Chapter Eight: The Desire To Be Other: A Means Of Escape'


Is VR escapist? Escapism means seeking diversion from physical reality. VR cannot escape being escapism, VR is perfect escapism.'(1)

And perhaps we should be thankful once VR finally arrives, for those with more dubous psychologies may be able to interact with whatever horrors will sate them, thus keeping them off the street. Maybe, once VR becomes as cheap, available and effective as the television or the Sony Walkman now are, current government mental health policy of "re-integrating patients into the community" will be supplanted by "integrating them into cyberspace and leaving them to get on with it" - in effect what 'Neighbours' would appear to do for a large % of the population every teatime.

Brenda Laurel, editor of "The Art of Human-Computer Interface":

'Reality has always been too small for human imagination. The impulse to create an interactive fantasy machine is only the most recent manifestation of the age-old desire to make our fantasies palpable, our insatiable need to excercise our imagination, judgement, and spirit in worlds, situations and personae that are different from those of our everyday lives.'(2)

So the anoraked, bearded computer fetishist, the trainspotter in awe of the thundering locomotive, the motorcyclist worshipping an immaculate machine in the showroom are merely technological extrapolations of a group psyche's underlying drive to escape. The modus operandi itself, whether the idolatry of a particular TV personality or specie of holly-hock, placing sex upon a pedestal else enjoying power/success in one's job, going on holiday, shooting heroin, joining the SWP, is of secondary significance to the underlying motive, the actual drive: Human beings need escape mechanisms, and cyberspace is bound to serve as a versatile medium to engineer palpable fantasies/realities which may have previously eluded those forced to remain the sloppy emulators of their dreams; devoid of the eloquence of an affinity for writing, film-making, nuclear engineering, fulfilling relationships, space travel.

Brenda Laurel:

'The big goal is to augment human intelligence with high technology. The big goal is to empower. I mean we're looking at a situation where this country is about to go belly up, and maybe the fucking planet, because we don't have an informed populace. Because people do not have access to information.....nothing is going to get better unless we get really smart really fast. Computers came out of our imagination to answer a need we knew we had. To augment our abilities to cope with the challenges of living in the 21st Century. I think everything depends on it. It's like we just grew a new disposable thumb, we had better learn how to use it. '(3)

I take it Ms. Laurel concedes that in creating technology to deal with human problems, it is the technology itself that also creates the problem of how to deal with its effects, that requires fresh technology to deal with that, which leads to...etc, etc: Spiral. Vertigo. The 20th Century is the current ultimate experiment. Technofetishism is escapism for some. Excitingly dangerous when applied, as Cyberpunk; previous chapter, suggests.

The ultimate escape is currently being pondered out on the technology inspired conceptual edge....escape from human mortality itself. Kevin Q. Brown:

'Even though the machines of 1991 pose no threat to the intellectual superiority of humans, the machines are advancing much faster. It is just a matter of time before unaugmented humans are utterly outclassed by their own creations - who will be smarter, faster, stronger, and in general, more capable than their ancestors. The rationale behind uploading is thus: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."' (4)

'This notion of transferring one's personality and consciousness from a human body to a computer or robot is called 'uploading'.....This may be viewed as the ultimate end-result of improved human / computer interfaces; you cannot distinguish the human from the computer. More generally, uploading can mean moving oneself from a wet, protein-based implementation to another another, non human medium (hopefully with enhanced capabilities). Silicon-based electronics are one possibility. Patterns of nucleii on the surface of a neutron star are another. The really good implementations probably have not even been dreamed about....'(5)

VR merely represents an early tenable link with computers as more than just machine tools, and acts as springboard into exploring the world beyond the interface. Perhaps humanity is just beginning to learn how to decant itself into a new format. And it will certainly want to go there: somewhere, anywhere else.

References

(1) Bricken, William, 'Virtual Reality: Directions of Growth', Meckler Ltd, in 'Virtual Reality '91, Impacts and Applications', Meckler Publ., London, 1991, p.4
(2) Howard Rheingold, Transcript from conversation; 28th October 1991
(3) Brenda Laurel, 1991, interview with Steve Steinberg, in Intertek Vol. 3.2, Summer 1991, p.7
(4) & (5) Brown, K.Q, 'Uploading : Wetware to Hardware', in 'INTERTEK' Vol 3.2 Summer 1991 pp.19-20