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Post Virtual Reality Sadness

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Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#151

Post by throwanem »

mark_kalvelage wrote: post #129
Afforess wrote: post #23

I wonder if the author has ever experienced the joy of reading a good book, or the first showing an amazing movie. Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let down afterwords; the characters were not real and you can never interact with them. The realm of fictional worlds are often more engaging, and seem superior to the world you live your day-to-day life in. The actions and experiences in those stories were more ful…

"That’s what I love about this place, all the secrets, all the little things I never noticed even after all these years. You know why this beats the real world, Lawrence? Real world is just chaos. It’s an accident. But in here, every detail adds up to something."

For those of us who don't watch the show, what's the context here?

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#152

Post by mrkgnao »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #98
Filligree wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Egan's becoming a better author over time, though. Permutation City is a relatively early novel... but I hope you'll look at the others as well, if you haven't already. I think my favorite has to be Schild's Ladder, just for sheer conceptual interestingness. I ended up writing fanfiction for it. The best one from a literary standpoint is probably the Clockwork Rocket trilogy, though.

I'm definitely excited to read more by Egan, and already own a few of his other works. I just tend to binge on sci-fi and haven't been in that mood since, well, not-finishing Permutation City. I originally bought Permutation City because of a recommendation on HN. Schild's Ladder might have to be my next sci-fi read for the same reason. "Sheer conceptual interestingness" is pretty much exactly what I want, haha.

Quick google says it talks about parallel transport. If that's true in any meaningful sense, I'm happy differential geometry science fiction is a thing. :)

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#153

Post by Chris2048 »

tajen wrote: post #122
relyio wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt the same way the day I went to check the results of the french baccalaureate at my high-school. A warm summer day surrounded with friends, acquaintances, and other people I went to school with every day for years. There was joy, sadness sometimes and an overwhelming feeling of excitement about what the future holds. We were laughing together, drinking already, lots of discussions. Everyone was here. I remember…

It's incredible that we haven't found a way to reproduce the social warmth of a school class. After that period where you're constantly surrounded with a group of 30+ potential friends with a 1-year cycle, everyone goes their way and never socializes that much again. They may build families, assume CEO positions or head for humanitarian causes, I personally flatshared for 14 years after high school, but we tend to su…

I actually socialize in groups now more than I did in school, but I didn't like most of the people at schools; To the extent that immediately after school I was pretty withdrawn, and am still surprised how friendly strangers interact with me as an adult.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#154

Post by radiorental »

gerbilly wrote: post #71

I have two feelings about this: 1) It reminds me of the quote: “Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend.” ― William Feather 2) What is the author doing in actual reality that makes it so pale compared to VR? It's interesting that the first example brought up is about interacting with a phone. For god's sake man! Play a sport, have sex, go for a walk and smell the leaves, go for a swim in the ocean. Sweat,…

> 2) What is the author doing in actual reality that makes it so pale compared to VR?

I don't think it's that straight forward. I have a pretty fine damn time irl http://www.pauric.net/blog/?p=22

I've played a few of the leading titles on PSVR but then hit upon this simple puzzle game that has burrowed into my mind. I can't wait to get back to it, I lose hours to this game

https://youtu.be/YoxJFkFzu98?t=1h56m49s

It scratches an itch that is hard to find in the real world (I do enjoy packing our cases up for vacation though).

I think it's something about the immersion, pulling on your focus so hard that you loose yourself, like a good book.

VR is all the things you compare it to (wrt pulling focus) except it's on tap.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#155

Post by adrianN »

tajen wrote: post #122
relyio wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt the same way the day I went to check the results of the french baccalaureate at my high-school. A warm summer day surrounded with friends, acquaintances, and other people I went to school with every day for years. There was joy, sadness sometimes and an overwhelming feeling of excitement about what the future holds. We were laughing together, drinking already, lots of discussions. Everyone was here. I remember…

It's incredible that we haven't found a way to reproduce the social warmth of a school class. After that period where you're constantly surrounded with a group of 30+ potential friends with a 1-year cycle, everyone goes their way and never socializes that much again. They may build families, assume CEO positions or head for humanitarian causes, I personally flatshared for 14 years after high school, but we tend to su…

An important difference, at least for me, is that in school you still lead a very sheltered life with few worries. Once you're done with homework you're actually free for the rest of the day and can pursue leisure activities without the nagging feeling that you should instead do this or that. Being free is the default mode and working is a special state. At some point in live this seems to flip around.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#156

Post by hosh »

careersuicide wrote: post #35
Afforess wrote: post #23

I wonder if the author has ever experienced the joy of reading a good book, or the first showing an amazing movie. Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let down afterwords; the characters were not real and you can never interact with them. The realm of fictional worlds are often more engaging, and seem superior to the world you live your day-to-day life in. The actions and experiences in those stories were more ful…

A few years ago I started reading "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan. I had somehow timed it so that the week I finished the thirteenth book "Towers of Midnight" the fourteenth book "A Memory of Light" came out. I blew through the first chunk of the book and then got to a chapter that was over a hundred pages long, maybe even longer, Google says it was over fifty thousand words. It was the last battle, the moment t…

I felt the same way when I finished Memory of Light. I had been reading WoT since 1994. The book definitely marked an end to a period of my life. It wasn't just the end of the book. There were changes going on at the time leading to greater maturity. It included a cross country move and shedding of most of my possessions, including many of my physical books. I had realized collecting dead tree versions of sci fi and fantasy was more wishful thinking on my part (more practical to get the books on Kindle, very easy to move cross country with them).

I was also disappointed with the ending. I roughly knew the general sketch of the ending based on remarks Jordan made at a DragonCon. I knew he had written that entire series just to get to that ending. But by the time I had reached Memory of Light, I saw a possibility for something even greater.

A year later, the unpublished chapter on Damonadred (don't remember how to spell his name) came out and therein lies that possibility. Except no one will write that epic :-D

That existential anguish that comes from having journeyed ablong way -- well, the Wheel keeps turning. That's the point. There is a koan that goes, "before enlightenment? Chop wood carry water. After enlightenment? Chop wood carry water."

Stories always come to an end, no matter how magnificent. It does not matter whether that story is a work of fiction, or something you tell about yourself. What doesn't end is awareness. The Wheel moves on.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#157

Post by hosh »

Razengan wrote: post #47
careersuicide wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I started reading "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan. I had somehow timed it so that the week I finished the thirteenth book "Towers of Midnight" the fourteenth book "A Memory of Light" came out. I blew through the first chunk of the book and then got to a chapter that was over a hundred pages long, maybe even longer, Google says it was over fifty thousand words. It was the last battle, the moment t…

> I'll probably re-read the books someday, but I know it won't be the same. That is how I felt about Planescape: Torment, widely regarded to have one of the best tales of all RPGs, and all other great stories in other mediums. It makes me wish there was some way to get selective voluntary amnesia, where you wipe all memories of the specific content of something, just keep the feeling that it's something you have to e…

You don't need amnesia to feel an experience fresh again. It's a matter of mindfulness. Sure, it takes some training. Someone who is present in the moment will always feel everything is fresh and alive.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#158

Post by Razengan »

hosh wrote: post #157
Razengan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll probably re-read the books someday, but I know it won't be the same. That is how I felt about Planescape: Torment, widely regarded to have one of the best tales of all RPGs, and all other great stories in other mediums. It makes me wish there was some way to get selective voluntary amnesia, where you wipe all memories of the specific content of something, just keep the feeling that it's something you have to e…

You don't need amnesia to feel an experience fresh again. It's a matter of mindfulness. Sure, it takes some training. Someone who is present in the moment will always feel everything is fresh and alive.

Indeed. That's how I try to relive an experience of a great story, be it a game or book or movie. The best way though, is to replay it with someone else, who is new to it.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#159

Post by lomnakkus »

inimino wrote: post #145
lomnakkus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. This bit is seems little bit strange to me in that it's actually not necessary at all[1]... a simulation runs on its "own timescale", i.e. it doesn't actually matter how fast/slowly the simulator runs -- the simulation still experiences time advancing at the proverb…

The argument is that you are likely to be in a simulation, because most minds will be simulated minds. The precondition of most minds being simulated is massive computing power. If we can run a simulation but it requires half the world's computational resources and simulates one second per century of real time, then obviously most minds (and most moments of lived experience) would not be simulated.

> The precondition of most minds being simulated is massive computing power.

How so? I'm still not following the logic here. AFACS it does not matter how fast anything runs -- a simulation always proceeds a tick at a time. The simulated reality cannot (almost by definition) observe time at a smaller time scale.

Re: Post Virtual Reality Sadness

#160

Post by eriknstr »

Afforess wrote: post #23

I wonder if the author has ever experienced the joy of reading a good book, or the first showing an amazing movie. Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let down afterwords; the characters were not real and you can never interact with them. The realm of fictional worlds are often more engaging, and seem superior to the world you live your day-to-day life in. The actions and experiences in those stories were more ful…

>Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let down afterwords; the characters were not real and you can never interact with them.

For whatever reason I've never heard anyone say this before but that's exactly the experience I had after I went and saw James Cameron's "Avatar" (2009) in 3D at the cinema back when it came out. I think I may have had that same feeling after finishing a couple of books as well -- probably after Catch-22 and after Cryptonomicon -- and likely some other movies too but Avatar is the one that I remember having had that feeling after.

Anyway, thanks for making me aware that others have felt the same way about fiction. Of course, I don't believe that any of my feelings are unique in the way that nobody else has felt the same but I hope you get what I mean. Also, when I say that I remember the feeling, I don't mean mean to say that I still keep wishing I could travel to Pandora or interact with the blue catpeople -- the feeling itself faded within a few hours or days or something like that, but the memory of having had that feeling stuck with me :)

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