Reality sucks? Let's start over from scratch.
Starting in the late 2010's, reality itself will be hacked, or at least the small portion that humans can sense directly.
Forget about boring cancer research. The most important project in the world is to develop a workable science of virtual reality.
Eventually, VR could solve all economic and social problems, except dementia and death.
It could create the illusion of unlimited wealth for everyone, while reducing living costs and environmental impact. The new lifestyle would require a fraction of current energy use, and take up less space.
Everyone could own million room apartments, tropical island archipelagos, and private universes.
As control functions, agriculture, and industry become decentralized, people will need to travel less. Virtual offices and telecommuting will reduce the need for roads. It will be a terminal setback for the airlines and tourism.
A simulation-based lifestyle could allow a much larger human population. It's better to live in a huge society, in which every group can express itself internally. A million TV networks are better than five.
What will it be like to live inside a box?
We're still waiting for the breakthrough concept, perhaps a new type of hypnosis. The user would have to learn to enter the simulation after a lot of effort.
There are many levels of VR, from one to four dimensions.
-The simplest version is like poking a target with a stick.
-Next come distortable resistance frames, like pushing against a sheet.
-VR glove: each finger is restrained in a track, which can move slightly to both sides. It can be stopped suddenly or with a slight delay by embedded magnets, ratchets, or strings.
-Other options are virtual dust clouds (shapes sensed in a sandstorm), virtual gel densification, dynamic polygon generation while objects are being handled, from simple blobs into detailed representations, and direct mapping of a simulated scene onto the skin of an immobilized user (a type of virtual VR).
It will require all of the following:
A massive increase in fiberoptic capacity. Wireless packet networks could provide decentralized bandwidth.
More computing power and fundamental research in interface design.
Wall-sized interactive displays will become common. Ultra-detailed images can be hypnotic. Peripheral light intensity could regulate attention and relaxation. Addictive activities and games would draw people into a simulation, including contests and gambling.
Reality orientation is important: complete transparency at all simulation levels.
The basic VR chair may look like a web of wires.
An unfolding suspension hammock, allowing a full range of motion, including the ability to walk, run, and fly; combining a full-motion body harness with neck restraints, and force feedback clothes with embedded memory-metal mesh.
At first the control panels will be bigger than the simulation itself.
'Bodymap' keyboards would use toes, knees, joints, and all muscles.
Full immersion VR may be like floating effortlessly, a lucid dream, or seem imaginary.
It will take physical effort to move through a simulation, like a three-dimensional treadmill, with integrated exercise activities.
An eye-tracking visor screen with adaptive resolution decides which part of the simulated image is updated next. It will access a vast library of images, pre-rendered scenery elements, and digital 'objects', to reduce processor load.
Infinite zoomability, with recurring and unique patterns and rules at all levels.
Self-contained simulation elements can be elaborated and combined as needed.
Reality is feedback. The user could manipulate a simpler 'toy' body to interact with the virtual world. After a while they will identify with it.
Eventually, radio beams could send signals to different brain sectors. Thin-slice brain scanners like MRI's could create 'virtual interface chips' inside the user's brain. They would learn to start and stop process with simple thoughts.
More remote possibilities include synesthesia amplification, proprioceptor nanites, and even brain downloading.
Each user will evolve their own custom software, and keep detailed logs of simulated activities. Personal operating systems will anticipate data demands.
Users will explore the Net from simulated core zones: virtual offices, palaces, forest clearings, tropical islands. Everyone could create and expand their own universe, spiraling outward from a starting point. VR environments would graphically represent their knowledge. 'Data continents' and 'archipelagos' will recreate and store memories in virtual space.
Eventually, the user might feel like a fictional character. All possessions will be virtual.
Real-world location will become meaningless. VR will require complex living space, and a good deal of exurban planning. People will move to neglected rural areas, and many cities will decline. Homes will not need windows. People may choose to live in machine-like flats and warehouses that are deliberately ugly. Underground living will make sense in many areas.
There will be automated warehouses instead of stores, with on-demand deliveries.
VR will make human spaceflight unnecessary.
A major initial application will obviously be VR sex.
A lot of money can also be made in gaming.
The main purpose of VR will be social interaction, both for profit and personal development. Different personalities will prefer to deal with other individuals or with larger groups.
Personal interaction will become more important, not less, for the simple reason there will be more to talk about. Communication at all levels will improve.
Virtual neighborhoods, parties, and other gatherings will provide unpredictable social interactions.
Groups of like-minded individuals will have elaborate initiation and membership rules.
VR news reports about status and resources will seem as momentous as any historical event.
It will be necessary to test many virtual societies, and to reject most of them, avoiding mind traps and other dead-ends.
Humans may become like cells in a larger organism, but with more apparent freedom.
The ad-hoc future: permanent impermanence.
Set free from reality, humanity will begin to change.
As society becomes more complex, there will be more degrees of freedom, but also more things that can go wrong.
Future beings won't be very well adapted to their environment, and they never can be, unless they're willing to settle for long-term stagnation.
Given enough time and technology, only their minds will survive.
Read more here
Coming soon: a list of the current research.
The best hard SF novel ever written: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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