It reduces to physical, eventually.

But, I should say, what Keeping It Simple said about virtual reality being a dead end is nonsense.

Modern War 2 sold 7 million copies its first day, I beat it today, and we're all posting on an internet that becomes more and more essential to modern life every year.

I remember arguing in my existentialism class that I didn't want existentialism to be reduced to a conservatism. My teacher disagreed. TV's bad, mmkay?

a lot of the stuff mentioned in the terms of cyberpunk has become true. maybe sometimes not in the exact kind of way it was described, but it doesnt take much phantasy to see the parallels...
and we arent already in the timeframes most of the cyberpunk universes are set to. lets speak again in 20 years...

I would love to be a cyberpunk.

But I don't own an iPhone.

Snowcrash is an excellent book. I never played Shadowrun, but it's always seemed like a game I'd love to play.

Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books, if you want to possibly classify that as cyberpunk. Neuromancer is an interesting read as well, though it is a very abstract book. First time I read it I was a little taken back. Had to read parts over for it to really get in my head.

Akira is one hell of a movie, again if you want to classify it as cyberpunk.

I think a lot of cyberpunk novels have great titles.....

~Jeremy~

I got through about half of Snowcrash and absolutely loved the world and the ideas, but something about the writing eventually led to me picking up the book less and less....it was almost...a smugness, I guess?
Crap reason to stop reading a good book, I should get back to it eventually.

Awesome thread!

cacaseno, google maps will soon replace the earth itself, just like in a borges story

expand your fucking timelapse, facebook friend.

well, we certainly aren't all wearing silly masks and gloves. I mean, I am, but I'm stuck in the '90s when I'm not busy be stuck in the '80s...

yes, I agree, it developed better and faster then Ive expected

Modern Warfare 2 is a video game. It's not virtual reality.

but it is a kind of a virtual reality. a virtual reality in a box. I think thats what he is referring too.

but the real successor of what was originally thought of cyberspace is the web in its whole and especially games like secondlife and/or world of warcraft. where the only difference is that you dont jack yourself in. but I am sure that a lot of people would, if there would be an option like that

A lot of them jack themselves off rather than jack themselves in.

^^^^

Cyberspunk

virtual reality 
–noun
a realistic simulation of an environment, including three-dimensional graphics, by a computer system using interactive software and hardware.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virtual+reality

omg simulacra!!

You're chasmically wide of the mark by comparing virtual reality to common or garden video games played on a tv screen. You clearly don't understand the true concept of virtual reality.

"Tron" is a perfect example of virtual reality.

The Red Dwarf episode "Back To Reality" is another prime example. The crew are made to believe that over the past four years they've been playing "Red Dwarf - The Total Immersion Video Game". The guys were connected to virtual reality machines.

Wikipedia:

'Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, whether that environment is a simulation of the real world or an imaginary world. Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special or stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. Some advanced, haptic systems now include tactile information, generally known as force feedback, in medical and gaming applications.'


Full immersion is not requisite of virtual reality.

So, it seems virtual reality's original, Tron-like concept was radically downgraded to that of present day video games as a result of it not living up to it's hyperbole.

Virtual reality, in that sense, began and remains science fiction.

Yes, naïve attempts to obtain full immersion at the start were predictably flawed. However, unlike the science fiction topic, the progress made today in developing virtual reality has moved the concept from speculative fantasy to an increasingly probable social reality. It's more possible now to render a virtual reality more than it ever has been before, though we are still behind in full immersion.

Yes, 'virtual reality' did change a lot from the science fiction of the 80's.

'Virtual reality' as a concept far predates Tron. We're talking hundreds of years. If you want to follow someone like Haraway, it's a Platonic concept; whatever the weather, it certainly exists within Cartesian metaphysics. Also, it's always worth being cautious around the metaphysical concept of 'virtual reality' and the more Heideggerian idea of the cyborg (although I may be the only person who sees Heidegger in that).

Also, virtual reality in the SF sense is a deeply boring idea. Just so you all know, no real people are interested in it.

Would that include the holodeck in the starship "Enterprise" from "Star Trek: The Next Generation"?

if the VR looks like this on the virtual boy. then it sucks, of course

I can see Heidegger there in an ontic understanding of Other entities as a ready-at-hand. Do you mean in another sense? Or the vice versa, taking ready-at-hand entities as dasein?

Did it give gamers an ontic understanding of the ready-at-hand graphics?

I mean in the sense of hammers forming a cyborg assemblage; it's one of those blind jumps from Heidegger to Haraway, but I'm pretty sure it fits. It's one of those retroactive applications of logic; if Haraway talks of the nature of being as reliant upon Techne as co-extensive with the body (politic) then the Dasein of Heidegger's hammers is presumably compatible, and necessary, for the cyborg assemblage.

I'm not so hot on Heidegger mind you, so I shouldn't pay too much attention to what I'm saying.

Ah, I don't much about Haraway so I'll take your word for it.

Haraway's Cyborg manifesto and Lyotard's 'Can a thought go without a body?' (in the Inhuman) are pretty crucial documents, I'd say, and they seem to be undergoing a bit of a resurgence with the Speculative Realist crowd.

I'm not sure if that's a recommendation or not, but anything involving Lyotard is indispensable in my books.

this is cyberpunk right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REfDCPhPQQ4

totally. the shifting floor works to destabilize our frame of reference and suggests a subtle but astute deconstructive analysis of the way we inhabit space. jay kay at times appears to be 'surfing' the floor - no accident as this has become the dominant paradigm for navigating virtual environments. the song's title then can be read both as "almost insanity" and "a form of insanity stemming from an excessive exposure to virtual worlds."

i certainly have met people who suffer from virtual insanity in this sense, many of them here...

cyberpunk always makes me think of the 80s. all that chrome and those long black macs. it's the fictional equivalent of a bang and olufsen advert.

The brilliant movie "Bladerunner" epitomises cyberpunk.

Joseph Cornell!!!!

my favorite passages in any of william gibson's books are those in count zero where he describes the artificial intelligence building little display boxes with pieces of space junk arranged in them...

and the art history student that is trying to track down the boxes... similar story in many ways to pattern recognition, now that i think about it...

^^^hahahah
yes I agree

Cyberpunk sucks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_punk#Overview

That is one of my favorite games of all time.

Has anyone mentioned the Billy Idol CD that came with a floppy disk? Epic.

EDIT: Yes. Yes, someone did.