Otherland (the Rift is coming)

[Awani]

The Rift is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2016, making it one of the first consumer-targeted virtual reality headsets. Oculus has described it as "the first really professional PC-based VR headset".

It has a resolution of 1080×1200 per eye, a 90 Hz refresh rate, and a wide field of view. It has integrated headphones which provide spatialised audio. The Rift has rotational and positional tracking. The positional tracking is performed by a USB stationary IR sensor, which normally sits on the user's desk, allowing for using the Rift while sitting, standing, or walking around the same room. - source

I love the video game evolution. It is far more important for the evolution of the mind than any other arena. It will do for reality what porn did for the Internet... and what did porn do? It pushed video streaming technology forward (of which we now use daily).

The Rift is going to be the first "good" VR headset. But don't be fooled. This is only the beginning.

The quality of the graphics is essential for a "real" experience. We have already come this far in terms of graphics since the 80s (and it is going even faster now).



With this VR device the gamer will be immersed in both vision and sound. Look below for some reactions to having such an experience.



So this is where we are at now. So far so good.

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But what does this mean?

Shopping
You can walk around in the store and pick up your books before you buy them.

Dating
You can meet people face to face (and select the avatar you want... so you can be whomever you wish).

Education
Instead of reading about WWII take part in a real historical re-enactment with all your classmates.

Friends
Instead of Skype meet your friend face-to-face or avatar-to-avatar in any realm you wish.

Entertainment
Well... this is limitless.

It is all limitless... so far only limited to the tech itself. As it evolves it will integrate things like scent as well as touch. Just like in the Matrix we will be able to fully hook ourselves into another world.

A world where anything is possible. A world where no one can be physically hurt (until the day comes when we loose track of the fact that we are inside a VR world). But then we have come full circle We could even make the Earth a nature reserve and we all live simple lives. All the "city" stuff, wars, offices, jobs... all that is done in the VR world (or vice versa).

Anyway so far I have only scratched the surface, but the implications of this is going to be fucking massive. The smartphone, and even the Internet, will be a joke in comparison.

It will transform all of life. It will bring the experience to the center of all existence, just as it should be.

One day there will be a human being that will live its entire life in the VR world.

It's going to be amazing!

If you want to read something that describes such a future then check out these books. They are awesome.


The story is set on Earth near the end of the 21st century in a world in which technology has advanced somewhat beyond the present. The most notable advancement is the widespread availability of full-immersion virtual reality installations, which allow people from all walks of life to access an online world, called simply the Net. Tad Williams weaves an intricate plot spanning four thick volumes and creates a picture of a future society where virtual worlds are fully integrated into everyday life.

There are those that think this is a bad thing. But change is difficult to deal with. When the car, radio, TV etc. where invented people feared those things as well. Now it is impossible to imagine life without these gadgets.

Beware... one day it will be impossible to know which reality is the VR reality. And that day things will start to be really interesting.

[Awani]

Just discovered they have just released a multiplayer online game (like WoW) of the Otherland books. So then next year, with the Rift, it is full circle. In other words you can enter the reality of the books that are about entering other realities.

The books also talk about the Dreamtime concept. Which is Australian Aboriginal peoples word for what we now call Virtual Reality... or the Otherside. Only they used meditation or psychedelics to get there... we just use 1's and 0's. Doesn't matter if you take the bus or the train or the plane if you are heading for X. You'll still get there eventually.

What happens if you take psychedelics in Virtual Reality? LOL!

[archerner]

I have to disagree, I'm one of those people that thinks this is a bad idea. The sentence "One day there will be a human being that will live its entire life in the VR world." is absolutely mortifying to me. The possibility of letting someone never experience true nature and actual things is the same as amputating all the sense from a new born.

Also you say it doesn't matter how one gets to these psychedelic states either by 1s and 0s or by Entheogens and meditation. I have to completely disagree. Entheogens let things even we are unconscious of float to the surface and be transformed, they aren't controlled narratives from an ultimately human source.

Being a 20s male I have friends who do nothing but play video games. I was a gamer for a bit when I was younger but grew out of it thank God. They devalue many aspects of a persons life in my opinion. First and foremost the time spent on these fictions is incredible, a friend of mine had over 9 months of game play on WoW. And when he wasn't playing he was watching videos of other people playing. Needless to say he was very boring to hang out with. Never stopped looking at his phone and had no real insight into anything except characters statistics and skills which was of no importance to anyone but him and the game.

It's the same as football and the endless stats each player has and the team changing that wraps up most of today's men's minds. These are fruitless endeavors which serve only to pass time and promote themselves. They rely on the addiction they provide to men and women.

And what it ultimately comes down to is the satisfying of the ego. Whether it be shopping, having the latest tech, games or phone; knowing all the teams or watching every concept car scribbled into existence. They are all distractions and material outgrowths of inner longing and un-fulfillment. The very same thorny bush we as practitioners of the Sacred Art are commanded to uproot and destroy.

I agree the progress of video games is astonishing, but never the less it's fiction. And fiction is only useful when it informs us of a deeper truth about reality. Vr headsets will only bring you back to fiction and there no one will be able to tell themselves apart from a fictitious narrative.

[Awani]

Good points but also consider that my initial post is a vision of the future... maybe three/five decades forward or more.

We are already living our lives from birth to death in VR. So what I proposed is more that in the future we will be living VR within VR. A dream within a dream. It will be as real, as beautiful, as this VR we are in now.

Video games are no less a brain dead activity than anything else, everyone use it differently. It can be a very social affair as well as a learning experience. There are many games.

But what I am saying is that soon it will not be only games, it will be everything.

Also the point of no return has already passed so I am sorry to say you won't be able to escape it.

Where I live you can't get a job if you don't have an Email... there will be a day when the same applies to the VR world.

I hope this clarified it a bit more. I get what you are saying, but the VR world I am talking about will become as real, more real, than this world... eventually.

[archerner]

I admire you're eloquence in thought. It's far too late to escape, I agree, it's funny because with Vr: photos paintings and sculptures throughout history will be reanimated and exploreable to an extent. So no era will be untouched by it.

I guess my real gut reaction that I get from Vr is the ability to get whatever you want when you want. I don't believe that's what this life is about, not in the least. It just seems to me all of this innovation and progress is throwing off our divine heritage. Usurping it's place as much as it can. And leaving us as lazy unknowing custodians of a world we forgot.

I see the pros and cons and the inevitablilty of it. As a tool it will be used as the person using it decides. But I'm enjoying the world right now where I can walk down the street and know the people I'm seeing are actually there.

[Awani]

It just seems to me all of this innovation and progress is throwing off our divine heritage

Could be true... or bring us closer to it in some way. Like I said before it is just tools, it is how you use it that counts.

But I'm enjoying the world right now where I can walk down the street and know the people I'm seeing are actually there.

Are they?

[Awani]

Watch... (wait for the forest, gorgeous).



Imagine this graphic quality in VR. Don't think only videogames... everything you do online eventually. It's coming...









:-o

[Ghislain]

This is just a natural progression...let the game begin...

You can either continue down the layers of virtual reality or live out this one and wake up in the virtual reality where you are playing this virtual reality from.

You will find that everyone you think you know...even your family...are just characters of the VR players you may or may not know.

Will they become your friends?

Does your Mother's player even live in the same country as you?

How deep is the rabbit hole...and how far down it are you?



Ghislain

[Awani]

How deep is the rabbit hole...and how far down it are you?

As deep as your mind (high and low) perceive it to be.

If you are shallow the rabbit hole isn't that deep, if you are deep it is very deep.

Why would the universe waste energy creating space if you - the perceiver - has no intention to enter that space.

[Awani]

Videogames is the most new artform... and the only artform that can truly move us INTO an experience... no longer passive watchers, but creators...

Sight, smell, wind, movement... still a bit clunky yes... but YOU just wait.