The Exciting Prospect Of Virtual Reality Computer Games

The Exciting Prospect Of Virtual Reality Computer Games

You may have come across the phrase either in gaming forums of in science fiction, but exactly what is meant by virtual reality, what is it, and does it present us with any possible benefits or advantages in the future?

This phrase can be answered by either simply looking at the technology currently used, and understanding the basics of how it works, and what it tries to achieve. The more complex way of looking at this concept is by firstly asking what we understand by the word reality, before we try understanding the idea of an alternate, virtual version of reality.

Basically, if we understand the idea of reality to be the sum of all of the sensory inputs our brain receives, virtual reality is the use of technology to replace as many of those sensory inputs as possible with computer generated ones, to fool the brain into believing in a world which is false, and which only exists within the brain of the computer.

The most common form of virtual reality is one where the user wears a visor which wraps entirely round their normal field of vision. The computer then projects or displays a visual three dimensional world onto the inside f this visor, entirely replacing what the user would normally see with a computer generated view. The clever part of this is that the visor has a number of motion sensors built in to it, so that if the user turns their head, tilts their head, or moves their body entirely, the display inside the projector will move to match the user’s movement, creating the illusion of the user actually moving around within this three dimensional world of the computer’s.

Taking this idea further, the world may contain a number of objects, such as furniture, doors, objects that can be picked up and examined. By wearing special gloves which have a whole range of sensors built in to them, the computer can track the position, movement and actions of the user’s hands, and work out whether they would be touching anything, and if so, how the objects would react. Would they be being picked up, turned, knocked over and so forth?

By adding audio as well, the user can be very immersed within this world, and with advancing technologies making greater and more realistic computer generated scenes, the user can very easily start to believe in this virtual world, or reality.

One way in which this technology is an exciting area for development is within computer and video games, and already we are starting to see early developments of this with basic visors, and hand controls which are motion sensitive. Eventually we may well all find ourselves entering an alternative reality in which to play our games, which would make chase scenes, fights and cliff top adventures even more breath taking!

God The Game Master — Verses Virtual Reality

God The Game Master — Verses Virtual Reality

Please feel free to use this article as long as credit is given to the resource box.
© Copyright Arthur Levine, 2009
Words: 1356

I am going stir crazy pacing up and down in my home, with nothing to do, waiting for the scars on my face to heal from my attempted suicide at Harvard as a result of my breakup with the former love of my life, Alice. Tossing around in my bed late one night, unable to sleep, the thought struck me, maybe none of the stuff that happened to me with Alice or trying to commit suicide at Harvard was real.

I sat bolt upright in bed. I felt alive again. I had a new purpose in life. I started thinking how some super genius might have constructed my whole world. Maybe this was a virtual reality world I lived in – not the real thing. Maybe everything that was happening wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t stop thinking. Finally, I had something to occupy myself with, and take my mind off my problems. I decided to put my genius brain to work proving my new theory was correct.

I had to know who had constructed the virtual reality world I fancied I lived in to prove to myself that this was the fact. I had to decide why someone or something had gone to all this trouble and why. I decided to call this alien force the Game Master, calling on my broad knowledge of video computer games.

Figuring out how to create a virtual world was another matter. Then the thought crossed my mind: The Game Master must have used some version of what we know as quantum computing. That’s the only way he could have done this, but why? Was he really what we have come to believe in as God or just some time and space traveler creating a game for his or her own enjoyment? And what about my concept of Dialectic Materialism? How does this virtual world concept fit in with my religious theories? The more I thought, the more confused I got.

Thinking about the concept of a virtual reality world caused more ideas to pop into my head. Hundreds of questions started streaming into my mind – some conscious, some not. I couldn’t stop thinking about this. Now I was glad I had plenty of time. I spent most of the summer in my room attempting to replicate what this genius Game Master must have done. What better use could I make of my time. Wonder if they are real? The task before me was almost inconceivable, but I wouldn’t stop. I was a genius too. I should be able to replicate this program, but trying to implement the concept was an unbelievably daunting task. How am I ever going to figure this out?

How to recreate the senses of sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, and combine these with cognitive capabilities, emotional context, and real time responses was mind boggling. How had the Game Master done all this with the use of artificial intelligence, and still made everything so real? What was his motive? Where did he obtain the historical knowledge base necessary to do a project of this nature, and most important – how did he know how to populate this virtual reality world?

Where did the people come from? Who chose the races and the animals? Who created the scenarios we all play out? Was any of this possible? Was I just letting my over active imagination compensate for my human shortcomings? Was I giving my wild imagination too much credit for the ability to discern fact from fiction? Why approach the problem using Quantum computing? How else could I hope to recreate a virtual reality world? Quantum computing is the only application I can think of advanced enough to do the job of creating all the variables and all the randomness necessary to pass for reality.

I poured over information gleaned from the Internet through Google to try and form an understanding of Quantum computing and how the application could be used to create what was now my virtual reality world.  Even with my genius mind, the concept was almost impossible