57 replies to this topic

[Lilly]

While I'd choose reality now (at my current age) I can forsee a time in the future when being elderly probably won't be all that great. At that point I'd be willing to entertain the notion of going into virtual reality.

[Leave Britney alone!]

Rlyeh, on 16 November 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

So what is a backyard trying to simulate?

Nature especially if it has a garden. But going into a backyard garden is not going into nature at all.

[WoIverine]

Guess that would depend on how real the virtual reality was, for me to go with that over the real thing.

[Rlyeh]

Chasingtherabbit, on 16 November 2012 - 03:17 PM, said:

Nature especially if it has a garden. But going into a backyard garden is not going into nature at all.

I think you're confusing reality with natural.

[Ryu]

Chasingtherabbit, on 16 November 2012 - 03:17 PM, said:

Nature especially if it has a garden. But going into a backyard garden is not going into nature at all.

Yet a garden IS an aspect of nature, you have real plants, real veggies that can be eaten by real people and real soil and real garden pests.
Just because one has a small plot for rhubarb and another for radishes doesn't mean it isn't a part of nature.

For many all they have IS a garden and don't have access to parks..oh wait, that isn't nature either is it?

[Leave Britney alone!]

Rlyeh, on 16 November 2012 - 03:25 PM, said:

I think you're confusing reality with natural.

I don't think you understand what hyperreality means. It does not mean reality.

Ryu, on 16 November 2012 - 05:38 PM, said:

Yet a garden IS an aspect of nature, you have real plants, real veggies that can be eaten by real people and real soil and real garden pests.
Just because one has a small plot for rhubarb and another for radishes doesn't mean it isn't a part of nature.

For many all they have IS a garden and don't have access to parks..oh wait, that isn't nature either is it?

And you might not understand what nature truly is or perhaps where the line begins and ends between nature, true wilderness, and our manufactured versions of it. Read on and see if you believe the following treatments done to this rock resemble those we do with our yards.

Quote

A stack of craggy red Conway granite ledges, sculpted by frost heaves and glacial retreat, overlooks Profile Lake in New Hampshire's White Mountains. If you stand in just the right place, the rock formation conjures the image of a regal-looking man with a sharp nose and pointed beard.

Each year, five to six million visitors gaze at the rock face. The image ripples throughout the state and the virtual world. It appears on license plates, tourist brochures, Web sites, in a story by Hawthorne, in a poem by Daniel Webster, and in a painting by regional artist Isaac Sprague. A museum collects Old Man of the Mountain kitsch, displays its history, and sells memorabilia.

There's only one problem. The rock formation is no more natural than the faces of presidents at Mt. Rushmore. As early as 1915, preservationists adjusted cables and turnbuckles to keep slabs from slipping and distorting the Old Man's profile. Later, they sprayed bleach on his blemishes caused by lichen growth; filled unsightly "skin" cracks with epoxy, wire, and fiberglass; and studied upcoming needs for future facials by measuring what frost, gravity, and acid rain have done to his nose, forehead, and chin.

The Old Man joins peculiarly modern phenomena like the badlands of Disneyland or the duplicate of the Lascaux caves, where faked nature is as meaningful as nature itself. Scratch a Disney badland, and the chicken wire and plaster infrastructure reveals itself. Eviscerate a Disney hippo and it's all plastic, gears, and wire.

http://www.wholeeart...d.the.hyperreal

[Rlyeh]

Chasingtherabbit, on 16 November 2012 - 07:09 PM, said:

I don't think you understand what hyperreality means. It does not mean reality.

Show me where I said it was.
As a backyard is part of reality, perhaps you didn't read the definition you posted?

[Leave Britney alone!]

Rlyeh, on 17 November 2012 - 06:03 AM, said:

Show me where I said it was.
As a backyard is part of reality, perhaps you didn't read the definition you posted?

You are still not demonstrating any understanding of  what hyperreality is. A manicured lawn is hyperreal, it is not the wilds, it is not nature, and that is not reality if we consider it as part of nature. It is not that difficult to understand,

I am unsure what your point even is but if you think a lawn is reality because it is there but you don't understand how it is actually hyperreal and not real at all then you simply don't understand what hyperreality is.

[Leave Britney alone!]

And to make it really simpe for you:

uncultivated wilds = real (nature)
manicured lawn = hyperreal (nature)

It cannot be made more simple than that for you.

[Rlyeh]

Chasingtherabbit, on 17 November 2012 - 07:14 AM, said:

You are still not demonstrating any understanding of  what hyperreality is. A manicured lawn is hyperreal, it is not the wilds, it is not nature, and that is not reality if we consider it as part of nature. It is not that difficult to understand,

I am unsure what your point even is but if you think a lawn is reality because it is there but you don't understand how it is actually hyperreal and not real at all then you simply don't understand what hyperreality is.

You don't get to redefine words, reality is not defined as nature only. According to your link on hyperreality, it is the "inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality". A lawn or backyard is not a simulation.

[Rlyeh]

Chasingtherabbit, on 17 November 2012 - 07:17 AM, said:

And to make it really simpe for you:

uncultivated wilds = real (nature)
manicured lawn = hyperreal (nature)

It cannot be made more simple than that for you.

No matter how simple you try to make it, it is wrong. Your own link refutes you, as does the dictionary.

Edited by Rlyeh, 17 November 2012 - 07:28 AM.

[Leave Britney alone!]

Rlyeh, on 17 November 2012 - 07:26 AM, said:

No matter how simple you try to make it, it is wrong. Your own link refutes you, as does the dictionary.

If you actually clicked the link you would have seen a variation of the same because it is on the same page:

Quote

A well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal).

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Hyperreality

[Rlyeh]

Chasingtherabbit, on 17 November 2012 - 07:42 AM, said:

If you actually clicked the link you would have seen a variation of the same because it is on the same page:

Some of the examples are questionable and contradictory with the original definition.

[Arbitran]

It would be very easy for me to just say "no" here... but I'm not going to. I just feel as though the question is a bit more nuanced than a simple "yes-or-no" answer.

The concept of augmented or mixed reality is, fundamentally, the idea of mixing between "real" and "virtual" realities. If virtual reality technologies developed sufficiently that its quality and resolution became equal to (or, *gasp*, exceed) "real" reality, in every aspect (sound, sight, physics, smells, tastes... a "Matrix-like" scenario, basically), would it really be meaningful at all to distinguish between "real" and "virtual" in the first place? Sure, in our current time, the difference is very clear. But that might not be the case for very much longer.

Take the idea of a "Matrix" or simulated reality: it is utterly indistinguishable from "real" reality (it's also noteworthy that, though the idea wasn't much explored in the Matrix films, what if the reality experienced in the Matrix, one indistinguishable from our reality, was, in fact, of far poorer quality than the outside "real" reality?). For example, if I out and said "no", I would not accept virtual reality, because I'm biased towards things that are "real" and not imaginary, I would still, quintessentially, be leaving out a large portion of the puzzle. Given it is a genuine possibility that our "real" reality is, in fact, "virtual" in nature, if virtual reality were designed which rivaled or surpassed our own "real" reality in quality, then what difference would there really be between me playing billiards in "real" life or in a "virtual" life? At what point does one go from saying "that universe is only simulated; it's imaginary" to "that is a universe created by a computer"? Given we are not terribly far from being capable of doing such things, I think that views such as the polarized "real-or-virtual" model will gradually become more and more blurred.

Effectively, my answer to the question of this thread is neither "yes" nor "no'; rather, it might be more accurately expressed as a sort of: "when the time comes, will there even be a difference?".

[Leave Britney alone!]

Rlyeh, on 17 November 2012 - 07:24 AM, said:

You don't get to redefine words, reality is not defined as nature only. According to your link on hyperreality, it is the "inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality". A lawn or backyard is not a simulation.

And you have demonstrated this working definition because you yourself are seemingly unable to tell where reality ends and hyperreality begins when it comes to the modern backyard.

Simulation is but one criteria of hyperreality. Furthermore simulation itself is virtual reality.

Hyperreality on the other hand is both the inability to distinguish between virtual reality and reality but also augmenting normal reality or suspending it to bring a desired product that is not real at all. Thus because it is related to the topic of virtual reality did I even bring up hyperreality but hyperreality extends beyond the domain of virtual reality.

Also initially you were insinuating my understanding of the article was incorrect and when that failed you are now finding fault with the whole article itself. I believe the fault is with your original disputation.

In another related issue many seem to think virtual reality is all about living in a computer or something. A phone conversation on an old school land line itself is a form of virutal reality. The fact is we are already living in virtual reality to some degree but definitely living in hyperreality. We have been living in hyperreality since the agricultural era began, rows and rows of corn is not real nature, it too is hyperreal.

The dangers of hyperreality are many and already all around us. If one looks they can begin to see the lines.

Quote

Virtuality and Simulation


Imagine that you participated in a world where all the objects and all the people seemed real enough to touch but you knew--somewhere in your mind--that what you were experiencing was both constructed, and mediated by technology. The telephone, for example. You're pretty sure you're having a conversation with your friend as if he were in the room with you, and it's easy to feel that he's right there. When you think about it, though, you realize he's not in the room, and the only way you can hear his voice is over the phone connection. You're in virtual reality.

http://www.media-stu...articles/vr.htm