How close are we to deep dive / full immersion VR?

[Obsessed With Gaming]

Will it happen within our lifetime ( in 20-50 years)?

By using Elon Musk's Neuralink (Neural Lace 2039???) ,NerveGear, nanobots, mind uploading maybe?

And if we were to achieve this would anyone still want to live in the real world apart from people who are maintaining the system and certain religious groups?(or at least take breaks from full dive VR)

And will this cause humans to become extinct?

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Might sound cliche.

Reality is still the only place you can get a decent meal.

 

[VR_Yata_PL]

and you nead RL for maintainig your body, cockpit games are not healthy for our bones

 

[Bob McBobblehead]

Sending my robot to work in my place and spending hours playing Elite: Dangerous Deep Dive Edition. Also known as EDDDE

 

[CMDR Rison]

Are you just talking about visual immersion? Because I would guess that will definitely happen within the next 20 years. But if you're talking about full immersion--like even being able to feel virtual objects, feel virtual movement, and be able to walk and climb in virtual environments--I don't think this will ever happen.

I only see 2 ways this could be implemented.
1. A neural interface like in the Matrix,
2. A full exo-skeleton (translatable/rotatable) that would be able to both communicate your movements and restrict your movement.

I don't think we'll ever understand the brain well enough for the former.

The latter is possible but would be unreasonably expensive.

I would love to be wrong about this...

 

[Micha]

And if we were to achieve this would anyone still want to live in the real world apart from people who are maintaining the system and certain religious groups?(or at least take breaks from full dive VR)

That would depend on how compelling the virtual worlds would be compared with the real world.

And will this cause humans to become extinct?

If the vast majority of humans spend their lives inside VR and there are no mechanisms for ensuring procreation in the real world, then yes.

If we develop the technology to upload our consciousness into our machines, then it becomes a bit of a meta question - are humans the bits of animated flesh, or are we our minds? And if we can upload our minds to a machine, we've instantly got the capability to clone ourselves. Given it's all running in an artificial environment you could also tweak it - pause a person, change some variables (either literally, or via injecting skills/memories), unpause. At that point is it a new person? Or just the same person with some changes?


But back to the first question - "all" you need to do is control the inputs and outputs from the brain. So a nerve blocker coupled with signal injectors on the spinal column, optic nerves, and aural nerves and you never need to build an invasive brain interface. The brain would never know whether it's receiving signals from the real world or not (except via comparison with past experiences if the virtual world is not identical).

 

[TorTorden_VR]

..
If the vast majority of humans spend their lives inside VR and there are no mechanisms for ensuring procreation in the real world, then yes.
..

Don't date robots!

Nah if and that's a huge if.
It could more than likely lead to an actually controlled and eugenically bred population.

But as you say that would be a mechanism for procreation.

 

[Red River]

he's talking holodeck.. you can do it in ST already..

 

[Nagual]

he's talking holodeck.. you can do it in ST already..

No way an Atari ST could run a holodeck. Not even with a RAM pack....

 

[m0rl0ck]

A convincing vr reality would require hardware that understood human minds and motivations well enough to simulate social reality and to give humans what they want. A sentient ai.
Not having a body, it wouldnt have empathy, or probably place much value on human life. That would be the end of us, unless it required slave labor.

 

[davidjones89]

Now we know and have experienced only partial immersion with Google glasses, but in the near future we will have the opportunity to completely Full Dive Virtual Reality .

 

[Ian Skippy]

Will it happen within our lifetime ( in 20-50 years)?

What makes you think it hasn't already happened and you are in it now?

 

[Micha]

What makes you think it hasn't already happened and you are in it now?

No cheat codes or manuals. As well as far too much disgustingly biological goings on (meaning, specifically, various illnesses and lifeforms etc; why model crap like insects which deposit their larva inside living organisms which then eat their way out of their hosts, for example? Same argument has been used for debunking other, similar, topics, which can't be mentioned here).

 

[Ian Skippy]

No cheat codes or manuals. As well as far too much disgustingly biological goings on (meaning, specifically, various illnesses and lifeforms etc; why model crap like insects which deposit their larva inside living organisms which then eat their way out of their hosts, for example? Same argument has been used for debunking other, similar, topics, which can't be mentioned here).

I've always found that argument to be rather flimsy as it is based on the assumption such a simulation (or creation) is intended to be positive, fun, kind etc. The implicit assumption is that there is just one simulation, we are the central aspect of it and whomever created it cares about us in some way. It could just as easily be that we are in one of a near endless number of procgen simulated realities that serve to find some answer to a question we can't fathom. It could very well be that our simulation ultimately doesn't even serve any purpose and is just the by-product of a procgen system. The very existence of such insects, or suffering in general can simply be explained by not assuming that our personal experiences are in any way relevant at all to whatever created this. They may monitor the endless permutations of simulations on a level they may not even be aware of any of these things we experience, never mind care enough to intervene. And why would they, we aren't even real. I know of the other discussion you speak of, and it works there because it is a counter to the assumption a creator is benign and that we are both real and important. I make no such assumptions.

 

[Micha]

I've always found that argument to be rather flimsy as it is based on the assumption such a simulation (or creation) is intended to be positive, fun, kind etc.

Not really; rather questioning what morbid imagination would program something like that specifically into a simulation.

Unless, if I understand correctly, your counterargument is that it wasn't programmed in specifically, but was generated by chance within the parameters of the simulation. But in that case, again, the parameters have to allow for such a thing to exist in the first place. Which could very well be the aim of the simulation; to study these kinds of interactions.

One problem I have with the simulation theory is that you can explain away every single observation regardless of how ridiculous it is by just claiming it's a glitch or limit of the simulation. That seems to me would stifle the incentive to continue looking for the underlying cause or reason.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Not really; rather questioning what morbid imagination would program something like that specifically into a simulation.

Unless, if I understand correctly, your counterargument is that it wasn't programmed in specifically, but was generated by chance within the parameters of the simulation. But in that case, again, the parameters have to allow for such a thing to exist in the first place. Which could very well be the aim of the simulation; to study these kinds of interactions.

One problem I have with the simulation theory is that you can explain away every single observation regardless of how ridiculous it is by just claiming it's a glitch or limit of the simulation. That seems to me would stifle the incentive to continue looking for the underlying cause or reason.

In physics the multiverse concept is not new. Our universe has a number of constants, and the insects you mention are a detail on one planet during a brief moment in one solar system in one galaxy of our univerde. It has been hypothesised countless other universes exist, each with different constants. The effects would be dramatic: small changes would lead to universes where concepts like 'stars', 'planets' or even 'light' would not exist.

All I am saying is that a multiverse could be a giant experiment where beings run countless simulations to see what effects different constants would have over time. On such a scale, the Milky Way would be a miniscule detail. Forget about why a type of insect bruefly exists on one planet in one galaxy in one universe in one simulated set: words cannot begin to express how unimportant that would be to whomever runs the simulation. You could remove the entire Milky Way and it would hardly impact anything.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't ask questions: the multiverse theory didn't stop physicists from building large particle colliders. It does provide a counter-argument to the "why would [insert injustice] occur if this is a simulation or if there is a creator?"

Well, maybe because we don't matter and nobody cares. Injustice is no argument for or against simulation theory.

 

[Junky Juke]

Even the scientific world is starting to wonder if we already live in a simulated universe:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgSZA3NPpBs


I think that VR is in an embryonic state and the contemporary society can't still accept the idea of virtual metaverses, where we can experience parallel lives with our full 5 senses and full physical interaction...or even migrate ourselves to those metaverses and let robots take care of our bodies. When I bought my Oculus CV1 someone in my family stated I was crazy and I was going to hurt myself (old parents... you know... from the stone Age ) After two years I'm still here and I want more!
But I think we can't even imagine what VR will be in 2050. Science and technology grow up fast by an exponential factor every year (Kurzweil's theory). I hope I will live long enough to experience at least two or three more generations of vitual reality. I'm 40 and I don't have a healthy life, so I have not so much time left before "they" unplug me from this simulated universe xD

 

[marx]

No cheat codes or manuals. As well as far too much disgustingly biological goings on (meaning, specifically, various illnesses and lifeforms etc; why model crap like insects which deposit their larva inside living organisms which then eat their way out of their hosts, for example?

Are you familiar with Dwarf Fortress and its procedurally generated diseases?

That said, in my opinion if you make statements about the world which can't be experimentally falsified, that's more like religion than science. Might be interesting as some curious thought experiments, but not really something you'd spend serious effort on.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Are you familiar with Dwarf Fortress and its procedurally generated diseases?

That said, in my opinion if you make statements about the world which can't be experimentally falsified, that's more like religion than science. Might be interesting as some curious thought experiments, but not really something you'd spend serious effort on.

It is religion when you believe it and hold it to be true without evidence or the ability to falsify it. It's philosophy if you ponder it without committing to a possibility. As for spending effort on it: if it is okay to spend serious effort flying fake space ships in a computer game, I guess this is ok too.

But you are right: theories like multiverse and string theory include ideas that cannot be tested and as such aren't truly scientific.

 

[marx]

It is religion when you believe it and hold it to be true without evidence or the ability to falsify it. It's philosophy if you ponder it without committing to a possibility.

Yup, well put.

But you are right: theories like multiverse and string theory include ideas that cannot be tested and as such aren't truly scientific.

Let's not forget that it's one thing if the possibility of multiple universes arises as a consequence of your theories, and another if you build your theory with the assumption that multiple universes should exist. In the former case, it would be quite interesting if any such theory would arise that explains all current experimental observations better than the standard model does: then the multiverse concept might actually hold out to be true.

As for simulated realities, has anyone here played Stellaris? That actually has an interesting take on this subject. One of the ancient precursor empire stories is that one galactic empire figured that they are living in a computer simulation (which is actually true there), and decided to try breaking it by having all hundreds of billions of them committing suicide at the same time.
Well, how else would you break a simulated universe?