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


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