Day 4

Virtual Reality..... What is it?....

It is very difficult to summarise todays lecture, as it was very thought provoking and philosophical, as well as a little intense. We talked about the concept of reality and virtual reality. The topic is always going to be very opinion based, they have been talking about reality for centuries, so you could see how the lecture often went off on a tangent, while everyone was trying to understand understand virtual reality and creating their own descriptions.

Its a case of what are we seeing? Is it real or is it not? For instance the Matrix when Morpheus said: What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about your senses, what you feel, taste, smell, or see, then all you're talking about are electrical signals interpreted by your brain?

By this speech alone you can see just how philosophical the talk about reality is. This is due to the fact that the talk of reality spans back to Socrates and Plato. The Allegory of Plato's cave
is like television of the ancient times, instead of watching the flickering shadows on the cave wall, you can watch movies and television and features on the web.

What I think virtual reality is, is like imagination. Its only there if you allow your mind to grasp it. In an interactive sense, the virtual reality on the web enables and requires people to move and respond to a simulated environment, allowing users to sense and manipulate 'virtual' objects as they would in the real world.

Things like video games, and secondary computer lives are examples of this virtual concept. Those games and web sights that are in a 3D context encourage you to move and live in these worlds. Essentially dealing in a different reality from what you get in real time or even reading books or watching television. Books and TV give you the story that has happened and you are reading or watching a reality that is being played out, the way you can imagine this virtual reality being played out in front of you. Where as virtual worlds allow you to create something new and experience new things. You are the creator and are creating the interaction in the 3D virtual world in games and second lives.