[FRIAM] Isness: Using Multi-Person VR to Design Peak Mystical-Type Experiences Comparable to Psychedelics

[glen]

Yeah, it's a common trope amongst video game haters, too ... something like the No True Scotsman fallacy. There was a thread on another forum extolling John Cleese's (like many an old white man's crusty mal-understanding of the world) suggestion that Wokeism is hurting "comedy". Just because old white men can't distinguish fantasy from reality doesn't mean kids can't. One of the more interesting things about, say, speed running a video game is trying to do it with different interfaces [⛧] ... similar to trying to brush your teeth with your off hand. We (anyone with a still plastic brain) can learn a "world" with one interface and translate that knowledge to a new interface. But what's more fantastic, that I think Dave can abide, is that one can also learn to swap out a multiplicity of "insides" while holding both the interface and the "outside" constant.

So a full parameter sweep runs orthogonally across the 3 axes:

• fix the inside, fix the interface, vary the outside
• fix the inside, vary the interface, fix the outside
• fix the inside, vary the interface, vary the outside
• vary the inside, fix the interface, fix the outside
• vary the inside, fix the interface, vary the outside
• vary the inside, vary the interface, fix the outside
• vary the inside, vary the interface, vary the outside

Of course, part of the point is that inside-interface and interface-outside aren't disjoint. I'm not sure I fully buy the behaviorists' rhetoric that it's a *continuum*. There could easily be a logical barrier in there somewhere, if only schematic. But attempts at the orthogonal sweep should help us see where the cross terms matter most.

[⛧] My black PS4 controller is terribly twitchy compared to my gold one. I died like 5 times getting my latest Dark Souls twink started. Pfft.

On 8/9/22 08:56, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> For quadriplegics, there would be loose wires to find and retrain.  One could imagine learning to run again without any risk of falling, and then swapping in the mechanized legs once training was done.  A simulator would need to capture rigid body physics, and terrain and handle I/O with the nervous system such that the host would feel as if they were standing, sitting, running, etc. even though it was virtualized.
>> On Aug 8, 2022, at 6:38 PM, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>> With VR your 'ordinary senses' are still functional and still sending signals to the brain—hence "simulator sickness" when your inner ears disagree with your eyes. Also, the fact that your brain still has access to "normal" data, it tends to interpolate and interpret the sensory data from the VR apparatus and the experience is always a hybrid.
>>
>> Some absolutely fascinating—but totally non-respectable—research was done on virtual sex, including 'body suits' with paired sensors and effectors, olfactory stimuli, and taste to augment the visual inputs. Sex they got, but lust and arousal eluded them.
>>
>> None of that conflict exists with hallucinogens.
>>
>> It is a huge mistake to study hallucinogens with an exclusive brain focus. Some of the most interesting work I say in Amsterdam involved attempts to track the effects throughout the body. This would suggest that even a direct silicon-neuron connection would still fall short and the Matrix notion is not achievable.
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>> On Mon, Aug 8, 2022, at 8:30 AM, glen wrote:
>>> Here's the SMMRY if anyone's troubled by a paywall:
>>>
>>> https://smmry.com/https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/06/1056727/vr-virtual-reality-psychedelics-transcendence/#&SM_LENGTH=7
>>> wrote:
>>>> She adds, "There's definitely differences between what a psychedelic experience feels like and what virtual reality feels like." Because of this, she appreciates that Isness-D charts a new path to transcendence instead of just mimicking one that existed already.
>>>>
>>>> More research is needed on the enduring effects of an Isness-D experience and whether virtual reality, in general, can induce benefits similar to psychedelics.
>>>>
>>>> The dominant theory on how psychedelics improve clinical outcomes is that their effect is driven by both the subjective experience of a trip and the drug's neurochemical effect on the brain.
>>>>
>>>> VR is better at inducing awe than regular video, so Isness-D might similarly dial it down.
>>>>
>>>> The startup sells a shortened version of Isness-D to companies for virtual wellness retreats, and provides a similar experience called Ripple to help patients, their families, and their caregivers cope with terminal illness.
>>>>
>>>> A coauthor of the paper describing Isness-D is even piloting it in couples and family therapy.
>>>>
>>>> For one phase of my Isness-D experience, moving created a brief electric trail that marked where I'd just been.
>>>
>>> I've been tempted by Steam's device:
>>> https://store.steampowered.com/vrhardware/. But it hasn't been a
>>> priority.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 8/8/22 07:05, Roger Critchlow wrote:
>>>> https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.00940 <https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.00940>
>>>>
>>>> This must be on some topic around here.
>>>>
>>>> Originally picked up from https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/06/1056727/vr-virtual-reality-psychedelics-transcendence/ <https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/06/1056727/vr-virtual-reality-psychedelics-transcendence/>, which is paywalled.
>>>>
>>>> The original arxiv posting is 20 years old, but the work was just published inh
>>>>
>>>> CHI 2020: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems


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