Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

I find the idea and exploration of virtual worlds to be exciting and limited only by our technology -- which is constantly improving. One of my favorite pastimes is playing video games, a great escape from the limitations and ennui of real life.

I was perhaps first introduced to the idea of virtual reality from the 90s action/fighting kid's show  VR Troopers (the VR stands for virtual reality) in which three young adult protagonists entered "VR" in order to battle against Grimlord and his minions who were bent on taking over the real world. Exhibit A:



Virtual reality is not only limited to its use in entertainment, it can also be used for information, business, travel, and medical/psychological purposes. As Nicole Saidi writes in her CNN online article "Report: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction," "many think [virtual reality] computer interactions could eventually be helpful in treating autism." Mark Tutton writes in "Going to the virtual office in Second Life," "[t]he ability to collaborate effectively using virtual tools may now become an increasingly important skill as technology offers more options than [...] video conferencing." We really are just beginning to contemplate the practical possibilities.

The pros are as stated in the above and the cons are, ironically, virtual reality's ability to isolate us both physically from each other and from "reality" itself (after all, what exactly is reality? It could be different for many people). For instance, a problem I have had is that sometimes I would like to play a video game with my friend who is physically with me at the time only to find out that the only way we could play together is if she was at her house, me at mine, and we'd connect over the PSN server for cooperative gameplay; as is the case with Borderlands, it's frustrating (a problem that was remedied with Borderlands 2).

Virtual worlds foster creativity like with the PlayStation 3 game Little Big Planet. The makers of this game have made it so that users can dress and decorate their avatars (called sackboys) and they can even design their own game levels using in-game tools that other players can access and play online! Here's an example:


I think that virtual reality in the future would find itself in many aspects of life for all the reasons I have listed above. It will be as common place as watching a movie and the lines between reality and virtual reality will blur so much that some people will prefer to live their lives connected to these virtual realities completely forgoing "real reality."

               You knew it was coming, lol. Hard to talk about VR and not mention The Matrix.


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