RE: Social implications

Mark S. Meadows ([email protected])
Wed, 17 May 95 01:28:27 PDT


At 6:34 AM 5/17/95, D. Owen Rowley wrote:
>Jacking in, ala neuromancer is really quite a complex set of things that are
>just not part of the VRML story.

not now, certainly.
i think though that we are now holding the tools to make this happen. it is
the combination of negative and positive space that is the issue in gibson
- interface design on a neural level - that which transfers information and
that which allows us to make a distinction.
difference in a void is information.
THAT is the essence of information transfer.
the more the context the more the content.

it's not the jacking in owen -
its the merging of imagination and empiricism.

>Many of us realise that this points at things to fear.
>
>after all what is fear but *False *Evidence *Appearing *Real.
>and in VR everything has a bit of that at its definitive root.

indeed. this is the primary thing we need to be thinking about.
the distinctions that are NOT being made is sometimes staggering,
"Oh henry - this is just like on TeeVee!!!"

networkmodeling crawls into your eye
and begins to filter your reality.

architecture as opinion.
i think that this is what you mean by "richness"

>I claim that one increases the *compelling factor* by favoring richness over
>resolution -
>MUDS and MOOS are ascii based virtual realities
>(very low rendering resolution :-) yet they can be very compelling to the
>senses when richly populated with users and the myriad inventions of their
>minds.

please say more.
you've mentioned this several times.
it's a tricky distinction...

yeahyeh, i know... no philosophs.. "we're tech" you say..
it's sewing mumbo-jumbo in the fields of interactivity:
so what.
it's good for you - puts hair on your chest.

i think about the tierra project - tierra is more gibsonian.
see http://slip-2.slip.net/~kawsmo/tierra/index.html
or http://www.arc.org/gallery95/biodiv.html)

THAT is closer still than cybernetic architecture.

6
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