"Physics is all about conservation principles. There are no infinities.... Technical culture often longs for freedom from finitude. A profound truth, however, is that the greatest mysteries are found in conserved systems, which can become rich and complex, not in infinite ones, which stretch out like blank white sheets to the edge of the cosmos. And so another urgent question is whether people can enjoy the storied reality of finitude after coming down from the high of fake infinity. Can being merely human suffice? Can the everyday miracle of the real world be appreciated enough? Or will the future of culture only be viral? Will all markets become Ponzi-like fantasies? Will people reject physics forever, the moment we have technology that’s good enough to allow us to pretend it’s gone?"
Writes Jaron Lanier, in "Where Will Virtual Reality Take Us? Apple’s Vision Pro headset suggests one possible future—but there are others" (The New Yorker).
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Anyone notice all the uber-fake supposedly unarranged sightings-in-the-wild of nincompoops wearing their dystopia-blinders on tiktok, insta, and X?
They try really really hard to make it look spontaneous don't they. I mean look at all these early-adopters out-and-about doing things like eating and driving the same way normal people like you do! Don't you want to be an early-adopter too?
Come on. Buy the goggles. Be normal!
That is some difficult writing to parse.
This smells like the same kind of hype the MetaVerse was getting.
People are generally looking at this tech and assuming they know what its functionality will be. That’s an error. Vision Pro is an AR/VR device, not just a VR device.
I have glaucoma. This reduces peripheral vision and, if severe enough, creates tunnel vision. The Vision Pro dedicates a screen to each eye that is far more densely saturated than any TV, computer or tablet screen. Forward facing cameras project a view of the “real world” onto the user’s eyes. It is a mistake to think of this as “pass through” vision.
I’m looking at this from the standpoint of a programmer and developer, which I was before I retired. I’m wondering if each screen of the Vision Pro can be programmed to address this tunnel vision issue. Can it funnel a full field of vision into that tunnel vision of the affected eye? In other words, I can imagine this device as a prosthetic that would effectively cure my glaucoma and restore full field of vision.
My thoughts on what I think will be a revolutionary change in “The Medium is the Message.”
Lanier strung together multiple connotatively rich words and phrases from the domain of technology, but in whole it is just gibberish. Apple Vision Pro will only take off when it reaches the springboard for all previous media technology successes: quality porn.
Peggy Lee sang "Is That All There Is?" It's enough for most people. There were earlier experiments with alternate reality. Living in Berkeley in the late 60s I knew a lot of folks who took their trips on Dr. Oswald's finest. Not for me--I opted to deal with the world as it is.
I have viewed a couple of reviews of Apple's new goggles on YouTube. Given the dramatic changes in social behavior that have resulted from the introduction of the modern smart phone with Apple's first iPhone*, I fear these new goggles could create significantly worse changes in social behavior.
The only mitigating factor may be the goggle's high price, which could depress its sales. On the other hand, that price may come down over time if it sells well enough early on for them to keep it in production. (They have canceled unsuccessful products in the past.)
*(The smart phones prior to iPhone were not really very smart.)
I asked Chat to rewrite the excerpt in plain language, and it makes more sense. It's still a bit of word thinking, but at least it's easier to follow his rhetoric. My definition of rhetoric is language that sounds like logic, but is not.
Physics is all about rules that say nothing gets lost or created out of nowhere. There aren't endless possibilities. People who love tech often dream about having no limits. But the real magic happens in things that have limits and follow rules. They can get really interesting and complex, unlike things that go on forever, which are just boring and empty. The big question is, can we be happy with the limits of real life after we've chased endless possibilities? Is it enough to just be human? Can we really appreciate the amazing things in the real world around us? Or will our future be all about chasing trends and living in make-believe worlds? Will everything turn into schemes where everyone is trying to outdo each other? Will we turn our backs on the laws of physics as soon as we have gadgets that let us ignore them?
Augmented reality complements the recieved signals of unknown, unknowable fidelity from beyond a limited frame of reference. Then there are the progressive sects that receive religious instruction inside emanations from the penumbra (i.e. twilight fringe). Conflation of logical domains is the modern enlightenment... wokism.
Whatever else it'll be, it'll end up a sex toy.
Who says there are no more good writers. That’s some Mad Men level ad copy right there…
I think on a long enough time-line, perhaps 75-100 years, it will be possible to have something akin to the virtual world from movies like "The Matrix" or "The Thirteenth Floor" where you are literally wired into the virtual world in a way that you can't tell the difference but for the things you can do within it that can't be done outside of it. I don't think this would be a healthy development for the species, but then neither was a lot of the technology we have today. I won't live to see it, though, but there are people alive today that will.
Shorter version: Will everyone just stay on the holodeck all the time?
I think it extremely likely.
Excellent point. Limitless choices paralyze and do not satisfy, because there is no focus, no depth, no endpoint.
Money Manger noted correctly the moneymaker that will drive initial advances in AR/VR. After that, though, where will we be? The post is reducible to: "Reality is real and unpleasant. Artificial Reality is not real, but fun. How addictive is nonreality fun?"
AR won't feed anyone, or wipe a baby's bottom, or reduce the homeless population, and so on and so on. It is a privileged enterprise, an escape from normal life, and that exclusiveness will be more important over time than the deep philosophical question of its level of addictiveness compared to daily life.
Groovy, Man.
Little flower in the crannied wall.
"Shorter version: Will everyone just stay on the holodeck all the time?"
As God is my witness if they came up with a convincing VR replicant of a large-breasted Tulsi Gabbard in her mid-twenties they'd need most of Starfleet's security apparatus to pry me out of there.
F-35 pilots wear a very expensive (reportedly $400,000) helmet that is linked to the mission systems and to a set of IR sensors mounted on the wings and fuselage. These sensors give the pilot 360-degree vision in all axes, allowing the pilot to essentially see through the aircraft with no blind spots. It also displays the necessary information to fly the plane, operate the systems, and engage the enemy. I see a relatively low-cost system with some of those capabilities being of value to private, corporate, and airline pilots. It could display flight, terrain, and traffic information to the pilot. Perhaps the Apple system isn't ready for this application, and I've read that Apple prohibits it being used in moving vehicles, but sooner or later, someone will make it work.
There are advantages to a mobile phone with a primitive onboard computer, that many people feel outweigh its extremely poor user interface. Mostly, you can carry it with you, and it is easy to steal. Not everyone is happy about that second feature, but it does increase sales. But as I understand it, this thing is a mobile television, with someone else choosing the channel. As a piece of technology, I suppose it is impressive, but what is it good for?
"Whatever else it'll be, it'll end up a sex toy."
Without question.
PM said...
"Whatever else it'll be, it'll end up a sex toy."
As if there were any question.
"Shorter version: Will everyone just stay on the holodeck all the time?"
Think what that would do to the economy, why go to the mountains, or Bali, or to the ski slopes if you have a holodeck. I can turn my house into a villa on lake como. And if it worked well there would be little value in being a rich elite. True equality. Everyone into the slime vat!
Thanks for posting this. I like how Jaron Lanier thinks. I recommend his 2010 book "You Are Not a Gadget."
2 examples:
Absolute Zero.
Speed of Light in a vacuum.
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