If our world is virtual reality, then what? The world we live in is virtual reality.

Development information technology led to something that the science fiction writers of the last century could hardly have guessed: in parallel with the real world, the virtual world will appear and gain strength. But so far, few people know about the existence of a parallel universe with its own population, laws, history and even economy.

Virtual reality (from lat. virtus- potential, possible and realis - actual, existing; English, virtual reality- VR) is a world created by technical means and transmitted to a person through his sensations familiar to the perception of the material world.

The virtual world would not be what it is today without the Internet. It started small - with the desire to communicate. As is known, good communication is facilitated by a pleasant environment. First, various graphic elements began to appear in chats and forums, avatars - the embodiment of interlocutors in the form of pictures. It was even possible to get an idea of ​​the emotional state of the interlocutor, which was facilitated by the famous Internet emoticons. Then chats began to acquire the properties of mail systems - as we see in the example of the famous Internet pager ICQ. Messengers (messaging programs), such as NetMeeting or Yahoo Messenger, are beginning to appear, where you can communicate with your interlocutors through a microphone and speakers connected to a computer. And then the desire to bring communication on the Internet closer to communication in the real world prompted us to bring attributes to the chat real life. With the advent and development of 3D modeling tools, the virtual worlds sector began to develop. The virtual world can no longer be called just a chat. It's more of a synthesis of chat, a 3D computer game, and in some cases postal system and voice messenger. Give your interlocutor's avatar attributes real person or any other creature is a long-standing dream of the creators of Internet communication tools. Now, having entered some virtual world, you can talk with a person, seeing his three-dimensional virtual embodiment on the monitor screen, while he can walk next to you and gesticulate. You also have freedom - walk around the world, look around, communicate with other residents.

So, virtuality absorbs the signs of reality and tries to surpass it. At the same time, the virtual world is clearly not a place where you can just chat with someone. What should be the attitude towards the virtual world? And if it exists, how can it be used?

The first and still main direction of development and application of virtual reality is game worlds. We will not dwell on this obvious side of their use. Let's consider more serious things.

Sean Kehl, who promotes new technologies at Intel Labs, says that a new technology is being formed that will one day change the way we interact with people. electronic devices, and people with each other. “I think people’s lives will change significantly. Evaluate the trends of recent decades - how quickly computers, the Internet and mobile devices. Despite the availability of all this technology, we are just beginning to master it. Now we are making it smarter and more powerful. If we add three-dimensional virtual worlds to this, the nature of the use of information technology will change significantly,” says Kehl.

Of all the innovative technology projects being developed by Intel Labs, the most exciting for Kael is 3D technology and how it will change the way people interact with information presented online. “The Internet will probably never become fully three-dimensional, since there are some areas in which people would remain two-dimensional, such as reading texts. In modern virtual worlds, the graphics leave much to be desired, but once we achieve a certain level of operational efficiency, the realism of 3D environments and their number will begin to grow rapidly. In terms of realism, they will resemble the computer graphics of modern Hollywood films and will be available in ten years,” says Kael.

Dan Olds, an analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group, says the 3D Internet could change the way we use it: “The advent of the 3D Internet, with its ability to display people and places in ultra-realistic ways, is poised to change the way we think about the global web. We are likely to attend virtual events more often than real ones. Entertainment will also undergo revolutionary changes. Why go to a sporting event, say a football match, when you can watch it in 3D via the Internet and be anywhere in the stadium?

As a matter of fact, a person could, quite easily, get into the world of virtual reality before, for example, by immersing himself in the contemplation of a painting, a movie, or simply enthusiastically reading a book. However, in all such cases, a person’s activity was limited to his position as a spectator or reader, or listener; he himself could not join in the action as an active character. VR systems provide completely different opportunities: to get involved in the action, often not only in a conventional space and world, but also in what seems to be quite real, at least from the point of view of human perception. All this, apparently, predetermined the boom in demand for new information technologies and their corresponding rapid development.

And so... Musicians practice their technique on virtual instruments without disturbing others. Coming soon is a surgical simulator for operating on a ghost patient with ghost instruments. Novice doctors will be able to practice the technique not in theory and not on a cold corpse, but on a “living” body, the skin and internal organs of which react to every movement of the scalpel, even bleeding appears. The instruments are presented by a virtual nurse, and next to operating table there is no less a virtual doctor-instructor who comments on the progress of the operation and gives instructions and advice... So far, all this is perceived with a smile. Virtual worlds may look like toys for weirdos, but they are quietly making their way into our daily lives. Company " Second Life” reports that in the last two months of 2009, 1.2 million users spent a total of more than 65 million hours in the virtual world. If this is all so serious, let's look at what the virtual world means if we don't look at it as a toy.

Virtual worlds and business. Today, virtual worlds are Internet services, using which companies can ensure their presence in the virtual world and use it at their discretion. There are many virtual worlds, let's try to name those that are of interest to business - these are Second Life, HipiHi, ActiveWorlds, Qwaq, Vollee. Some providers provide services that enhance the capabilities of virtual worlds. Examples include Vivox, which provides voice over IP (VoIP) for Second Life and Vollee.

Most companies that have appreciated the promise of virtual worlds still use them only to create information representations, just as they did when they were just mastering the Internet and ordering websites. At the same time, riskier newcomers, not burdened with real capital, are trying to make fortunes in virtual worlds, believing that those who stood at the foundations and saw the potential of the virtual universe in time will be able to earn more.

The rapidly growing “population” of the virtual world represents an attractive audience for advertising, marketing, business-to-business communication, even diplomatic relations. For example, the Maldives was the first to open an embassy in the Second Life world, where visitors can ask an animated ambassador about visas, clarify trade rules, or talk about the country’s economic development. Not only that, but the World Economic Forum is also using Second Life as a way to expand its audience. It is not surprising that many real companies such as Reuters or MTV from the field of media mass media, automakers Mazda and Pontiac, as well as high-tech companies Cisco, Dell and IBM, opened their virtual news channels and offices in the world of Second Life. They use applications there to advertise and sell products, educate users, and communicate with consumers and business partners. One of the BBC radio stations has rented a virtual island that will be used for concerts. The world of Second Life has already hosted the first “live” concert of American folk singer Susan Vega.

The world of Second Life has its own currency - Lindens, which can be exchanged for real money and back. Available there huge amount shops, agencies, bars, clubs for every taste. Every day in Second Life, goods and services totaling more than 400 thousand real dollars are sold.

Does using virtual worlds help you save money? According to a Parks Associates study, companies spent $15 million on advertising in American virtual spaces in 2006. By 2012, experts expect this figure to increase 10 times. The cost of virtual space from developers is approximately 10 thousand dollars.

World-famous banks have also become interested in the promising virtual economy. The first bank to appear in the virtual world was North American Wells Fargo. Later, the European ABN Amro followed suit, and ING Direct created an entire country in Second Life called “Our Virtual Holland.”

Virtual worlds are becoming more commonplace in life modern companies: Many businessmen already use them for meetings, recruitment and other organizational activities.

For example, IBM in 2008 hired about 20 thousand people living in the most different countries peace. It was virtual worlds that became the “secret” tool that helped newcomers join the team and overcome national and cultural barriers. These worlds allowed employees to interact virtually on personal level using 3D technologies, create a virtual workspace necessary for practicing presentations, methods corporate work and so on. IBM also uses virtual spaces for staff training.

As more and more corporations become global, employees spend a lot of time and money on travel. Therefore, online meetings are super beneficial for business. And paradoxically, virtual 3D worlds, which still seem like something futuristic, can become more in a convenient way holding online meetings for businessmen than regular services for web conferencing. After all, many businessmen and office workers love to play computer games, and a full-fledged simulation of a meeting is more intuitively understandable to the brain than a regular screen, which (supposedly) is seen by other meeting participants (as happens in a regular service).

It is enough to attend such a virtual meeting once to understand that this is something impressive and promising. In virtual space you are represented by your three-dimensional model - the 3D avatar. You can walk around the office, listen to a speaker, communicate with others via chat or VoIP, watch a presentation, watch a video, or just gaze around with a controlled flying camera. You can instantly teleport from one room to another or teleport your listeners. You can even gesture to make yourself better understood.

At companies like Sun Microsystems, more than 50% of employees today work outside of traditional offices and outside regular schedules. That's why virtual reality Helps colleagues establish close connections with each other. “It's difficult to maintain a shared company culture if employees are scattered all over the world,” admits Nicole Yankelovich of Sun Labs. However, according to the expert, virtual worlds make it possible to “bring together” a company and build a common corporate culture.

Unilever uses Second Life to help employees interact on a regular basis and reduce travel costs. The concern created its own small “private” world inside Second Life - precisely in order to improve the interaction of various divisions of the company scattered around the world. “It might not be possible or expensive to meet with everyone in person, but now they all have a private virtual space in Second Life that they can use for both work and socializing,” says Chris Turner, head of technology. Unilever IT.

As employees increasingly gather in the same room in today's distributed organization, they are unable to engage in the “casual” conversations that are essential to sharing experiences. Dave Elchoness, a former outsourcing executive at Qwest and now chairman of the Association of Virtual Worlds, calls it the “global lobby”: “We know that the most important work is not done in meetings or meetings. A chance meeting in the lobby or a conversation with a colleague stopping by along the way allows you to exchange valuable ideas and move your work forward.” Virtual worlds can help organizations create conditions for such contacts. In addition, they can be used to view and process information collected various applications. For example, Crown Plaza allows employees to hold virtual meetings on Second Life. The walls of the rooms in which they occur can be used for display streaming audio, videos or presentations.

An important area of ​​application of virtual technologies is medicine and psychotechnics. Already now, psychotherapists are developing projects for using virtual realities for a healing effect on the consciousness and subconscious of their patients or in order to recreate situations that could lead to certain injuries. Such worlds are a kind of mixture of games and social interaction, where each participant can carefully customize their profile (personality) so that it fully satisfies the tastes and preferences of the owner and helps him start communicating with other participants and building relationships. Colorful virtual worlds, interactive 3D landscapes - all this allows children to experience the charm of such spaces through their computers, reinforcing and developing their imagination, teaching them the correct reactions in real life. It is convenient to transfer to virtual worlds those trainings that in reality are fraught with risk. In particular, within the framework of the program to combat bioterrorism at the University of Idaho (USA), the Play2Train system is being created, which will allow preparing for emergency situations and conducting exercises without compromising the health of participants.

Another area of ​​using virtual realities is art. Next in line, though not in the near future, are “virtual cinema”, “virtual exhibitions”, “virtual theatre”.

Architect Ion Brohud used Second Life several years ago to help clients of his small company, Crescendo Design, get an idea of ​​the homes they were commissioning. They could virtually “walk” through them, “paint” the walls in different colors, pick up different types finishing materials, try furniture different styles, “fit” houses into the landscape in different ways. The architect also entered into virtual discussions with builders and collaborated with the client.

What car manufacturer would post 2D pictures of their cars on their website when they could offer customers a virtual drive of their car on a mountain road? What sculptor wants to show everyone 2D photographs of his work when he can invite all collectors to virtual tour through a beautiful garden with 3D sculptures?

Other worlds. Among virtual worlds, some of their varieties are distinguished. It is necessary to note their features.

Mirror worlds. If virtual worlds combine artificial reality with action specific person, then mirror worlds create a combination of the real world (external representation) with cartography, modeling, location determination and other technologies (simulation).

Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth are examples of developed mirror worlds that combine the achievements of cartography, space and ground photography. Microsoft announced sponsorship scientific research in the field of converting cartographic data into maps is very high resolution in real time.

An example of the simplest mirror world is the project of St. Petersburg University. The declared goal of the project is the inclusion of St. Petersburg in the world scientific and educational cyberspace through the representation of higher educational institutions St. Petersburg and their educational and scientific resources using virtual world technology and delivery to various categories of users via CDs and the Internet. Its main result was interactive map city, indicating the location of universities participating in the project and providing access to their resources.

Conditional worlds. It is not at all necessary to try to strictly model the real world and human sensations in it in order to effectively solve many problems. This circumstance, as well as the difficulties that arise when simulating ordinary reality, prompted researchers to another solution - to create virtual worlds that would act as diagrams or models in relation to the ordinary world. Such virtual realities are called conditional.

Augmented reality augmented reality)- this is a phenomenon related to artificial reality, which consists in adding imaginary objects, usually of an auxiliary and informative property, to the sensations coming from the real world. A famous example additional reality can serve as helmet-mounted target designation in fighter aircraft such as the Su-27. Probably, someday the news will be told to you by an avatar announcer sitting on your sofa in the corner of the room.

In conclusion of the conversation about virtual worlds, it should be noted that this phenomenon is very controversial, primarily from a psychological point of view. Virtual worlds are technologies that bring not only benefits. For example, everyone notes the danger associated with virtual realities - will they be used to manipulate human consciousness? Indeed, immersing a person in the world of virtual reality makes it possible to impose on him certain ways existences needed by the manipulator. But doesn't a television announcer or a book create the same effect?

Humanity today has become so immersed in high technology and virtual reality that the first assumptions have appeared (not from ordinary people, but from famous physicists and cosmologists) that our Universe is not reality, but just a giant simulation of reality. Should we think about this seriously, or should we perceive such messages as just another plot of a science fiction film?

Are you real? What about me?

Once upon a time these were purely philosophical questions. Scientists were simply trying to figure out how the world works. But now the requests from inquisitive minds have gone to a different plane. A number of physicists, cosmologists and technologists console themselves with the idea that we all live inside a giant computer model, being nothing more than part of the matrix. It turns out that we exist in a virtual world, which we mistakenly consider to be real.

Our instincts, of course, rebel. This is all too real to be a simulation. The weight of the cup in my hand, the aroma of the coffee, the sounds around me - how can you fake such a richness of experience?

But at the same time, there has been extraordinary progress in the field of computer science and information technology over the past few decades. Computers have given us games with uncanny realism, with autonomous characters that react to our actions. And we involuntarily plunge into virtual reality - a kind of simulator with enormous power of persuasion.

This is enough to make a person paranoid.

In life - like in the movies

The idea of ​​the virtual world as a human habitat was presented to us with unprecedented clarity by the Hollywood blockbuster “The Matrix.” In this story, people are so trapped in the virtual world that they perceive it as reality. The sci-fi nightmare - the prospect of being trapped in a universe born in our minds - can be traced further, for example, in David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983) and Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985).

All these dystopias have raised a number of questions: what is true and what is fiction? Are we living in a delusion, or is the delusion a virtual Universe, the idea of ​​which is being imposed by paranoid scientists?

In June 2016, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk said the odds are "a billion to one" against us living in "base reality."

Guru follows him artificial intelligence Ray Kurzweil suggested that "maybe our entire Universe is a science experiment by some young high school student from another Universe."

By the way, some physicists are ready to consider this possibility. In April 2016, the issue was discussed at the American Museum natural history in New York.

Proof?

Proponents of the idea of ​​a virtual universe give at least two arguments in favor of the fact that we cannot live in the real world. Thus, cosmologist Alan Guth suggests that our Universe may be real, but so far something like laboratory experiment. The idea is that it was created by some kind of superintelligence, similar to how biologists grow colonies of microorganisms.

In principle, there is nothing that rules out the possibility of “manufacturing” the universe with an artificial Big Bang, says Guth. At the same time, the Universe in which the new one was born was not destroyed. It was simply that a new “bubble” of space-time was created, which was possible to pinch off from the mother universe and lose contact with it. This scenario could have some variations. For example, the Universe could have been born in some equivalent of a test tube.

However, there is a second scenario that can nullify all our understanding of reality.

It lies in the fact that we are completely simulated creatures. We may be nothing more than strings of information manipulated by a giant computer program, like characters in a video game. Even our brains are imitated and respond to imitated sensory inputs.

From this point of view, there is no "escape from" matrix. This is where we live, and this is our only chance to "live" at all.

But why believe in such a possibility?

The argument is quite simple: we have already done the modeling. We carry out computer simulation not only in games, but also in scientific research. Scientists are trying to model aspects of the world at different levels - from the subatomic to entire societies or galaxies.

For example, computer modeling of animals can tell how they develop and what forms of behavior they have. Other simulations help us understand how planets, stars and galaxies form.

We can also imitate human society with the help of fairly simple “agents” who make choices according to certain rules. This gives us an understanding of how cooperation occurs between people and companies, how cities develop, how rules function traffic and economics, and much more.

These models are becoming increasingly complex. Who's to say we can't create virtual beings that show signs of consciousness? Advances in understanding the functions of the brain, as well as extensive quantum computing, make this prospect increasingly likely.

If we ever reach this level, we will have a huge number of models working for us. There will be many more of them than the inhabitants of the “real” world around us.

And why can't we assume that some other intelligence in the Universe has already reached this point?

The idea of ​​the multiverse

No one denies the existence of many universes formed in the same way as the Big Bang. However parallel universes is a rather speculative idea, suggesting that our Universe is just a model whose parameters have been modified to give interesting results, such as stars, galaxies and people.

Now we get to the heart of the matter. If reality is just information, then we cannot be "real", information is all we can be. And does it make a difference whether this information was programmed by nature or by a super-smart creator? Apparently, in any case, our authors can, in principle, interfere with the simulation results or even “turn off” the process. How should we approach this?

And yet let's return to our reality

Of course, we love cosmologist Kurzweil's joke about that brilliant teenager from another universe who programmed our world. And most adherents of the idea of ​​virtual reality proceed from the fact that now is the 21st century, we are making computer games, and it is not a fact that someone is not making superbeings.

There is no doubt that many proponents of "total simulation" are avid fans of science fiction films. But we know deep down that the concept of reality is what we experience and not some hypothetical world.

Old as time

Today is the age of high technology. However, philosophers have struggled with questions of reality and unreality for centuries.

Plato wondered: what if what we perceive as reality are just shadows projected onto the walls of a cave? Immanuel Kant argued that the world around us can be some kind of “thing in itself”, which underlies the appearances we perceive. René Descartes, with his famous phrase “I think, therefore I am,” proved that the ability to think is the only significant criterion of existence that we can attest to.

The concept of a "simulated world" takes this ancient philosophical idea as its basis. There's no harm in the latest technologies and hypotheses. Like many philosophical mysteries, they challenge us to reconsider our assumptions and preconceptions.

But so far no one can prove that we exist only virtually, no newest ideas do not change our understanding of reality to a significant degree.

In the early 1700s, philosopher George Berkeley argued that the world is simply an illusion. In response to this, the English writer Samuel Johnson exclaimed: “I refute it like this!” - and kicked a stone.

"Wake up, Neo... You're stuck in the Matrix..."- I am sure that most of our readers remember exactly these words when it comes to virtual reality, which in reality surrounds us all, young and old.

But world history knows far more than just this one example of reflection on the unrealistic nature of everything around him.

For example, Peter Watts in his novel False Blindness emphasizes that “we have never been able to prove to ourselves that reality exists”.

What is happening around us is an illusion.

We decided to figure it out Why do such thoughts even arise?.

Where did the thoughts about virtual reality come from?

We didn’t start thinking about the virtual reality that surrounds us yesterday, or even in the last century or the century before last - much earlier.

With the advent of Hinduism thousands of years ago, the so-called "veil of Maya"- goddess of deception. And this same religion believes that “We are all just dreams of Buddha”.

At the end of the 16th century, Rene Descartes speculated that there was some evil genius who made us think that everything around us was real. physical world. In fact, he only created a simulation, according to which he skillfully set traps.

Previously, people perceived the world as an illusion due to a lack of knowledge and technology, today - due to excess.

A striking modern example is the 2010 film Inception directed by Christopher Nolan. In it, the main character, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, masterfully penetrates dreams even several levels deep. And them the line with reality is gradually erased.

Last year, a popular Western magazine New Yorker wrote that the entire Silicon Valley today is preoccupied with the idea that the world around us is unrealistic. And a couple of IT billionaires have already managed to finance research to save humanity from the Matrix.

The development of virtual reality is experiencing a real boom today. And the first realistic simulation of the world may very soon be presented by Mark Zuckerberg together with Facebook and technology Oculus Rift. But this may already be a simulation within a simulation...

The famous philosopher and transhumanist Nick Bostrom published the work “Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?” in 2003. Within its framework, he suggested that our world is a virtual reality, which was invented by some advanced civilization.

IN in this case he operates with structure and work human brain which resembles a computer - set electrical impulses and here it continuously moves between points.

Nick suggested that something similar could be created at a certain stage of technology development without reference to a biological organism. Simple enough complex program, which emulates the historical development of our species.

“We and the whole world that we see, hear and feel exist inside a computer built by an advanced civilization” (Nick Bostrom)

Over the entire history of the planet, about 100 billion people lived on it, and each person’s brain on average processed a little more than 100 bits of information per second.

And to work all this together with the processes in the universe, you will need a computer that can move 1090 bits of data per second. It would be very powerful system, which in 2017 was undreamed of even by the military.

But, if you believe Moore's law, which states that computing power while maintaining dimensions, it doubles every two years, similar productivity humanity will be able to achieve in a couple of centuries. Therefore everything is real.

We know practically nothing about the world around us

Modern science believes that 99% of the Universe consists of some kind of emptiness, which is also called dark energy or dark matter.

They are called “dark” not because there is not enough light in them, but because modern science has practically no data about them. In other words, we cannot say anything about the universe with any certainty.

Interestingly, the structure of the same human brain, as well as the atoms from which, as we believe, consists of everything around, is similar to the Universe. The same structure unknown to us.

We only know 1% of the Universe, the human brain and atoms, so we cannot say 100% that they are real.

Scientists are trying with all their might to prove that we really live in the real world - we must master grants in all possible and impossible ways.

For example, Craig Hogan created a special holometer that confirmed that everything around us is definitely not a two-dimensional hologram that consists of individual pixels. Well done.

However, all this still does not give a clear picture of the space around us. We simply cannot see, touch or smell most of the world around us.

We independently invent the reality around us

In almost every study on a similar topic that our fellow journalists have done before, there is mention of Plato and his “myth of the Cave.” I decided not to break tradition, especially since it comes in very handy in my thoughts.

The famous philosopher compares people as a species to prisoners in a tiny cave with a small opening into the world, through which you can observe what is happening around.

It is so small that in most cases humanity can only see shadows. But who they belong to - this can only be assumed with the help of your boundless imagination.

Most of the information about the world around us is an invention of our inquisitive brain, nothing more.

Even our dreams seem real to us when we are inside them. That's why there is no greater crook in this world than we ourselves - we are shamelessly deceived by our own brain.

An unknown scientist, as part of the “Brains in a Flask” thought experiment, once suggested that if you pull the brain out of the skull, connect wires to it and send special electrical impulses, its owner will think that he is alive.

Approximately the same principle is described by the same “Matrix”. Only the screenwriters of this film went a little further. In addition to electrical impulses, they also preserved the biological capsule for the life of the brain - the human body.

Where is the exit from the Matrix? And how deep is the rabbit hole?

Almost all of us think that we have the most direct connection with the material world, but this is just an illusion that our brain creates.

Without a twinge of conscience, he gives us models of the material world, combining signals coming from the senses and our expectations - all this we recognize as the world around us.

If you multiply all this by our misunderstanding of the world, add here the similarity of our brain with a computer is far from the most high power(By at least, for the near future), it turns out that we may well live in a simple simulation.

“Either we create reality-like simulators, or civilization will perish” (Elon Musk)

The quote above is the answer to the question of whether this is good or bad. The founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, is confident that we it would be even better, if all the talk about the virtual reality that surrounds us were true.

And the whole point is that modern world is filled with a wide variety of dangers that await us at every corner: the uncontrolled development of artificial intelligence, threats from space, overpopulation, and so on.

Therefore, we can only believe that one day our brains will be loaded into a special compartment of some kind of space Ark, connected to a computer simulation and sent in search of a new home. Maybe she will new life. Maybe it already has.

About 10 years ago, the idea came up to create a game in which all interaction between people would take place in the virtual world. The new game is called Second Life. It was created by Linden Lab, a company founded by Philip Rosedale. The game gained popularity as people became interested in trying it out for themselves. new uniform social interaction. However, her rapid success was short-lived. In 2010, the population of the virtual world had decreased significantly and was about half its previous size (previously it was 88,000 active users).

Real and virtual

But the high-tech sphere does not stand still, and the virtual space increasingly resembles the real one, and the effect of presence arises. In the wake of this trend, another Rosedale company, High Fidelity, began developing new game based on Second Life. But how does virtual reality affect the development of our society? Here's what Rosedale himself had to say about it:

“If you take a closer look at the game Second Life, you will understand that it is already influencing the development of society. The game shows us that our desire for mutually beneficial interaction in business has no boundaries. I am also convinced that the virtual world can help resolve some conflicts and prevent wars in the real world. There are countless examples of people from different cultures and backgrounds who do not find common language V ordinary life, successfully interact in virtual reality. This interaction helps them get closer in reality. I think this is a really great achievement. Virtual reality helps to erase differences between people.”

In addition, virtual worlds undergo significant changes as they grow in size. A city with a population of 1,000 users is very different from a virtual metropolis with a million people. Virtual worlds are growing larger and more detailed, opening up more and more opportunities for users to interact. This process is inevitable. And this means that we cannot even imagine how different these worlds will be from those already created.

For example, if we connect all the computers in the world using broadband Internet, we will get a virtual reality the size of Globe. Any of us will be able to fly around it entirely, climb into some unexplored cave in Siberia and carve our name on its stone wall. After 10 years, the user can return to the same cave and find that his inscription is still there.

Will we ever be able to create a virtual Galaxy?

Someday in the future, we will perceive the Earth as something very small - as the place where everything began. But this place will no longer have anything to do with our evolution, invention, exploration and communication. Our entire existence will be contained in a computer. In other words, the computer will contain a virtual world that will be so detailed that it will not be limited to just copying the Earth.

Virtual reality will be able to become a reflection of the human brain and everything that happens in our body, down to the smallest atom. Our life will be perceived as exclusively virtual. The real world will become for us something like a museum, to which it will be pleasant to return again and again to enjoy the masterpieces of the past.

How will we be able to connect to our virtual worlds?

Surprisingly, the MacBook actually achieved what... Apple called "retina". This means that the image contains so many pixels that our eyes can no longer distinguish them. They are too small for visual perception - our brain has developed to such a state that it needs exactly this amount of information and no more.

In 5-6 years, a new version of the Oculus Rift (virtual reality glasses) will display fully immersive images. The picture will be so real that it will be no different from the images of the real world. But this will only be a transitional period, since in the future we will wear small glasses that can show us an entire movie if we want it.

With the help of these glasses, we will be able to see our friends sitting at the same table with us, although they will be in completely different places. These glasses can replace desktop computers. We will no longer need monitor screens as we will be surrounded by them. An impressive prospect, isn't it?

How to make avatars in the virtual world more like real people?

There are several ways to do this. This is what most game developers work on. If you look into the laboratory of game creators, you might be very surprised. The developers study in detail the physics of human movements to make the avatar’s movements more similar to real ones.

The next step for developers will be to create a special device that will be placed on a person’s head and track the direction of gaze, as well as the movements of the eyeballs. We all know that eye contact and meaningful glances are very important things.

Another area of ​​research is the study of facial expressions and gestures. There have already been several experiments aimed at capturing how emotions are displayed on our faces.

How will the possibility of existing in virtual worlds affect the course of evolution?

In this respect, virtual worlds are related to artificial intelligence. We live in a time when the idea of ​​prototyping our way of thinking using a computer is becoming more and more achievable. This process will lead to significant changes.

The fact is that computers are becoming more and more advanced, but our brains are not. Therefore, after the creation of artificial intelligence, computers will become smarter than us. In the process of these changes, humanity may fade into the background, so to speak. In the future, people will be faced with a choice: to continue their existence in the real world or to delve into a virtual reality populated by characters who are different from us and intellectually superior to us.

Humanity will have two branches of evolution: in the real world and in the virtual. This will be very interesting to watch.

Today, the world of high technology and virtual reality is so closely intertwined with our lives that there are increasingly suggestions that the planet on which we live is not reality, but part of a huge simulation. Moreover, not only ordinary people, but also famous physicists and cosmologists talk about this.

Is it worth thinking seriously about the question that we live in virtual reality? Or do the assumptions belong to the category of fiction?

Are you actually real? What about me?

Until recently, these questions were purely philosophical. Many scientists have set themselves the goal of understanding the structure of the world and the role of man in it. Now these requests have acquired a different meaning. Scientists of many directions suggest that our universe is a virtual reality, large-scale computer model. The person in it is only a small part of the matrix. This may mean that we actually live in an imaginary world, truly believing that it is real.

Naturally, our intuition does not want to agree with this. How to believe in a false impression if we feel a mug of hot tea in our hand, smell a fragrant drink, hear sounds hovering around us. Is it possible to reproduce such sensations?

But here it is worth remembering what a leap occurred in the area computer technology over the past 10-15 years. Computer games have become so real that independent game heroes are able to reproduce any of our movements and actions. And, plunging into this world, we involuntarily become convinced of the possible unreality of what is happening in life.

Life or cinema?

For the first time, the story of people living in a fictional reality was presented in a blockbuster of Hollywood origin. The story of people limited by the framework of an invented reality looks so convincing that the heroes, and the audience, perceive it as reality.

Afterwards, other films appeared, trying to answer the questions of what is truth and what is fiction. Which half of humanity is right: those who consider the Universe to be fiction, or those who are convinced that we are all part of a big game?

For example, the famous computer technology businessman Elon Musk believes that the ratio of the fictional world to reality is approximately 1,000,000:1.

And the no less famous Ray Kurzweil, a researcher of artificial intelligence, makes the assumption that the Universe is nothing more than a large scientific experiment conducted by one of the young scientists of another Universe.

An interesting fact is that some scientists agree with this possibility. This question even became the subject of discussion at one of the meetings at the New York Museum of Natural History.

Is there any evidence?

The theory of virtual reality has at least two pieces of evidence in favor of its existence:

1. Alan Guth, a famous scientist and cosmologist, puts forward the version that our planet may be real, but at the same time it is something like a laboratory experiment. He believes that the creation of our world is similar to the actions of biologists to grow microorganisms. And such experimentation is carried out by someone with superintelligence. He does not exclude the possibility of the world emerging as a result of a large-scale explosion caused artificially. At the same time, the planet, the progenitor of the new world, was not completely destroyed. They just reproduced a new pattern of space-time reference. After which it became possible to pinch it off from the original source of the Universe and break all contacts with it. Such a plot could have different options development. For example, new world could have originated in some equivalent of a test tube.

1. There is one more piece of evidence that can destroy a person’s ideas about reality. The meaning of the theory contains the assumption that we are not real people, but fictitious creatures modeled by someone. This may mean that humanity is just a small line in a huge computer program. And she manipulates us like heroes in a game.

Should we believe in the virtual world?

Is it worth believing that our world is virtual reality? This is an abstract question. But it has arguments in its favor.

After all, we do modeling. We create fictional models not only for play, but also for scientific research. Many scientists create models of the world at different levels. These include models of the subatomic world and the creation of huge societies and galaxies.

We design animal models. By using computer modeling an opportunity has arisen to learn about their development and habits. Other stimulants give us a chance to understand the issue of the formation of planets, galaxies, and stars.

It is possible to reproduce humanity with the help of simple agents capable of making their own choices, guided by clear instructions. This gives us the opportunity to understand how cooperation between a person and a company occurs, how cities develop, traffic rules and economic laws work.

Every day the complexity of the models increases. Scientists are making more and more conclusions about the functioning of our brain. There is a significant amount of quantum computing going on. All this suggests that perhaps one day we will be able to create a virtual character with clear signs of consciousness. This will make it possible to create a large number of models that will work for the benefit of humans. Gradually, there may be much more of them than the real inhabitants of our planet.

If humanity is slowly moving towards creating a large-scale virtual reality around itself, what prevents us from assuming that another mind in the universe has already done this, and we are part of this computer reality?

And yet about reality

Of course, cosmologist Kurzweil's statement about a young genius who created our planet using programming can be considered a joke. But many of the claims of theories about the virtual world are based on the fact that we live in the 21st century and are able to create computer games with the effect of reality, so why can’t someone else do the same?

There is no doubt that the majority of supporters of scale modeling are big fans of films with a science-fiction plot. But somewhere in the hidden corners of the soul, each of us knows that reality is not a fictional world, but what we experience.

Today humanity lives in a world of high technology, but philosophers have been struggling with the answer to the question of reality for centuries. Plato also doubted whether reality was not just a shadow that falls on the walls of a cave.

Immanuel Kant was convinced that the world is nothing more than a thing that is the basis of what we see.

René Descartes once said, “I think, therefore I am.” With this phrase, he tried to prove that the ability to act meaningfully is the only essential criterion of existence that a person can fix. This philosophical idea became the basis for the idea that our world is just a simulated game.

Don't be afraid of new technologies and the emergence of hypotheses. These are just some of the philosophical mysteries that force us to look differently at our beliefs and assumptions. But today there is no absolute evidence that our Universe is virtual. Therefore, no new ideas can radically change our views on reality.

And as proof of its existence, one can cite the example of the action of Samuel Johnson, an English writer. In 1700, in response to the philosopher George Berkeley's assertion that the world is just a deception, an illusion, he kicked a stone and said: “I refute it like this!