Friday, August 18, 2006
Is there a virtual reality??
Just this morning I have come to the realisation that the thin line between reality and a "virtual" reality is a truly blurry line.
I come to work to earn a living by writing software that operates in an online world to enhance the work of the offline world. Whilst at work I have monitored my online world, inlcuding blogs, ebay, email etc. The online world is actually far more engrossing than the offline world at present. My offline world does include riding very fast motorbikes at stupid speeds and also taking my 4wd off-road for some wild times but the immediate safety and comfort of the online world is so cushy!!
Interesting point, my sister-in-law is a teacher and she was saying that schools are not so interested in teaching kids the importance of computers and the online world anymore. They see it thusly, these kids are going to grow up in this world surrounded by this technology and this "virtual" reality and will know no different so why teach them how it works when they will just exist in it anyway.
My point: Who will build this world if they haven't been taught how it works????
There is a movie, Logan's Run I think, where people are killed off at the age of 25. No one can read or write and there are no books. When Logan escapes from his "vitual" world he finds a man who can read and write and he is old. His kind, the writers, died out so there was no one left to write the books (programs) anymore. So the world stalled and was dying a slow death.
I think there is the possibility of this happening, maybe not in my lifetime, but in someones life in the not so distant future, if we don't wake up to this and realise that our world needs to be made not just used.
I come to work to earn a living by writing software that operates in an online world to enhance the work of the offline world. Whilst at work I have monitored my online world, inlcuding blogs, ebay, email etc. The online world is actually far more engrossing than the offline world at present. My offline world does include riding very fast motorbikes at stupid speeds and also taking my 4wd off-road for some wild times but the immediate safety and comfort of the online world is so cushy!!
Interesting point, my sister-in-law is a teacher and she was saying that schools are not so interested in teaching kids the importance of computers and the online world anymore. They see it thusly, these kids are going to grow up in this world surrounded by this technology and this "virtual" reality and will know no different so why teach them how it works when they will just exist in it anyway.
My point: Who will build this world if they haven't been taught how it works????
There is a movie, Logan's Run I think, where people are killed off at the age of 25. No one can read or write and there are no books. When Logan escapes from his "vitual" world he finds a man who can read and write and he is old. His kind, the writers, died out so there was no one left to write the books (programs) anymore. So the world stalled and was dying a slow death.
I think there is the possibility of this happening, maybe not in my lifetime, but in someones life in the not so distant future, if we don't wake up to this and realise that our world needs to be made not just used.
