Virtual Reality – How Science Fiction Failed Us

July 9, 2010 - By Phineas Delgado

Over the past fifteen or so weeks, we’ve covered a myriad of topics on “How Science Fiction Failed Us”, but we still have so much ground to cover. As I was pondering what Brain was pondering (Pinky was way off… I think he was pondering how lederhosen makes his butt look big), I began to wonder what it would be like to be able to experience these worlds without ever leaving Earth, or maybe even the comfort of your own home. It was obvious that I needed to talk about… Virtual Reality.

The ability to separate one’s self from the drama, rigors and mundane nature of everyday life would be desirable to say the least, though if it were to happen now, it would likely be something only the extremely wealthy could afford to do regularly. Eventually, though, technology like this could replace entertainment venues as we know them today. But before we start speculating on the possibilities in the real world, let’s take a look at how Science Fiction has treated the subject.

The first delving into this massive topic was in the 1935 book Pygmalion’s Spectacles by Stanley G. Weinbaum. In it a professor has created “a movie that gives one sight and sound… taste, smell and touch.” He adds, “You are in the story, you speak to the shadows and they reply, and instead of being on a screen, the story is all about you and you are in it…” The device in the book resembled a gas mask; down to the goggles and rubber mouthpiece. It even described the nature of “displacement” which is the sensation a VR user has when they can feel the chair they are sitting in while simultaneously feeling the items in the environment in which they are experiencing.

A more recent take on VR, and one that is more familiar in terms of showing the mind-blowing aspects of existing in more than one world at a time, the 1964 book Simulacrum-3 shows the madness than can ensue when a person who’s been living in VR for an extended time, faces the reality that their world isn’t real (my brain already hurts). The 1999 adaptation, The Thirteenth Floor takes the idea to a whole new level when the main character realizes that his own world, the one he thought was real, and which also contained its own virtual reality, was itself a simulation (if that blows your mind, you should try watching the movie… it makes The Matrix look like a holodeck accident).

There have been multiple excursions into this outlook into VR, probably most famously in The Matrix and its two sequels. As you may recall, all of humanity is stuck reliving the late 20^th century (presumably over and over again) as they are used as an energy source by machines they themselves created (which is why we talked about The Matrix in my articles about Robots and Artificial Intelligence). Like in The Thirteenth Floor, at some point someone in the Matrix became aware that his world wasn’t real, broke free, and then freed others, creating the resistance group of humans around which the story is based. They had the ability, though, to hack into the network and interface with that reality still, albeit on their own terms (meaning Neo could fly, etc., etc.).

Arguably one of the first movie treatments on the subject was the 1982 Disney movie, Tron. While the interface is different, but the result is very similar. In the movie, Kevin Hughes, the protagonist played by Jeff Bridges, is “digitized” into the computer program rather than interfacing it through some sort of peripheral device. The viewer follows Hughes into the virtual world of a computer operating system, with programs resembling their creators and the entire show being run by an out of control AI called the Master Control Program, or MCP. The programs either had to join the MCP, or play through a series of challenging games that would invariably lead to their deletion.

The recent movie Surrogates presented another interesting possibility that also combines the idea of robots and virtual reality. In that story, people isolate themselves, but live vicariously through robotic avatars called “surrogates”. They interface with these machines by means of a virtual interface. The plot involves someone figuring out how to kill a person by killing their surrogate, which forces the main character to dump his virtual persona and head out into the real world as himself.

Similarly, the James Cameron epic Avatar had humans piloting the large and lanky Na’vi on the gorgeous yet toxic planet, Pandora. In this case, one of the pilots was a paraplegic and the freedom his avatar allowed made him volunteer to spend longer amounts of time hooked into the system. In the end, he was even allowed to live the dream fully as his spirit was transferred into the soulless body of his Avatar in order to save his life and allow him to be with the people he had grown to love.

One of my favorite takes on Virtual Reality was presented in the Arnold Schwarzenegger hit, Total Recall, which was based on the on the Philip K. Dick story, We Can Remember it for You Wholesale. In those stories, you don’t actually experience the virtual world, but memories of false events are implanted into your mind. In this case, the protagonist Douglas Quaid (Douglas Quail in the book) goes to a memory implant company called Rekall to have memories of a trip to Mars implanted in his mind for a fraction of the cost of traveling there for real. He even opts to have Secret Agent memories added (you know… he kills the bad guys, gets the girl and saves the planet), which leads to the climax of the plot.  In the end, the viewer is left wondering if any of what happened was real, or if it was all part of the memory implant from Rekall.

Animated shows have also taken RPG’s and made virtual worlds out of them. Code Lyoko and .hack both come to mind. In the latter, the characters are all players in a virtual world called… well… “The World” (you’d think the Japanese could have come up with something better, I mean James Cameron came up with Pandora… and he’s not even Japanese), but their interactions seems to have farther reaching impact, even into the real world.

Of course, probably the most well-known treatment of the idea of virtual reality is the holodeck from Star Trek. There, instead of wearing an apparatus to experience the virtual world, you walk through it. The room is a giant holographic projector with a twist… the twist being that it uses the teleporter technology to make the energy into matter (the replicator works on the same premise). You can experience anything from a favorite real-world place, to the virtual world of a favorite book or serial. You can even turn off the safety protocols (or have them turned off for you in nefarious fashion), making the holodeck as dangerous as real life.

I suppose the real danger of virtual reality, aside from the obvious nature of losing touch with reality, I think, would be opening up your brain to the input of a machine you don’t necessarily control. The temptation to abuse this type of technology would have to be immense. Situations similar to those presented in Tron and Total Recall show what can happen when you give someone else control of your experience, or, in some cases, your mind.

In fact, it’s inferred in Total Recall that the price of a procedure failing is a lobotomy…  Yeah, I like my frontal lobe intact, thank you. Of course there are practical uses for VR, such as flight simulators for training, and even virtual piloting of remote aircraft, like the MQ-1 Predator (which I was involved in the first deployment of, thank you very much). However, the impractical applications are bound to be more fun, yes?

Until they lobotomize you…

I’ll stick with the real reality… for now.