Life as Earthlings, An Immersive Digest.
Experiential Abundance. Loading
In Future Shock, A. Toffler highlighted the potential growth of an entire sector he dubbed ‘experience industries’ and foresaw the increasing realism of simulated environments. By design, as a simulation-based medium, virtual reality is the ‘experience industry’ par excellence and is establishing itself as the technological conduit by which humanity can design, interact and inhabit at scale the simulated environments.
““Thus computer experts, roboteers, designers, historians, and museum specialists will join to create experiential enclaves that reproduce, as skillfully as sophisticated technology will permit, the splendor of ancient Rome, the pomp of Queen Elizabeth’s court, (…) and the like.””.
Virtual reality has the unparalleled capacity to simulate worlds, actions and beings; it is in the unique position to digitize experience whether actual or artificial, whether past, present or future. And, once experience is digitized, it becomes instantaneously and seamlessly re-playable, shareable and ultimately democratized.
VR, the Ultimate Brain Hack
But can experience be truly digitized, as other artefacts, commodities, processes or services have been in the past? How real does the VR-powered simulated experience feel to our brain?
Numerous peer-reviewed studies have shown that subjects who are exposed to virtual environments respond realistically to whatever scenario occurs in the simulated world: subjects feel “presence” – the sensation of being in a certain place, in well-executed simulations, eventually leading what Pr. Mel Slater calls “place illusion”. At the edge of a virtual cliff, individuals will display realistic responses, such as heart rate acceleration.
In a groundbreaking study reproducing the Milgram experiment in VR, even though participants very well knew that neither the victim nor the shocks were real, they had the tendency to respond to the situation at the subjective, behavioral and physiological levels as if the pain they inflicted were real.
The growing body of peer-reviewed interdisciplinary science which is studying VR’s perceptual and behavioral impact is shining a light on the myriad of ways in which we can willingly use virtual reality to trick our brains into experiencing multiple lifetimes into one and work towards a regret-free future.
Life, A Digest. Soon Available for Download from the Cloud
In a world where immersive technology is ubiquitous, experience becomes the dominant new currency. When will we see marketplaces where individuals can freely exchange experiential wealth: from getting married to skydiving, receiving an Oscar, etc.? The era of existential scarcity will have come to an end.
We will then be ready to welcome to a newly found abundance of experiences where regret as an emotion is now obsolete. Who will be the early adopters of such an experiential revolution? Those for whom such a future shock can never come too soon: citizens who are dying and do not have much time left, and beyond, the senior population -- which is to say, the new majority in the Western world.
Together with my interdisciplinary team, we use virtual reality to fulfill seniors’ last wishes come true before they pass. Going back to one’s motherland, seeing the Holy Land, visiting Europe for the first time, going on a safari, swimming with dolphins, climbing the Machu Picchu: immersive technology can allow seniors to take off elements of their bucket list from the comfort of their seat or their bed. Imagine a VR platform which would digitize the most popular bucket list experiences: the fulfilling experiences individuals wish to tick off before they pass, made widely available in 3D immersive format.
How will we ever finish completing such a Herculean task to fulfill wishes at scale? Regardless of our diverse backgrounds and cultural differences, the number of natural or man-made wonders that this planet hosts and humans universally wish to contemplate within their lifetime is large but not infinite. In our collective imaginary, the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, Niagara Falls already belong to our universal bucket list, and are all but one VR headset away.
“Thankfully, as we have already started to observe while collecting last wishes with seniors in Miami-Dade County, our dreams are more alike than they are unalike.”
People-centric Tech Thanks to the Roddenberry Foundation
This VR for older adults' well-being is presented by Equality Lab, aa 501(c)3 non-profit organization that is dedicated to leveraging technology to ameliorate the quality of life of vulnerable populations: such as at-risk youth and seniors.
Our first funder and supporter is the Roddenberry foundation. Gene Roddenberry created the world of Star Trek to help us envision a hopeful future made of peaceful collaboration and exploration. Gene Roddenberry’s family started this foundation to further their father’s worldview and fund pioneering projects that use today’s technology to help materialize Star Trek’s ideals: empathy, community, inclusion and peace. Equality Lab is relentlessly working to make Star Trek’s vision of a preferred future a reality – before the 23rd century.
