X-Message-Number: 5342 Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 14:36:41 +0100 (MET) From: Eugene Leitl <> Subject: artificial vs. virtual reality I'd like to make a tiny semantic remark to this "virtual reality" thread. "Artificial reality" would be a more appropriate term, I think. All VR gadgetry currently available or even imaginable (please kindly ignore the nanodevices which are supposed to stimulate receptors or even neural circuitry directly) is constrained by basic physical laws. Such as refractive index of the glass lenses, necessary to fashion wide angle apochromates as LEEP optics or the efficiency of the holographic optics, the distortion at the edge of the field of vision, the achievable resolution, the kind of stimulation the pneumatic or whatever effectors in bodysuits can produce, etc. Meaning, the "fake reality"'s fidelity will _never_ achieve or come very close to the physical "real" reality we all routinely experience. (Had evolution provided us with an override sensory input fiber optics jack at the base of our spinal cord, the matters would be different. Sad thing they aren't). Since the artificial reality engine (MAPHIS in Charles Platt' unforgettable "Silicon Man" novel is such an ARE) is supposed to evoke simulated depolarization spikes in the simulated sensory axons it has no such restrictions: the experience fidelity is constrained merely by the accuracy of the physical model and the computer performance available. (Compared to the processing power to run the scanned persona the necessary amounts are quite negligeable). Actually, the amount of computation can be made much smaller if the demands on the AR fidelity are somewhat relaxed, if certain (rare) perceivable artefacts are to be tolerated. We all have seen what games of Doom and Descent type can currently deliver on standard PC hardware today. If we take information stream compression happening at the early processing stages (e.g. human retina 1:126) into acccount or even allow direct representational subsystem (=symbol/agent) activation, the lower bounds of computational performance can dwindle even further. The artificially (electrostimulation of the facial region) or naturally evoked visual phosphenes (migraine/epileptical auras) are instances of such low-level representational subsystem activation. The hierarchies of RS complexity range arbitarily high: there is no "grandmother cell" but the grandmother (or the self circuit) RS, which is an attractor/subsystem kinetics thing and not a property of an identifyable neurone cluster, at least there is no identitiy conservation over time. Oops. I'm sorry, once again this has grown into a substantial rant with little or no relevancy to cryonics. Well, the damage's done - it won't hurt too much if I go a little further ;) I think I have found the originator of the "quantum mind" conspiracy. It seems to be David Bohm ("Quantum Theory", Dover 1989, pp. 168-172) who speculates on the similiarities of quantum uncertainty and human thinking as early as 1951. I cannot help but to suppose that Penrose, being a superb physicist, knew of Bohm's ideas & merely fleshed them out a bit, introducing the quantum-parallel computer concept. And finally (to alleviate my consciousness), a cryonically relevant question: this Fahy vitrified kidney stuff. I dimly recall reading something about devitrified, fully viable (rabbit?) kidneys. Now I _did_ rummage through the archive before asking, but the overseas bandwidth sucks atrociously (I think I have finally pinpointed the source of all this pointless packets, which clog up the net's bowels so efficiently: at least 90 % of them are produced in our university's cellar, where undergrads download MByte-sized home pages and listen to Metallica via the web) so I did not find very much. Fahy himself says the kidneys were "perfused with vitrifiable solution", not that they had been vitrified prior to implantation, ergo no breathtaking breakthrough. Or am I wrong? -- Eugene Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5342