helmets are getting cheaper and are being produced in more and more massive quantities. So far, they seem to be harmless entertainment, but futurists have managed to discern in them a formidable danger to civilization.
The history of virtuality
The great science fiction writer Stanislav Lem was one of the first to describe the virtual reality technology called "phantomatics" and the possible consequences of its implementation. In particular, he pointed out that at some point the illusion (or the system of "phantoms") will become so perfect that it will be impossible to distinguish it from reality itself.
In 1968, American electrical engineer Ivan Sutherland designed the first computer-generated video display helmet. The helmet made it possible to change images with the appropriate turns of the head - thus, visual feedback was used for the first time. It was a rather primitive device, and its weight was so heavy that it was hung from the ceiling. In this case, the virtual environment consisted of simple wireframe models.
As Lem predicted, as computers improved, virtual reality also became more sophisticated. In 1977, MIT staff launched a virtual walk using real-life photography in Aspen, Colorado. In the 1980s, interactive systems appeared through which the user could manipulate three-dimensional objects on the screen with a movement of his hand. In 1982, the Atari gaming company founded a virtual reality research laboratory, and although it existed for only two years, a team of scientists formed in its depths, who later created virtual reality glasses, gloves for transmitting tactile sensations, "three-dimensional" sound devices and the like. gadgets. Many of these inventions were used in training pilots, surgeons,riders and special forces.
Life in virtuality
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In the early 1990s, virtual reality suits also appeared, which provided tactile sensations to the entire body, while simultaneously transmitting data about its position to the system. However, it took more than twenty years to achieve such a speed of the system, at which it would not lag behind human reactions. Today the problem is almost solved, and soon it will be possible to experience a full immersion in the artificial world.
What do experts expect from virtual reality? First of all, it will be implemented in training and game complexes, which is already happening before our eyes. However, thanks to it, new forms of entertainment will also arise. For example, you can go back in time - to the day and place that will record, digitize and save special devices for you. What can you say about the possibility of going to a neighboring planet with a spacecraft?
Immersion in virtual reality will inevitably become a popular form of recreation. With its help, it will be possible to travel not only in time and space, but also in the worlds that are generated by the imagination of writers, artists and filmmakers. Probably, as predicted by Morton Heilig, a special kind of art will emerge, aimed precisely at creating "alternative" realities that will look as authentic as the one in which we live. And here is a huge danger.
Virtuality against the stars
In the summer of 1950, four physicists working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where US atomic weapons were forged, met for lunch, and nuclear scientist Emil Konopinsky told colleagues that he had seen a cartoon in The New Yorker that “little green men "kidnap garbage cans - this is how the artist responded to the reduction of the municipal waste disposal costs. Enrico Fermi said with a laugh that the cartoonist's theory looks quite coherent, because it explains two "riddles" at once: the increased frequency of observations of "flying saucers" and the disappearance of garbage cans. The conversation began, and the scientists turned to discuss the potential for interstellar travel at superluminal speeds. Fermi believed that such flights were quite possible. And it was then that he asked a question that surprised the interlocutors:"But where did everyone go?" ("But where is everybody?").
No explanation was required - the colleagues immediately understood what was at stake. There are over 200 billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy and probably the same or more planets. Even if only 0.1% of these planets are more or less like Earth, there must be 200 million systems where life is possible. Taking into account the age of the Milky Way, estimated at 12 billion years, we can reasonably expect that various forms of life arose in the Galaxy earlier and, probably, in some cases, evolved before the appearance of intelligence. Since the mind by universal standards develops and goes out into space very quickly, the Galaxy theoretically should be teeming with civilizations that appeared long before us, and astronomers would have noticed the results of their activities long ago. However, nothing similar is observed.
The apparent absence of "brothers in mind" is called the "Fermi paradox", and for half a century they have repeatedly tried to resolve it. For example, physicist Robin Hanson put forward the concept of the "Great Filter", according to which the emergence of intelligence does not increase the likelihood of survival on the planet, but decreases it. Simply put, the more technologies we master, the more threats we create for ourselves. And if in the 1950s, when Fermi formulated his paradox, the main threat was a global nuclear war, today it is virtual reality that takes its place.
The aforementioned Stanislav Lem was also the first to see the danger of plunging into the world of illusion. He believed that in the history of the development of any mind there is only a very small period, called the "contact window", when civilization is actively expanding. But at some stage, “phantomatics” aimed at satisfying intricate desires turns out to be more attractive than the difficulties of expansion, and civilization goes into self-isolation.
Today, futurist John Smart has expanded Lem's idea by putting forward the "hypothesis of transcending" (going beyond being), according to which the problem is not in satisfying desires, but in the fact that virtual reality technology will allow the creation of independently evolving worlds, the study of which will consume all the resources of civilization. leaving nothing to the outside. The “window of contact” is closed, because the microcosm is more adapted to satisfy curiosity than the macrocosm. The mind becomes wiser and … more passive.
If Lem and Smart are right, then the future of earthly civilization looks bleak. And yet there is reason for optimism. Long-term studies have shown that illusory worlds are more important than the real one only for 5% of people due to the peculiarities of their thinking. As long as we remain flesh and blood, the desire for fulfilling life will be stronger.
Anton Pervushin