Would you use your brain to be in SL?

LOL! The only Woodie Allen movie I find funny!! LOVE IT!!

I'm thinking the Matrix is just a step away...also - shades of I Robot - the books - not the movie...

But yeah - sign me up...

Wow, imagine the scripting possibilities when you introduce taste and smell into SL. You could put a smell-o-script into your favorite shirt that makes it smell like cherry pie, or make your hair smell like flowers, or whatever. Coooool.

I'll pass. I like not being a machine.

Imagine the body odor verification. All those guys who never leave their mother's basements would become outcasts.

I hope of course that youre referring to the Matrix as described by Robert Holmes the best writer to work on the Doctor Who series when he came up with the idea in the serial The Deadly Assassin back in 1976 predating the rather overrated film by a couple of decades

Poor old Robert never seems to have had the credit he deserves for his work and 'inspiration'

But we're already in the Matrix, which means this will be the Matrix within the Matrix.

...then if we forget we're in SL, and develop a Matrix within that....


I need a lie down now.

Wow - no I wasn't - I really meant the movie and the whole blue pill/red pill thing - Pardon my ignorance- I had no idea it was based on a novel - I saw the movies and that was it - I didn't buy into the whole cultural influence being touted in it - to me it was escapism, and nothing more. Thanks for pointing me in that direction - I will look into it - the Robert Holmes story you mention. I am a fan of the Doctor's - and although Tom Baker was my favorite - I rather like this new guy and the stories are pretty cool as well.

The Asimov I was referring to, is towards the end of the I Robot series - I can't recall the name of it - but the sentient robot - damn can't remember his name and it's right on the tip pf my tongue! Anyway, he is debating whether to upload himself to Gaea the planet consiousness and be "born"... someone help me- it is going to be eating at me until I dig u the book and re-read it and I am already reading three other things...

I read the Empire and the Foundation series (which both include robots), but not the robot series.

The bad side of smell vision could be like this too though (enclosed img link of tinies having a pooping contest)

Wesley Snipes (I think) and Sylvester Stallone - dang - what was the name of that movie... He plays a cop that gets frozen for some sort of crime he didn't commit and they thaw him out in the future to chase Wesley Snipes character...unless I'm wrong about Wesley Snipes and it was someone else.

Demolition Man, I think.

THAT'S IT!!! Dang. That was going to keep me awake at night. I hate it when you have the answer right on the tip of your tongue and you can't make yourself say it. What a terrible movie.

Thanks, Lexxi - that was a real relief.

I can't let this go unsung. I thought that when I read Dnali's post.

Chicken egg chicken egg ...

/me hides the tactical nuke and rubs out the Poor Impulse Control ...

***edit*** I am tired. Bedtime for Bonzo. Without Reagan.

Robbie the Robot? I know the story you mean but I read it 15 years ago!

For me the next step from SL would be total immersive virtual reality. Technology just touched on it for a second, in the form of shoot-em-up type games using goggle type LCD apparatus, and the idea was ahead of the technology apparently as the tech seem to fade. Many movies have touched on it -- The Thirteenth Floor, Brainstorm, Matrix... When I first became involved with SL about a year ago I read an interview with a Dutch escort in SL who was very successful in her "career" here. She had become unable to work in RL because of health reasons, and I forget the particulars, but was also somewhat prohibited from fully utilizing the welfare system. Her dream was to be able to be a fully functioning individual again, if only within the confines of a virtual world. I have to admit myself, that this sounds exciting. I have lived from the beginning of the personal computer era. Owning a Commodore 64 and reading programs off a tape drive, spending too much time on a 300 baud modem playing MUDs, and thinking I was the bomb when I could afford a 1200 baud, "cruising the internet" when it was only text based pages on the .edu domains. What a ways we have come... I hope I can live long enough to see that next step...

Curious the way things happen. Chatted with fiancee about Robbie the Robot just the other day. I believe Gerry Andersens Fireball XL5 had a Robbie Robot. Also I think Forbidden Planet with Walter Pigeon which seemed to pilot the TV series Lost in Space with the Space Family Robinson?

So Kenbro, which did you prefer, the amber monitors or the green ones?

Aka The Matrix etc, the idea is not new in Science Fiction. Sir A C Clark touched on the subject in his book 3001AD. I think he called it the Brain cap.

Very clearly the brain works by generating electrical impulses and it is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility they can become truly two way, to the point "we" would become our avatars. What we perceive as reality is transmitted via a two-way electrical stream from our brain to our normal sensory organs and visa-a-versa.

With practice, software development, and training (and if SL survives) future generations may see the SL world through the eyes of our avatars to the point when it becomes a type of reality, and yes I include sexual/love/emotion/food simulation as part of that experience, together with our more normal five senses and any additional software sensory input designed by the Grid.

It is one potential answer (although long term) solution to human population pressure and global warming, resources etc because you would only need to put the (human) body in a pod, feed it, harvest the warmth via an electrical battery of some kind, and you could provide the recipient with a virtual large house, acres of land, a stunningly attractive mate, together with everything else that person desires. For a very long time, perhaps even hundreds of years who knows.

That might even be an attractive option, especially if the alternative was say a first/second/third world slum with limited life expectancy, no money, and no food.

I mean this as a serious post lol although one final point has just occurred to me insomuch as if SL survives long enough to enable this there is every chance WoW will too. What I want to know is what happens to "me" if I get virtually killed -

It's an interesting view John, but a nightmare in my mind. SL is a fantasy. Yes, it affects and even shapes my RL to a degree I really ought to be worried about, but there is still that logoff point.
For all I love and enjoy in-world and here, the unexpected scent from a flower I walk past and a glimpse of a small child smiling are priceless. No matter how close they can be reproduced, the sheer delight of the real thing I believe would be unattainable.

Oh Bilbo, I get starry eyed everytime someone mentions a Gerry Anderson Show.

I agree. This is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here.

I don't live in SL. I bring what I see and think RL in world.

I find this technology and future fiction fascinating.

I highly recommend the movie "eXistenZ" to you all--the movie is about a quasi-futuristic society that has invented a 'video game' that completely embeds the user into the world...wonderful movie directed by Cronenberg and starring Jude Law.

(also see: Lucid Dreaming)

This kind of tech can also be used to potentially craft a personalized dream-sequence for the 'user.' You can plan a vacation before bed, and enjoy a new experience every night. The implications are limitless.

Remember my future-tense society posts last week--we talked about the implications and possible suffering from the abuse of such technology? Imagine if we never wanted to experience the 'real world' because our VR one was much more satisfying all around.

See also the Axis City people of Greg Bear's Eon series... 70million of a 90million population 'living' in city memory. It's a pretty strong theme in science fiction, particularly the last thirty or forty years.

Well, frightening as this may seem, I think SL 'can' have that effect even now. I was dangerously addicted a short while ago to the point it was threatening my RL. I strongly believe I am not the only one this has happened to... or will happen to!

On the 'physical' total immersibility I can point out a Terry Pratchett book whose one-line synopsis was "If you won't save the universe, who will?"
The Last Starfighter had a faintly similar storyline