What do you think would happen?

I've been thinking about the possibility of taking a virtual vacation someday (I suppose Total Recall comes to mind),... or,...just in general, being able to enter a virtual world (I suppose the experience would have to be pretty close to what the movie "The Matrix" described).

If virtual vacations were possible, and if time could be manipulated within them, a person would be able to step into the program for five minutes, yet they would experience two weeks of rest. For those of you who have dreams at night, and remember them,... do you notice that a scene can seem to take about five minutes in your head, yet in the real world you've been asleep for about an hour (and vice versa)?

Anyway, here are the questions

#1). Do you think our physical bodies would feel rested after our minds were tricked into believing we've just experienced two wonderful weeks of rest? Would regular (virtual) vacations improve work ethic among busy workers? Do you think something like this would be beneficial to world production in most fields? (i.e. happier workers, hence more productive)

#2). Do you think these virtual environments could be applied to other fields, such as rehabilitation of criminals, people with psychological problems, etc. etc. ? I'm thinking that if time within these virtual worlds could be manipulated, a criminal could be held for a day, yet he could be tricked into believing he's been incarcerated for months or years.

#3). Could research be conducted within such an environment,.... in which you have months or years to think about certain problems, and in real-world-time it would only take days or weeks?

#4). This is way out there, so bare with me,..... , BUT,.... is it possible that someday we'll be able to live multiple lives (basically virtual centuries) within one human life-time? Maybe that's what reincarnation is, or will be.

#5). Lastly,... is it even possible to manipulate time in a virtual environment? If not, do you think it ever will be? How long do you think that might take?

EDIT: OH,.. and one more thing! If this were possible, this would be great for terminally ill patients! Maybe the family members and the patient could be plugged into the same program, and they can sort of continue a life with the sick person for years! THough..... if such a thing did exist, maybe everyone would be plugged in all the time, and the program would have to be regulated as to who gets to use it, for how long.

[edit on 21-3-2006 by 2manyquestions]

Manipulate time.. i dont know about that.. possibly..

The trick would be to manipulate our senses so we feel we are really interacting in this virtual reality.. computer games at a whole different level

1. I think this question is important. I'm undecided on whether the mind could be tricked into thinking it had just taken a two-week vacation. If you plugged into a VR world for five minutes and simulated sleeping for 12 hours... what would happen? Good question.
If it DOES work, than no, I don't think you would see a huge increase in production. Maybe at first, but eventually it would become part of the routine, and people with good work ethic would continue to do well, and those who are just there to get a check will also remain the same.

2. VR prisons make sense to me - if a month hooked up to a machine could feel to the incarcerated as years... well, it would depend on what sort of environment you gave them. If it simply recreated the prison environment, you would probably still wind up creating lifelong criminals. If you put them in some serene setting, with mountains and a lake and beautiful weather... who knows.. you may end up with people committing crimes just to get back there..
Don't know about those with mental conditions...

3. This question goes back to whether it is possible or not to manipulate the mind to experience time different. I think it is, so this seems likely.

4. Sure, why not? If it is possible to live a fulfilling Virtual Life in two hours of realtime then it'll defintely happen. I think MMORPGs will certainly be awesome in the future.

5. I do, but I can't guess how soon that will come about. I'll just wait for VR first, and than lifelike VR, and then after that we'll see...


Not just terminally ill patients. VR will change the world.
Business meetings could be attended from home. VR classrooms would allow students to meet up online, from home. Sporting events could be held in VR and attended by millions. Lectures, vacations, concerts.

Possibly even television. Imagine if people could be put into a VR environment such as the Old West, or Medieval times, or Ancient Egypt, etc. and those images could be transfered and broadcast and watched by others. Game Shows and Reality TV would be revolutionized.
Perhaps all TV and Movies as well - maybe cameras could be created to record in perfectly lifelike 3d environments and shown in a VR-like manner where the viewer really is the hero.

the list goes on and on.

I saw a show that sorta touched on this, it was actually reffering to the tech being used as the new wave of amusment park rides.
There was also a movie, name of which eludes me right now, where people could sorta "Jack into" a type of VR unit and experience things as if they had been there.... the result of which was kinda like going on from smoking weed to doing crack, there ended up with people commiting crimes and stuff to sell on the experiences to the wire heads, murders and rapes and stuff.

I spend enough time on the computer (ATS is to BLAME, not ME) as it is.

Virtual life will never be as good as real life, so count me out, although, if I could plug in every different scale in my head (I'm an aspiring young jazz musician,) then I would probably do it. However, this then leads to the moral issue of the fact that I then didn't really do the hard yards as far as practise is concerned, and if everyone could have every kind of gift/talent programmed into them, truly gifted people wouldn't be as special.

In this day and age of excess media hype, where every terrible "boy band" or bubble-gum chewing teenage girl in hot pants is billed as "Genius," the word has already started to lose its meaning, that is, until you come across a Real Genius, and I would hate to see things change even more.

Originally posted by DreadNaught
..There was also a movie, name of which eludes me right now, where people could sorta "Jack into" a type of VR unit and experience things as if they had been there....

Existenz, The Lawnmover Man 1 & 2, The 13th Floor are the movies im aware of.. there are probably others (:

Good movies watch them if your a VR fan.

Existenz, The Lawnmover Man 1 & 2, The 13th Floor are the movies im aware of.. there are probably others (:

Good movies watch them if your a VR fan.

Nope, don't think it was them, as I thought the same thing (except 13th Floor)... I will try to find out what the movie was.

Completel plausible, though would be very tricky to pull off. You would need to manipulate the speed of information intake that the brain can handle as well as the Frames per second that the optic nerve can see.

It's very close to what would be required to achieve a Matrix Bullet Time ability in the real world.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here is a good thread about it. Here is one post that pretty much sums it up.

Originally posted by MCory1
One way I was thinking about this as I was reading through was kind of along the lines of a video game. Every video game, you have a specific frame rate where things happen at, usually pretty fast, and it's in between each frame that the computer does it's processing--moves the AI, responds to your input, decides which sounds to play, etc. A good developer will know that there may be times where they won't get the frame rate they need for everything to look good; one of the work-arounds for this is to go ahead and process everything, but you don't draw the next frame. Everything moved, but you don't see the changes until a frame or two later and everything gets kinda choppy.

I was thinking of this as basically our "computer" (ie brain) can process information at a certain rate. It's able to get a certain amount accomplished before the next bit of data comes--it has a frame rate so to speak. If you're able to up that processing speed, you can make more decisions before that next chunk of data comes in. If you measure time as the rate at which we process data, you've just slowed it down because you're able to process more while taking less time to do it. I hope that makes sense...

Anyways, regardless of this there will be a limit both on reaction time and processing time, due to physical limitations--both of our bodies and of nature in general. It always takes a minimum amount of time for a) information to reach our sensory organs, b) that information to reach our brain, c) that information to bounce around the various neurons to get processed, and d) the results get sent to the necessary body parts. It may be blazingly fast, but light and electricity can only travel up to a certain speed. You also need to take into consideration that the reaction time isn't just input->process->output; when you're moving, your body is constantly sending signals back and forth to the brain to determine whether you've moved too much, not enough, whatever.

I hope some of that made sense somewhere

Virtual life will never be as good as real life

How do you know this for certain? In a completely immersive simulation anything is possible. The Laws of Physics is completely null in such a world. Wan't to travel faster the light? You can do it, of course the speed at which the information is flowing will be slower or just at the speed of c, you can create the illusion of it. Wanna experience WW2 through the eyes of one of your ancestors? You can do it. Wanna walk on the moon or mars? Go hand gliding in the Atmosphere of Jupiter? Scuba Diving under the mile thick ice of Europa?

Now tell me how that is not better then real life?

[edit on 22-3-2006 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by DreadNaught

Existenz, The Lawnmover Man 1 & 2, The 13th Floor are the movies im aware of.. there are probably others (:

Good movies watch them if your a VR fan.

Nope, don't think it was them, as I thought the same thing (except 13th Floor)... I will try to find out what the movie was.

Vanilla Sky? Total Recall? Attack of the Monkey Brain People from the Moon?

[edit on 22-3-2006 by Enkidu]

Originally posted by DrBones666
However, this then leads to the moral issue of the fact that I then didn't really do the hard yards as far as practise is concerned, and if everyone could have every kind of gift/talent programmed into them, truly gifted people wouldn't be as special.

Programming and Learning are pretty much the exact same thing, it's just one hypothetically takes alot less time, which has yet to be demonstrated. I also think that in such a future the "truely gifted" will exploit these tools in a way that we cannot even begin to imagine, so they will still be considered extremely gifted. Remember the Skill and Imagination are two completely different things. If the Skill level of all Jazz musicians were to level off and become more or less the same, what will we look for in a Genius? Technical skills? Or Mind Bending/Expanding creative works that expands our definition of what Jazz actually is? Once we get past this Biological Bias barrier, the Arts will never be the same again, and that will be a good thing.

Originally posted by 2manyquestions
#1). Do you think our physical bodies would feel rested after our minds were tricked into believing we've just experienced two wonderful weeks of rest?

I do not believe this is the case - and I base my opinion on dreams. We all dream during each sleep cycle each night. Each cycle lasts about 90 minutes, so based on an 8 hour rest, one would have like 5 dreams, right? We don't wake up exhausted even if we climb Mt. Everest in our dreams. We don't wake up full if we feasted at a banquet in our dreams.

Would VR really be that different than our dreams are currently?

But here's my big question. We all know what wet dreams are - something physical happens as a result of our dreams. Do we fully understand why that is? What if you experience s-x in VR mode - would you physically experience it simultaneously in the real world? A VR wet dream? yuck!

Originally posted by DreadNaught
I saw a show that sorta touched on this, it was actually reffering to the tech being used as the new wave of amusment park rides.
There was also a movie, name of which eludes me right now, where people could sorta "Jack into" a type of VR unit and experience things as if they had been there.... the result of which was kinda like going on from smoking weed to doing crack, there ended up with people commiting crimes and stuff to sell on the experiences to the wire heads, murders and rapes and stuff.

Maybe you're thinking of "Strange Days". That was a pretty good movie. Basically each person was able to record every experience they wished, by wearing an electronic head-band. A guy confined to a wheelchair enjoyed experiencing running through water at the beach. There were tapes/experiences one could buy from the black market of murders and rapes, just as you said.

EDIT: I just realized that the movie "Brain Scan" also involves experiencing VR by slowing down the perception of time. The main character believes to have been involved in a game for a week or two, while only a couple of hours have passed in the real world.

[edit on 22-3-2006 by 2manyquestions]

Originally posted by SilverSurfer
Manipulate time.. i dont know about that.. possibly..

The trick would be to manipulate our senses so we feel we are really interacting in this virtual reality.. computer games at a whole different level

Exactly

Manipulating time would not be necessary, it is only required to have our sences believe that a certain amount of time has passed.

I think this is completely possible, and probably already available. Just not marketed.

If they can shoot a satelite into space and pinpoint where to send it and how long it will take to get their, billions of miles away, I mean come on.

Having your mind think 2 weeks have passed and you spend it on the beach in Mexico, when in actuality only 5 minutes have passed and you have not left the bed.

Seems alittle easier doesn't it?

Originally posted by Archerette

Originally posted by 2manyquestions
#1). Do you think our physical bodies would feel rested after our minds were tricked into believing we've just experienced two wonderful weeks of rest?

I do not believe this is the case - and I base my opinion on dreams. We all dream during each sleep cycle each night. Each cycle lasts about 90 minutes, so based on an 8 hour rest, one would have like 5 dreams, right? We don't wake up exhausted even if we climb Mt. Everest in our dreams. We don't wake up full if we feasted at a banquet in our dreams.

I'm not completely sure about that, though you do make a good, and valid point. Sometimes if I've had a physically active dream, I do wake up a bit exhausted. If I dream something wonderful (flying for instance), I wake up rested, and in a great mood. It may be different for everyone. I'll try to pay better attention to how I feel after specific dreams from now on, just to make sure I'm not imagining things.
Of course the type of dreams I have may also be influenced by how comfortable my position in bed might be. I've obviously never conducted sleep studies, so I'm not the best person to interpret these sort of things. Maybe I should do a little dream research.

Would VR really be that different than our dreams are currently?

But here's my big question. We all know what wet dreams are - something physical happens as a result of our dreams. Do we fully understand why that is? What if you experience s-x in VR mode - would you physically experience it simultaneously in the real world? A VR wet dream? yuck!

The brain is a very powerful thing. I think most of us have heard that some women can reach the "o" just by thinking about it/concentrating. I remember hearing about some studies in which people were instructed to think about/imagine themselves exercising, and that they actually reached physical results. I don't think the results were anything near what actual exercise could do to the human body, but there were physical results nonetheless. If I ever find that study, I will post it. I'd rather that you looked it up before you take my word for it. Through placebos and positive thought we can drive our body to heal itself faster, sometimes from disease that traditional medicine couldn't cope with.
So to answer your question,....I think it is very possible that the benefits you experience in VR mode would also show up inside your physical body.

Originally posted by chissler

Originally posted by SilverSurfer
Manipulate time.. i dont know about that.. possibly..

The trick would be to manipulate our senses so we feel we are really interacting in this virtual reality.. computer games at a whole different level

Exactly

Manipulating time would not be necessary, it is only required to have our sences believe that a certain amount of time has passed.

I think this is completely possible, and probably already available. Just not marketed.

If they can shoot a satelite into space and pinpoint where to send it and how long it will take to get their, billions of miles away, I mean come on.

Having your mind think 2 weeks have passed and you spend it on the beach in Mexico, when in actuality only 5 minutes have passed and you have not left the bed.

Seems alittle easier doesn't it?

That is exactly what I meant,....tricking our senses inside VR into believing we're experiencing time differently. I may not have made myself clear enough. Sorry about that. This is why I referenced dreams, because in our dreams we do not manipulate time, dreams only feel to us as if they've taken hours, days, etc.

Originally posted by DrBones666
I spend enough time on the computer (ATS is to BLAME, not ME) as it is.

Virtual life will never be as good as real life, so count me out, although, if I could plug in every different scale in my head (I'm an aspiring young jazz musician,) then I would probably do it. However, this then leads to the moral issue of the fact that I then didn't really do the hard yards as far as practise is concerned, and if everyone could have every kind of gift/talent programmed into them, truly gifted people wouldn't be as special.

In this day and age of excess media hype, where every terrible "boy band" or bubble-gum chewing teenage girl in hot pants is billed as "Genius," the word has already started to lose its meaning, that is, until you come across a Real Genius, and I would hate to see things change even more.

Well,.... you touch on a different branch of the subject. The VR world I'm thinking of wouldn't involve downloading skills. The only purpose it would serve would be to experience the every-day things (recreational) just as we do here in our physical world, but much faster. So, if you had to practice for a public appearance, you could plug into this VR world, practice your instrument for a week, yet when you step out of the VR world, the entire experience would have only taken you about a couple of hours. Therefore, in a way, you're retaining your own talent and skill, but saving real-world time while doing so.
If downloading skills were involved, your talent/genius would be worth no less. Genius is genius. As Sardion2000 already pointed out, the geniuses will quickly learn how to exploit these tools, and re-interpret art, music, or whatever you can think of. There are always new challenges to explore, and this could re-define the far-reaching borders of the world of art.

Originally posted by 2manyquestions
#2). Do you think these virtual environments could be applied to other fields, such as rehabilitation of criminals, people with psychological problems, etc. etc. ? I'm thinking that if time within these virtual worlds could be manipulated, a criminal could be held for a day, yet he could be tricked into believing he's been incarcerated for months or years.

Often thought about this and one thing that keeps raising its ugly head in my mind is who exactly would regulate such a system. Would you trust the govt, private enterprise. Are you really having a holiday or rehabilitating criminals or are you being subliminally programmed.
Govt's programming you without your knowledge to vote a certain way
Private enterprise, subliminal advertising.
Sure i think there could be great benefits, but, as with all things there is a dark side.

Originally posted by mojo4sale

Originally posted by 2manyquestions
#2). Do you think these virtual environments could be applied to other fields, such as rehabilitation of criminals, people with psychological problems, etc. etc. ? I'm thinking that if time within these virtual worlds could be manipulated, a criminal could be held for a day, yet he could be tricked into believing he's been incarcerated for months or years.

Often thought about this and one thing that keeps raising its ugly head in my mind is who exactly would regulate such a system. Would you trust the govt, private enterprise. Are you really having a holiday or rehabilitating criminals or are you being subliminally programmed.
Govt's programming you without your knowledge to vote a certain way
Private enterprise, subliminal advertising.
Sure i think there could be great benefits, but, as with all things there is a dark side.

Almost anything (if not everything) has a dark side when in the wrong hands. You're being exploited by government and private enterprise as we speak,.... in so many ways. Television, newspapers, radio, the internet, the products you use, the vices, fears and loves you have, etc. I could be very wrong, but (for the regular Joe Shmoe) I don't think that this VR world I'm thinking about would be any more dangerous than anything else that you find around you now. It would involve manipulating your head, BUT, aside from plastering advertisements onto your virtual surf board, or some object you're using, I don't think it would go beyond that)

Originally posted by 2manyquestions
Almost anything (if not everything) has a dark side when in the wrong hands. You're being exploited by government and private enterprise as we speak,.... in so many ways. Television, newspapers, radio, the internet, the products you use, the vices, fears and loves you have, etc. I could be very wrong, but (for the regular Joe Shmoe) I don't think that this VR world I'm thinking about would be any more dangerous than anything else that you find around you now. It would involve manipulating your head, BUT, aside from plastering advertisements onto your virtual surf board, or some object you're using, I don't think it would go beyond that)

True, but whats to stop it from getting into the wrong hands. Many things have started out as being thought of as beneficial to mankind until someone see's a way to exploit it.

Yes we are being exploited, but so far not by deep implanting of thought's into our subconscious which i believe is the only way something like this would work. It would involve manipulating your head(your words) but it wouldnt bother you who was doing the manipulating.Oh thats right its in good hands!

Btw not trying to be smart, just playing devil's advocate. I would love to experience something like this as much as the next guy or gal i just dont know if i could trust anyone enough to plug me in and not mess with my head. Well maybe my wife(shes watching as i write).

You are assuming that this will be mostly a function of a network. I do not think that will be the case at first, people will see right away the potential for abuse. Your comment of the ease of manipulation is just speculation. It would probably be just as easy to manipulate us via our senses because any Total Immersion VR matrix would have to connect to those areas as well. The information still has to be processed by the brain, and those of us who are strong willed, will probably shrug off any attempts of manipulation.

The brain may resemble a computer, and in a way it is, but much more complicated. Each location of the brain(and even in different individuals these locations are slightly different) has a different bodily function that it governs. Having the 10 or so interface points required to create a fully immersive experience would probably not be enough to "hijack" a brain completely. You're just feeding in sensory information into the brain. The old tricks of repitition and subliminal messaging is still there, but I highly doubt "they" will be able to find a way to "rewrite" your brain without more complete access. For instance in the Matrix, the interface is in the back of the neck, most likely interfacing with the spinal cord itself. That would be "easier" to accomplish but would be much more open to abuse.

My version of TVR(Total Virtual Reality) would be to have various microscopic wires enter in the back of the neck, though not interfacing directly with the spinal collumn, snaking their way to the various regions of the brain where you want to input/output information in the form of sodium ions, electrons, or photons, whichever works the best and safest.

[edit on 22-3-2006 by sardion2000]