11–20 of 56 posts
Oh, another philosopher discovers VR. I asked the people who moderate r/metaverse to create a tag, "MYFIRSTMETAVERSEARTICLE", for this sort of thing, and they did. I've read about a hundred such articles in the last three months. They're rather similar. For a view from the other direction, "How to be a God", by Battle. This is a game dev who became an academic and spent too much time thinking about philosophy. If you…
> A historian might study what would have happened if Hitler had chosen not to start a war with the Soviet Union. Scientists might simulate whole universes from the Big Bang onward, with small variations to study the range of outcomes: How often does life develop? How often is there intelligence? How often is there a galactic civilization?
Uh huh.
Here, Chalmers is flirting with the simulation hypothesis. I have not yet read his new book, but an article in the NY Times indicates that there he goes deeper into the issue, where he says that he estimates a 25% likelihood that we are in a simulation. I wonder how he squares that with his enthusiasm for zombie arguments, which purport to show that no mere simulation of a conscious human would have all that is neces…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm glad it probably will mean there are some short term dollars to propel the fundamental tech along. Whatever happens, it will be fun to play with that. Agreed. I think the Metaverse will be a niche, but it will soon become a much higher quality niche.
> Metaverse will be a niche One big reason for this is some strange social stigma surrounding VR. Yes, there are many other issues like cost (minimum $2000 investment for a VR ready PC and headset) and complexity if you’re not using Oculus / Meta. Then there’s also Facebook’s toxic brand, which drives away many early tech adopters; but what if we were able to take them out of the equation? Anyways, I did an experimen…
There’s nothing particularly interesting in VR, at least not yet. Most games suck. The ones that don’t are largely stationary with little rotation if at all. There’s a fundamental problem that humans, even when not constrained by space, aren’t very agile, and much less so wearing a vr headset. It still sucks.
I have an index.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm glad it probably will mean there are some short term dollars to propel the fundamental tech along. Whatever happens, it will be fun to play with that. Agreed. I think the Metaverse will be a niche, but it will soon become a much higher quality niche.
> Metaverse will be a niche One big reason for this is some strange social stigma surrounding VR. Yes, there are many other issues like cost (minimum $2000 investment for a VR ready PC and headset) and complexity if you’re not using Oculus / Meta. Then there’s also Facebook’s toxic brand, which drives away many early tech adopters; but what if we were able to take them out of the equation? Anyways, I did an experimen…
> started to understand VR and use it more regularly, namely the fitness and social apps
This is the interesting thing that I observe : beyond the hype there are some genuinely valuable quite mainstream applications. Fitness, e-sports, and virtual monitors being some of the key ones. I regularly use VR for 1-3 hours a day doing these.
The problem is that the hype actually gets in the way of people experiencing those. They all require some skill acquisition or semi-non-trivial setup. So instead of someone getting introduced to VR in the form of one of these more sustainable ways, they are shown a glitzy experience that dazzles them with 3d effects that is interesting for a few minutes but has no longer term value. It's like a sugar hit that lasts a short time but actually leaves you feeling worse afterwards.
I think Facebook et al need to work out how to bridge people between these experiences to make it get more mainstream uptake.
Oh, another philosopher discovers VR. I asked the people who moderate r/metaverse to create a tag, "MYFIRSTMETAVERSEARTICLE", for this sort of thing, and they did. I've read about a hundred such articles in the last three months. They're rather similar. For a view from the other direction, "How to be a God", by Battle. This is a game dev who became an academic and spent too much time thinking about philosophy. If you…
One of the challenges VR has at the moment is that games are a bit of a dead end. There are some specific exceptions, but the key is that by and large, VR is more limiting as an environment for gameplay not less constrained as people naively assume. So if you are trying to make some interesting and challenging game play mechanisms, you have all the challenges from pancake games, but now you actually many more constraints to make the game work in VR. And in exchange for that, you aren't actually getting a lot more ways to make the game interesting and challenging. You can do some stuff with 3d space that is not there for 2d. But beyond that its just all the same things you would have access in 2d but harder to implement because you can't nauseate or disorient the user, the screen is effectively low resolution, you are limited by what the user can phyiscally do and breaking that often just leads to loss of immersion which frustrates the user.
The actual longer term potential for VR sits mostly outside gaming but it's currently stuck in a local optimum where engaging a subset of gamers who enjoy it is the most lucrative market available, but doesn't lead anywhere useful longer term.
Here, Chalmers is flirting with the simulation hypothesis. I have not yet read his new book, but an article in the NY Times indicates that there he goes deeper into the issue, where he says that he estimates a 25% likelihood that we are in a simulation. I wonder how he squares that with his enthusiasm for zombie arguments, which purport to show that no mere simulation of a conscious human would have all that is neces…
Honestly it annoys me that someone would throw out a specific number like that for something they have literally no possible basis for.
Oh, another philosopher discovers VR. I asked the people who moderate r/metaverse to create a tag, "MYFIRSTMETAVERSEARTICLE", for this sort of thing, and they did. I've read about a hundred such articles in the last three months. They're rather similar. For a view from the other direction, "How to be a God", by Battle. This is a game dev who became an academic and spent too much time thinking about philosophy. If you…
It'd be nice at least in VR if you were sitting in your virtual living room and the door bell would ring. Oh, whose that. It's a white rabbit. I should probably go with, because I'm really bored here. He's running off! I better chase him.
Something to do in VR that you can't do in real life. Something fun, exciting or an AI adventure tailored just for you based on what the AI knows about you.
> Are you your avatar, or are you puppeteering your avatar? This is a big issue in game design. If someone annoys your avatar, are they annoying you?
I read an interesting article earlier that speaks to this. Ram Dass imagines your ego as the coachman, but he's not in charge. He's the servant of you riding in the coach. Anyway, I thought that connection was interesting. In Ram Dass' view, we are puppeteering our avatar, we are not the avatar.
Oh, another philosopher discovers VR. I asked the people who moderate r/metaverse to create a tag, "MYFIRSTMETAVERSEARTICLE", for this sort of thing, and they did. I've read about a hundred such articles in the last three months. They're rather similar. For a view from the other direction, "How to be a God", by Battle. This is a game dev who became an academic and spent too much time thinking about philosophy. If you…
> Games, like most forms of entertainment, must be interesting One of the challenges VR has at the moment is that games are a bit of a dead end. There are some specific exceptions, but the key is that by and large, VR is more limiting as an environment for gameplay not less constrained as people naively assume. So if you are trying to make some interesting and challenging game play mechanisms, you have all the challe…
Here, Chalmers is flirting with the simulation hypothesis. I have not yet read his new book, but an article in the NY Times indicates that there he goes deeper into the issue, where he says that he estimates a 25% likelihood that we are in a simulation. I wonder how he squares that with his enthusiasm for zombie arguments, which purport to show that no mere simulation of a conscious human would have all that is neces…
Honestly it annoys me that someone would throw out a specific number like that for something they have literally no possible basis for.
It's very much everywhere now, not just in abstract philosophy like this but even in a lot of real world scenarios like the pandemic. Instead of giving a qualitative narrative and leaving space for human intuition people try to present arguments as more certain than they are by slapping some numbers / models onto them.