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Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality
Image from Anders Sandberg

[noun] 1 / virtual reality, any digital space or environment
2/ a virtual reality entertainment, often immersive and interactive.

[verb] to interact with or exist or function in virtual reality. Also known as VR and Virch.

A virtual reality environment provides a convincing replacement for the visual, auditory, tactile, and other senses, including senses with no ril equivalent. Initially (early Information Age ), virtual reality required the use of special helmets to provide the visual and auditory environments (crude contemporary systems may still require this). By the middle Information Age, virtual reality could be provided by ubiquitous contact-lens-based systems and implanted retinal-imaging devices, as well as comparable devices for auditory "imaging". By the early Interplanetary Age, virtual reality was commonly provided by direct stimulation of nerve pathways using neural implants.

This term was originally coined back before the earth Technocalypse apparently to represent the then-valid dichotomy between 'imaginary' experiences drawn from electronic entertainment (well before the development of virches, which term has a similar provenance), as compared to an experience of the flesh, without electronic interpretation. This term has since morphed into the more common definition of a non-personally shared experience - a memcording, a sim virch, etc, as compared to a personal experience such as a full interactive virch, a physical interaction, etc.

An entire empire, the Cyberian Network, developed out of the Information and Interplanetary Age networks; it is in fact the earliest of the empires, and the only one (unless one considers the NoCoZo in the broad context of Free Zones) that can trace its roots back to the pre-Technocalypse era.

Compare with RL (Real Life) and Augmented Reality, which is not cut off from the non-virtual world

 
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Appears in Topics
CommunicationsEnvirotechEverydaytech
High Tech / HitechMiddle Tech / MidtechVirtual
Virtual/Infotech
 
Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Initially published on 12 December 2001.

updated October 2019 by Arik
 
 
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