> > >> Here, to any extent, I depart from Gibson. With sufficiently advanced > technology there comes a point at which the effort required to suspend > disbelief is so small as to be negligible. I was reading a report on a > paper a few months ago (I think in New Scientist) where the authors were > suggesting that some on-line gamers have difficult perceiving the "real > world" as actually being real when they come out of the games. This > suggests that even with the relatively poor systems we have at present > (compared with what we know will be possible in future since it only needs > evolution, not revolution, in the technology), the barrier to suspension > has already become low.
can the researchers separate the effect -- psychological, social, or otherwise -- of the game environment from the technology? this is exactly what I was alluding to by saying that the 'suspension of disbelief' .... the 'last mile' if you like ... can be done, but it is not technological. There has to be something else that acts as a *catalyst* for the acceptance of the technological illusion. Heim, an early commentator on virtual reality (1994), compared Wagner's 'total work of art' to VR. He said 2 interesting things ... the first is that total believability in VR is perhaps a holy grail ... it is and may perhaps forever be unattainable. The second is that 'Certain disadvantages might also plague it where Wagnerian solutions might help'. Etienne -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20120601/26bb61ec/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
