williamb@milton.u.washington.edu (William Bricken) (01/07/91)
Virtual Reality: Directions of Growth
Notes from the SIGGRAPH '90 Panel
Copyright (C) 1990 All Rights Reserved by William Bricken
William Bricken
Human Interface Technology Laboratory
University of Washington, FU-20
Seattle, WA 98125
9/10/90
william@hitl.vrnet.washington.edu
XI. EVOLVING PHILOSOPHIES
We have come very close to talking about philosophy, so here are some
comments on philosophical concepts:
situated semantics
pervasion
immaterial realism
constructivism
boundary mathematics
more than reality
Situated activity is a growing school of thought in AI. The idea is
simple: what we do depends on our environment as well as our internal
state. We react and respond, constantly bringing external context
into our interpretation of the moment. Currently, symbolic logic is
split in half, between syntax (representation) and semantics
(meaning). Syntax is strictly formal, it has no basis in experience.
Semantics attempts to connect syntactic symbols to the reality of the
world by mapping representation onto meaning. The problem is that it
does so without regard to context external to the formal symbols.
Since environments necessarily introduce external unknowns, standard
semantics is just too literal. Situated activity is an attempt to
build a theory of context.
VR, in comparison, is totally situated. By defining natural behavior
as the rules of interaction, by displaying recognizable spatial
structures as output, by providing context in toto, and by including
the participant, VR redefines the relation between syntax and
semantics. Semantics, what we consider to be anchored to reality, is
displayed directly as (virtual) reality. Syntax, the symbols that
guide computational activity, is hidden in the background, out of
sight.
Environments include their participants, they pervade their contents.
Pervasion is a non-dualistic concept, more familiar to Buddhism than
to Christianity. A pervasive space is one which is diffused
throughout every part of itself, including those parts occupied by
other spaces and objects. Objects themselves are those boundaries of
spaces that we can sense. When we look at the container of an
environment, from the outside, we see that it surrounds a portion of
space. The important point to understand is that environments focus
our attention on a particular portion of space, they do not separate
space into two opposite parts. The outside space still pervades the
inside space. For VR, the physical pervades the virtual. When we
enter a virtual world, we always bring our physical body. VR is not a
separate reality, in a dualistic sense, it is a pervaded reality. The
shift from duality to pervasion is from networks to maps, from
separation to unity, from confrontation to cooperation, from male to
female, from one to zero.
The Copernican revolution introduced a physics that differed
fundamentally from appearance. VR introduces a metaphysics that
differs fundamentally from the material. At the foundation of
Objectivism is an attempt to be realistic about the material world.
VR calls for immaterial realism, for being realistic about
information. The currency of VR is organization, not possession, not
accumulation, not territory. All laws are transmutable, we can
satisfy fantasy rather than fact. It is science itself that is
redefined. In VR, we can choose to be reductionalist, but at the
bottom of it all, there is not Mass or Nature, there is the Void. VR
is representational, but not a priori rational, empirical, or
verifiable. VR is illogical positivism: if you can specify it, it is
meaningful. All empirical hypotheses are true.
Another fundamental philosophical position engendered by VR is that of
constructivism, that our minds and our bodies coparticipate in
defining reality. Objectivism places an overemphasis on the input of
the physical body. Solipsism overemphasizes the mind. Constructivism
recognizes that reality is like light, it is both particle and wave,
both objective and cognitive, both observation and participation. In
VR, we cannot escape the realization that we are the architects of our
environment.
We are applying boundary mathematics to VR in three different ways: as
a foundational mathematics, as a technique for logical deduction and
maintenance of inconsistency, and as a spatial embodiment of abstract
concepts.
Boundary mathematics is a calculus of inclusion. The essence of VR is
inclusion, the relationship between an environment and a participant.
The primitives of boundary mathematics are also participant and
environment. Let ( ) represent an environment, and let i represent a
participant. A variation of Spencer Brown's Laws of Form provides the
axiomatic basis:
Observe: i ( ) = ( )
Participate: ( i ) =
The left-hand-side of each equation is descriptive (objective),
explicitly mentioning the participant. The right-hand-side is
experiential (participatory), implicitly using the participant's
perspective. We read the left-hand-side from our traditional
externalized, objective perspective. The right-hand-side refers to
our experience, from the subjective perspective. When we observe an
empty environment, we perceive its boundary. When we are included in
an otherwise empty environment, we perceive emptiness. That's all
there is at the foundations of experience.
The most important thing to realize about VR is that it is more than
reality, more than a simulation of reality. You add physical realism
to a virtual world by adding constraints that reduce the possibilities
in that world. Native VR lets you walk through walls, we add
collision detection to disallow this power. Native VR has no gravity,
we add gravitational equations to simulate a gravitational reality.
Reality simulation is a subset of potential VR experiences. The least
elaborated virtual world is the Void.
We describe innovations in terms of what they replace. Only after
decades do we come to understand the pervasive impact of new
technologies on our culture. The automobile was first the horseless
carriage. It replaced the carriage, looked like a carriage, and moved
at the speed of a horse. Decades later, the automobile has
transformed our landscapes, the pace of our travels, and our concepts
of time and space. The television replaced the radio. Television
programs were first radio programs with pictures. Decades later, the
television has transformed our evenings, the pace of our senses, and
our concepts of news and entertainment.
The computer is first a symbol processor. Although decades have
barely passed, it is transforming our concepts of information and
calculation. Computers are thought to replace typewriters and
desktops and filing cabinets. But the computer has yet to be
understood for what it is of itself, we still view it from the
impoverished model of what it replaces. McLuhan said that computers
extend our central nervous system. Our CNS is not a symbol processor,
it is a generator of personal realities. VR marks the end of the
infancy of computation, the essence of the computer revolution is yet
to come. Essentially computers are reality generators.
And reality is in the eye of the participant.