Church of the Rift?

[rmcclelland]

The Verge guys really love this thing:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/6/395159 ... culus-rift

[snorelab]

Jesus goggles. It's happening.

[geekmaster]

Jesus goggles. It's happening.

Jesus goggles indeed:
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 195#p93602

[geekmaster]

And the guys from The Verge said "wearing the Rift was like crushing weed into a paste, smearing it on crack and smoking it". Of course, that would be for religious purposes only. They also said taking off the Rift was like coming down off an acid trip...

If the Rift really can induce a religious experience for some people, I would think it would be more like DMT ("the spirit molecule"). Or a magic mushroom:
http://blog.joerogan.net/archives/108

[rhinosix]

That's hilarious.

I was thinking about an application today these guys would probably enjoy. Other people have probably thought of it, but I haven't heard it mentioned: A 3D music visualization program.

You could be sitting on an island in the sky, select your music track, and the type of visuals you want to see. Mountains, buildings, planets, and other objects could grow, change colour, or transform to the beat of your music. It might be fun for people who don't want to play video games, but just have a sensory experience.

[Lark]

They also said taking off the Rift was like coming down off an acid trip...

That was the feeling I got from watching the CES demos. One of the employees slowly introduces ideas and blows their mind, then they spend the next 10 minutes collecting themselves and enjoying seeing other people have the same experience.

[geekmaster]

That's hilarious.

I was thinking about an application today these guys would probably enjoy. ... Mountains, buildings, planets, and other objects could grow, change colour, or transform to the beat of your music. It might be fun for people who don't want to play video games, but just have a sensory experience.

Digital drugs! Yeah, that could be the "killer app" for the Rift, especially if they try to ban "scary bang bang machines" (guns) even virtual guns featured inside our favorite video games (BFG!).

[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btVGCqpIoyk[/youtube-hd]

We can do SO MUCH BETTER than "Lawnmower Man". Now, where is my Rift?

[geekmaster]

And we really need a Rift version of this too:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKJDYXbxCdI[/youtube]

Now, that's a religious experience!

[geekmaster]

And this one would be GREAT in 3D, while inside it with head tracking:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh4NWABwHjk[/youtube]

[spire8989]

I was thinking about an application today these guys would probably enjoy. Other people have probably thought of it, but I haven't heard it mentioned: A 3D music visualization program.

You could be sitting on an island in the sky, select your music track, and the type of visuals you want to see. Mountains, buildings, planets, and other objects could grow, change colour, or transform to the beat of your music. It might be fun for people who don't want to play video games, but just have a sensory experience.

As I've mentioned, this is something I'm working on, but won't really have time to commit to it til the end of March... so we'll see...

[geekmaster]

One more 3D head trip for the Rift:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI1Wr-mKjT4[/youtube]

[geekmaster]

This one would be great to fly through and around, and of course it is "Meant To Be Seen in 3D":

[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXpmZcwPd5A[/youtube-hd]

Kind of like being inside a "rainbow lava lamp", I think...

I think that these would be as close to a religious experience as we can simulate until we get our direct neural interfaces...

[rhinosix]

I was thinking about an application today these guys would probably enjoy. Other people have probably thought of it, but I haven't heard it mentioned: A 3D music visualization program.

You could be sitting on an island in the sky, select your music track, and the type of visuals you want to see. Mountains, buildings, planets, and other objects could grow, change colour, or transform to the beat of your music. It might be fun for people who don't want to play video games, but just have a sensory experience.

As I've mentioned, this is something I'm working on, but won't really have time to commit to it til the end of March... so we'll see...

Ah! I think I remember you mentioning it now. Good luck with the project. I think it's the kind of thing that could pull in huge crowds from outside the gaming community.

[geekmaster]

Trippy VR music videos that you control and move around inside would draw their own fan base to the Rift. If these animations were perturbed by EEG brainwaves, even better.

[geekmaster]

Rift this! The preplanned motion is fine, as long as you can look around in any direction with head tracking. And if the structures changed with the music, even better:

[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E91yxk_pT_A[/youtube-hd]

[WiredEarp]

Some cool videos, but I don't think virtual drugs will really work at all. Its not as if when you watch a psychedelic movie that you think your tripping. Being immersed in it will be cool, but nothing like the real thing.

I think theres more potential for VR in combination with drugs (ala Lawnmower Man), to do things like help suspend disbelief. That could be useful for therapeutic purposes etc...

[geekmaster]

Some cool videos, but I don't think virtual drugs will really work at all. Its not as if when you watch a psychedelic movie that you think your tripping. Being immersed in it will be cool, but nothing like the real thing.

I think theres more potential for VR in combination with drugs (ala Lawnmower Man), to do things like help suspend disbelief. That could be useful for therapeutic purposes etc...

It depends on just how immersed you get in the experience, and it probably depends a lot on how susceptible to hypnosis you are (which requires a willing suspension of disbelief). Intense movies can be quite trippy. Intense video games even more so because they are interactive. FPV can place "you" in the remotely operated vehicle (a real out-of-body experieince). Adding a real "you are there" VR experience would certainly be more than all of those things put together, which for some would be just like an intense drug-induced experience, but without the drugs. Of course, for some people who are less willing to let go of their personal self-control, the result could be a bad trip or no trip at all. The experience can probably be improved with practice at self-hypnosis and a willingness to let the experience itself take control of your mind. Free walking (such as Red Rovr) may be needed for some people to fully experience it as strongly as a psychedelic trip, but many people can experience this while sitting down (such as driving or riding in a moving vehicle). Tripping in a cockpit simulation (like a sensory deprivation tank, but with the Rift), may push even more people over the edge of disbelief and into real psychedelia.

[hammerbot]

I have always joked to my wife that Unity is a god tool. You have all the tools to create a world and program a life. Everything you imagine, you can do it in Unity. The more time you invest, the more believable result you can achieve.
The only problem it had, is that you could only experience your creation trough 2d flat surface. Luckily things are about to change. We live in a age where you have a power to create your imagionation and be inside the world you have created.

So in some ways you can think yourself as a god to this virtual world that you have created. And the more time goes by, the more advanced our creation tools will become. Who knows, maybe in 50 years the AI in our worlds may become self conscious and they might not like the idea that they are trapped in someones creation. So the one who created the virtual world may decide to keep it a secret from AI.

Just think about it. At the rate the technology advances this, all might become possible in near future. We already have virtual life simulations like LANoire and GTA5 that are able to achieve pretty believable results. It scares me to think where we might be in 30 - 50 years. This movie idea might not sound so absurd anymore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsl0-ON7P8A

Oh.... and now to think about it....... who the HELL can guarantee us that our own world is NOT a creation of someone who is living in a place where such a technology has been achieved hundreds of years ago.


I think i just found myself a new relgion. ***** Runs away

[geekmaster]

I have always joked to my wife that Unity is a god tool ... I think i just found myself a new relgion. ***** Runs away

So when your digital creations become self-aware, they will attend your church and worship you. Question: You FOUND yourself a new religion, or you FOUNDED yourself a new religion (like L. Ron Hubbard)?

[STRZ]

[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXAaDqPl7oY[/youtube-hd]

Featuring the best band of all time

[geekmaster]

@STRZ: Exploring a Mandelbrot (or other fractal) set in realtime like that (especially if you can look around and behind you in a 3D version), would require an FPGA as shown in this video:

[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHp51yPUEaI[/youtube-hd]

Although it can be done to a limited extent (restricted zoom range) with a GPU, which should improve in depth and speed as GPUs improve in the future.

[hammerbot]

I have always joked to my wife that Unity is a god tool ... I think i just found myself a new relgion. ***** Runs away

So when your digital creations become self-aware, they will attend your church and worship you. Question: You FOUND yourself a new religion, or you FOUNDED yourself a new religion (like L. Ron Hubbard)?

By finding a new religion i meant that one could truly believe that his world is already a creation of a superior technology. 10 - 20 years ago it might have sound preposterous, but seeing now how our own technology has come so far, those ideas do not sound so silly anymore because our own current technology is cabale of the same thing on a very basic level.

Relgious people tend to believe a magical being who created things out of nowhere. So why should it be preposterous to think that maybe this magical being is not so magical after all. Maybe it just had a very advanced technology and tools to make his creation.

[geekmaster]

This video shows WHY we need a "Church of the Rift":

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO8-JZA0gbE[/youtube]

Here is a quote from the above video, based on Stem Cell research:

Genes respond to life. And since you can control the response, you can control your life. It's how you read the environment, how your mind perceives the environment. And if you understand this, then you can lead yourself to the most wonderful expression on this planet: "To be fully alive and fully healthy [depends on] how you respond to the world."

VR and the Rift can be great tools for mind expansion, and for personal and collective well being, depending on what you experience and how you allow yourself to respond to these virtual worlds that we are about to create. This is the Church of the Rift.

[geekmaster]

Sacred Geometry of the Church of the Rift:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyw3RhmRlsQ[/youtube]

Awesome. I watched at three AM then closed my eyes and had 3 dimensional geometrical figures floating thru my mind. Woke up this morning seeing the geometry in everything.

[geekmaster]

And then there is this:
[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb5MRbgNKSk[/youtube-hd]

I want to go INTO this stuff. Perhaps not a religious experience, but a mind trip nonetheless.

[WiredEarp]

Those are all awesome videos! (I love fractals, usually my desktop background is one). However, I was just trying to make the point that drugs such as LSD etc are much more involved than just visuals and sound effects, there is a whole internal dimension to them that I don't think can be simulated on the Rift - at least not until it also includes that TMS magnetic stimulation thing that gives you religous experiences

Definitely the future belongs to extending our consciousness via digital technology, and it will be a great tool to explore *outer* space, but I don't think you will be able to explore *INNER* space with it.
In fact, the evolution of VR may well pull people AWAY from exploring their own consciousness, in favour of exploring the world, and virtual worlds, using a future version of VR.
Its almost like we are trying to recreate a more easily accessible (to many people) psychic/etheric realm, with similar features (remote viewing, telepathy, etc). Those are all pretty much certain steps once direct brain interfaces become widespread. It could even be able to communicate with 'chipped' animals.

The hypnosis you mentioned is another good avenue for the future, I could see that this could be used in conjunction with VRs in the more immediate futures, for therapeutic benefits. You could get a subject to suspend his disbelief, but you would have a view of what he was actually seeing, so its possible this could make hypnotherapists less reliant on leading the subject verbally once induction has been achieved. For example, you could induce a subject, tell them they were in a virtual war, and run a scenario for them that would allow them to mentally change what has traumatized them. I believe there is already work done on treating PTST using VR, this could be an extension of it.

[STRZ]

Geekmaster, are you familiar with James Gates? No, you are James Gates!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6w0K5FIgsU[/youtube]

Extreemly interesting, especially from min. 20 onwards if you're interested in really crazy science. I love watching his talks.

Regarding fractals, i think that a sort of fractal dektop UI, which lets you zoom in until you reach the very low level of your operating system would be stunning.

[PasticheDonkey]

and here someone was worried about a meagre cult.

[Bretspot]

How about being INSIDE an animusic environment?
[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QStm3ZyzgY0[/youtube-hd]
Remember those?
https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+animusic

[geekmaster]

How about being INSIDE an animusic environment?
...
Remember those?
https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+animusic

Yes, that one was amazing a decade ago. And they released new ones recently. It would be great to see those in a Rift, being able to move around (taking the 3D camera and simulated binaural microphones with you).

[RABID]

what if we are already inside the world of the rift and by putting on the headset we get a glimpse of the "real" world?

[Direlight]

Blessed be thy Founders



Thy Messiah



Thy Wiseman




Thy Symbol



(great work by the way^)

[RABID]

lets go to church

[geekmaster]

[cybereality]

It's a new digital frontier.

[KBK]

The self correcting and building neural network software was incorporated into hardware, IIRC, in the late 90's? It was out there on the net. A record of it existed as actual news and works from a certain website I came across in 1999-2000 or so.

It ended up going black, and no more news of it was heard. Some of you might know what I'm talking about and flesh this out a bit.

[geekmaster]

The self correcting and building neural network software was incorporated into hardware, IIRC, in the late 90's? It was out there on the net. A record of it existed as actual news and works from a certain website I came across in 1999-2000 or so.

It ended up going black, and no more news of it was heard. Some of you might know what I'm talking about and flesh this out a bit.

I was fascinated with the Mentifex project back then, It seems to have had a lot of recent activity, especially on the German and Russian fronts...

Now that I think about it, the "Mentifex Manifesto" seems to be right up your alley:

Code: Select all

1.  The genie has escaped from the bottle:  Web search "Mentifex".
2.  Obsessive curiosity races past the crawl of bourgeois science.
3.  -B V AI:  At worst, wasted bandwidth; at best, the dawn of AI.
4.  All nations have a right to share in the AI prosperity engine.
5.  All individual profit motives must yield to the public domain.
5.  Religions must confront the unconfrontable implications of AI.
7.  Your experience of the phenomenon of mentifex is the phenomenon.
8.  Each step taken on the path to the future redefines the pathway.
9.  The unknowable event approaches:  Singularity -- Omega Point.
X.  Human politics faces the existential danger of transhuman AI.


           There is a tide in the affairs of men,
           Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
           Omitted, all the voyage of their life
           Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

                
  /^^^^^^^^^^^\ The Transhuman Evolution of Mind  /^^^^^^^^^^^\
 /visual memory\           ________   semantic   /  auditory   \
|      /--------|-------\ / syntax \  memory    |episodic memory|
|      |  recog-|nition | \________/<-----------|------------\  |
|   ___|___     |       |      |flush-vector    |    ______  |  |
|  /image  \    |    ___V______V_  word-fetch   |   /      \ |  |
| / percept \<--|-->/ library of \--------------|->/ stored \|  |
| \ engrams /   |   \  concepts  / for thinking |  \ words  /   |
|  \_______/    |    \__________/  in language  |   \______/    |

http://www.newciv.org/Mentifex/ run periodic Mentifex Web search.
http://www.complex.com.pl/~venom/science.html  diaspora memetica.
Meme amok:  Delete this line.  Insert your URL.  Propagate virus.

http://www.advogato.org/article/769.html

The two main reasons were that ATM wanted to pass the torch of AI to other carriers
and that ATM felt that AI was too important to all humans to work on in secret.
...
12. Does medication help?, posted 1 May 2004 at 17:13 UTC by ncm »
Correct medication is obviously essential to the correct operation of the most brillian organic minds. What would be the analog to such medication in an AI one hopes will achieve brilliance?
...
13. Is Mentifex actually useful to anybody?, posted 1 May 2004 at 17:57 UTC by tk »
Yes, if one redefines "useful".

Ayurvedic literature, posted 2 May 2004 at 00:16 UTC by lkcl »
anyone who is serious about simulating real intelligence (rather than doing it artificially) should consider reading the ancient indian scriptures - the ayurvedic literature.

i understand from [different] people who have read these sources that 1) there are 27 separate and distinct nervous systems of the brain, each of which is described in a chapter of this ayurvedic literature, which is, according to some sources, tens of thousands of years old (!!!)

[KBK]

The software was designed to tear itself down at the same time it was building itself. This, all while computing and working. This is analogous to the human brain, in at least the one design aspect. Our brain is tearing down and rebuilding at the same time it is 'working'.

The software was used for some very successful industrial design work, and some other stuff, including the making of poetry. The programmer had proven that he could design the single fundamental kernel of a 'brain', and then I presume other factors or routines were added in to simulate other functions. Which would make the software even more alive.

What had happened, was that the software design had proven that it was capable of entering the area of supposed human intelligence or contact to the internal muse, inspiration..and come up with functional solutions that even some of the most mad of the mad genii could not approach, at least with respect to speed of iterations (a very high number of attempts). If you want me to shorten it up, I'm saying the software had abundantly proven, in real world applications, that it was capable of taking on human genius on a level field - and beating it.

I'm not getting all weird about it, it's just that it seemed to go off the radar, out of all public view..even though the implications were immense. Frame that in your mind. Apply it to today's computing power.

Perhaps I forgot to return to it as a subject, is all.

edit:

Just as I finish typing all of that up, I hear noise outside. Some guys in their truck come along and take a GPS reading of my front door. They turn around and leave as quickly as possible (the driveway required a turn around). Slightly rushed, no questions, no looks. They looked like undercover federal agents, at the same time. I tried to take their photo and then they seemed to be trying to...move much faster. They did not go to the business down the dead end road, they only went to the houses. Places where people live. Very weird... and nice timing.

[KBK]

Ah. Found it. Thaler's work. Imagine where it is now.

http://www.imagination-engines.com/

Human to trans-humanism.

[KBK]

Trippy VR music videos that you control and move around inside would draw their own fan base to the Rift. If these animations were perturbed by EEG brainwaves, even better.

"I know this music. Let's ...change..the beat." - Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg

How about adding drumsticks, and putting it on android?

I'd personally go for the EEG, myself.