Comment by brndnmtthws
8 years ago
I've always thought the whole idea of virtual reality is strange. Why would I want to experience the world through VR when I can experience reality instead? I suppose there are exceptions where it makes sense. Maybe if someone is physically incapable of having an experience, or the risk is too high, but for the most part I derive more joy from actually going outside and doing stuff than playing a video game equivalent.
To each their own, as they say.
By the way: great post.
> physically incapable of having an experience, or the risk is too high, but for the most part I derive more joy from actually going outside and doing stuff than playing a video game equivalent.
Or financially incapable of having the experience, or time constrained - and everyone is mortal and therefore time constrained.
I don't anticipate using VR to experience a walk in the local park, or (personally) mountain biking on the local singletrack because those are things I can do in real life with much more fidelity and have a much better experience. However, I could understand taking a walk in a park on another continent (or six other continents in one afternoon), or advising a friend whom I've raved about mountain biking to try the trail in VR before buying expensive equipment.
I'd rather have a compromise of some vast array of experiences across the world in low-detail VR, and also enjoy the limited amount of experiences I can enjoy in real life in full resolution, than to constrain myself to the small slice of the world that I can afford to physically experience.
> Why would I want to experience the world through VR when I can experience reality instead?
VR can let you experience neat things that are impossible or difficult to experience in reality. Visiting Paris means an eight hour flight and thousands of dollars; visiting Mars is currently impossible; fighting aliens may never be possible.
"Why would you want to use VR for that" is a great criticism of "Using the Toilet Simulator 2019", sure, but it's a bit of a strawman.
The combination of your comment and the parent article reminded me of when I was first getting involved in VR/AR research in grad school, and realized that I had inadvertently started perceiving the quality of rendering in VR as a "good enough" approximation of the real world. Simple geometry, lighting, ambient occlusion, bump/displacement maps, etc. I realized I had to get myself out of the lab and into reality again to really observe all the minute details that we just can't capture at this point in VR (even ignoring all the senses besides sight). It's easy to fall into the tempting trap of letting your mental models and abstractions become how you perceive things.
On top of that, the video games I play and enjoy are decidedly unreal and often intentionally simple or stylized.
What if I want to experience racing in formula 1 and I'm not a billionaire?