General Discussion

[NightWolfx5]

The assumption that deeply immersive VR requires a true 2-directional brain–computer interface discounts, I think, how good we humans are at voluntarily “remapping” our senses and motor controls to produce various kinesthetic body transfer illusions. It’s possible, even, that mechanical controller devices might provide better control over a VR avatar that a true BCI, as suggested by present day video game players that have tried a wide range of available controls having found that more “realistic” controllers, such as pointing devices, are often inferior to joysticks or even buttons and keyboards, especially in competitive gameplay.

I agree with you on this piont, but I think the reason that the "pointing devices" cannont be used for compeditive gameplay more because the system reads their location/movements from a 2D view.

 

People see in 3D because the image from our left eye overlaps the image from our right eye. The result is being able to see around the side of the object, as well as the front. Modern devices like the X-Box kinect and Nintendo Wii, lack the over lapped vision that we have. They are not able to properly perceive our movements from the 2D veiw point.

 

Also they have a reaction time that is very noticable. Avatars are not able to move as fast as the players do, so the lagg/ping time make the gameplay seem "off".

[CaelesMessorem]

The showstopping problem with The Animus from Assassin’s Creed is that it assumes the memories of our ancestors are encoded in our DNA, which is known with nearly 100% certainty to be false.

 

The scientific hypothesis that characteristics acquired during an individual’s lifetime are passed to their descendants is called Lamarckism. The hypothesis, and the related idea of genetic memory, had some popularity in the 1800s through the mid 1900s, but with the discovery of DNA and its central role in genetics ca 1960 and the subsequent decades of increasingly detailed research, is now known simply not to be true, with the possible exception of animals like bacteria where their “memories” are, in a sense, genes.

 

The Animus machine can’t work, because what it’s supposed to read doesn’t exist.

 

Even if you didn’t know more about modern molecular biology and genetics than the size of the human genome, that alone should be enough to make you suspicious of the idea of there being vast amounts of information stored in it. The human genome has about 3,200,000,000 base pairs (which are base 4), equivalent to 800 MB, or about 1/32th of a storage capacity of a standard single-layer Blu-ray disk.

 

It’s difficult to estimate and describe the capacity of the human brain equivalent to some number of bytes, because it stores memories as complicated, weighted connections of its many (about 85,000,000,000) neurons. Many neuropsychologists have made estimates based on current best understanding of the brain, however, reaching the consensus that the brain can store about the equivalent of 2,500,000,000,000,000,000 bytes (2.5 TB). (source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity)

 

So the human brain stores about 3,000,000 times as much as the human genome.

 

The genome is a wonderfully great place to store the “blueprint” for building a body, including the brain, but far too small to store the information the brain stores. Assassin’s Creed is an fun video game series, but the science of its fictional back story is very bad.

 

By comparison, the science of Sword Art Online is soft and wrong in some key details, but not in principle impossible.

 

SAO is soft-SF. Assassin’s Creed is science fantasy.

 

   I didn't mean to imply the use of the animus in its entirety. If you look at some of the pictures in the link I gave, you'll see two in particular that are a slightly reclined chair with the device integrated into it, and another where it is only half of that aforementioned rig positioned on a rock (I played that particular game, so I know it was positioned on said rock so as to immitate the feeling of being in a chair). The reason I thought to use this as the archetype for a(n) FDVR device is not only because the devices positioned around the head seem to be reminiscent of the NerveGear, or more accurately, the AmuSphere, but it also looks like it has the ability to read spinal signals as well. Rather than choosing between a technology that either stops the signals from leaving the brain, or that leave the brain but are stopped at the spine, you can essentially use both at the same time. The head rig doing the reading/ writing, and the spine stopping and allowing any signals that somehow bypass the "signal blockade".

 

 

What I meant by

is that I think that normal people might be able to experience satisfying, immersive VR using nothing more than devices that exist today – position and orientation-sensing stereooptical headsets like the Oculus Rift, position-sensing haptic gloves, and maybe “virtual treadmills” like the Virtuix Omni.

 

The assumption that deeply immersive VR requires a true 2-directional brain–computer interface discounts, I think, how good we humans are at voluntarily “remapping” our senses and motor controls to produce various kinesthetic body transfer illusions. It’s possible, even, that mechanical controller devices might provide better control over a VR avatar that a true BCI, as suggested by present day video game players that have tried a wide range of available controls having found that more “realistic” controllers, such as pointing devices, are often inferior to joysticks or even buttons and keyboards, especially in competitive gameplay.

 

I also think the assumed need for a BCI for VR overlooks psychological theory and evidence that people may prefer a system that provides a constantly perceivable separation between themselves and the VR environment to one that nearly or completely eliminates it.

 

Perhaps we want to dive deeply into VR, but not too deeply.

 

I don’t intend any of my comments to suggest that BCIs are not worthy of research and development. Their potential benefit to people with disabilities is immense. I think every serious student of them should, though, consider the possibility that they might not be the ultimate interface for VR.

 

   I actually agree to some extent. Maybe with the advancement of position and orientation-tracking technology, we could work towards integrating it with hologram-like technology. The only problem is that at the beginning, were this method to work, it would be unrealistic as a general consumer product until the technology was greatly refined, to the point where the projections could be made with a single device and it could be easily installed in just about any room. (In theory)

[CaelesMessorem]

   It has been a while since I last posted, but I wanted to bring up another issue specific to the gaming aspect of VR.

 

   A large portion of those who are interested in FD (or similar) technology likely wish to enjoy a game with the same scale and freedoms seen in SAO, but even if sufficient technology were available allowing us to delve into a fully virtual environment, any game that would be available would likely not stack up. I personally play MMOs, RPGs/JRPGs, F/TPSs and various simulation games (such as DayZ, Life is Feudal, even Minecraft), and of any game I've ever played, seen or heard of, none have gotten quite to the scale that SAO/ ALO/ GGO were. I'm sure it's likely due to hardware restrictions and such, and many games are getting closer in size to be sure. However, being that the FD (or similar) device is meant to be multi-purpose, I believe working on projects related to theses other uses, not just the development of the device itself, are equally important to consider. Some things can even be worked on without the need of a completed VR device, such as games.

 

 It's important to remember that there is more to this new technology than the device itself. Just something to think about for those that may want to contribute in a different way.

Edited March 24, 2016 by CaelesMessorem

[KiritoSci]

Where is everyone?

 

Is everyone taking a break or something, if so do we have any time to give me a general idea of the current best solutions or whether it is being worked on because I am very interested in this idea? I feel kind of like this:

 

  

 

But hope to be more helpful and active.

[weamy]

Where is everyone?

 

Is everyone taking a break or something, if so do we have any time to give me a general idea of the current best solutions or whether it is being worked on because I am very interested in this idea? I feel kind of like this:

 

  

 

But hope to be more helpful and active.

 

Well, a lot of people here are students and have had exams recently so I suppose they'll be relaxing for a few days.

 

There's quite a lot of activity going on here so I would really recommend checking this out:

http://nervebcivr.slack.com/

 

I can PM you about what ideas we currently have about the NerveGear if you want.

 

This online course is very good if you want to learn neuroscience. It's a bit long though but I would recommend giving it a try:

https://www.mcb80x.org/lessons

[KiritoSci]

Well, a lot of people here are students and have had exams recently so I suppose they'll be relaxing for a few days.

 

There's quite a lot of activity going on here so I would really recommend checking this out:

http://nervebcivr.slack.com/

 

I can PM you about what ideas we currently have about the NerveGear if you want.

 

This online course is very good if you want to learn neuroscience. It's a bit long though but I would recommend giving it a try:

https://www.mcb80x.org/lessons

Thanks for this, although for nervebcivr.slack.com how do I find the correct stuff? Edited June 29, 2016 by KiritoSci

[weamy]

Thanks for this, although for nervebcivr.slack.com does how do I find the correct stuff?

Oops, sorry. Worng link. That's the link for logging in. Here's the one for signing up: http://bcivr.herokuapp.com/

 

You can PM me (I have the same username there as I do here) on Slack and I'll tell you how Slack works.

Edited June 29, 2016 by weamy

[CaelesMessorem]

Where is everyone?

 

Is everyone taking a break or something, if so do we have any time to give me a general idea of the current best solutions or whether it is being worked on because I am very interested in this idea? I feel kind of like this:

 

  

 

But hope to be more helpful and active.

   If you go to the original thread that started all this, and go waaaaaay back, you'll see that the people providing the most insight were or are now in college researching these topics. As such, not a lot of them have time to spare. They're around though.

[BrainJackers]

Yo, CraigD!

 

It looks like your idea (the nano-fiber one) is finally coming into reality! https://news.mit.edu/2017/multifunctional-tiny-fibers-brain-0221

I don't know if the fibers went through the skull though... Probably not as the fibers are not actually nano-sized but roughly the width of a human hair.

 

I didn't know where to post this, so I just posted it here.

 

--@weamy

Edited February 24, 2017 by BrainJackers