Well I think that Oculus Rift and virtual reality is sort of – the Oculus Rift being
an example that virtual reality has now arrived, you know.
The multiple billion dollar purchase of Oculus Rift shows that now they have the resources
to bring this thing into the mainstream.
And, of course, virtual reality like other media technologies like cinema is an engine
of empathy because it speeds up the capacity to achieve presence in the mediated world,
right.
And so with a movie theater the size of the screen, the surround sound audio puts you
there.
With the Oculus Rift potentially you’re surrounded now by the media, by the simulated
dreamscape.
So you are even more there.
So when I say an agent of empathy, the UN, just released a virtual reality film of a
Syrian refugee camp, you know.
The fact that we’re able to put reporters now virtually on the ground it elicits a sort
of experience that is so much more visceral, so much more powerful, that the elusive sense
of presence that literally puts you in a liminal trance state.
Your defenses get lowered.
You forget yourself.
You forget your problems.
You are there.
You are in the moment.
And so, you know, the power of that as an engine of empathy I think can’t hurt humanity,
you know.
I think it’s like they talk in the movie Interstellar our empathy rarely extends beyond
our line of sight.
And I think with virtual reality and the Oculus Rift we now are extending our line of sight
by being able to go everywhere at the speed of mind.
And I think that’s transformational.
Furthermore the psychonautic philosopher Terrence McKenna says that the goal of humanity is
to turn ourselves inside out, right.
And he says that with virtual reality the canvas for intersubjective intimacy is taken
to the next level.
You know, before if I want to share the contents of my mind I smile and I move my lips in a
certain way.
I make crude little grunts to convey meanings.
I might make a painting, you know, or I might write a poem.
And the point is these are a rich tapestry of tools that human beings have used for achieving
something akin to telepathy, to know each other’s minds, to enter the intersubjective
space of one another.
But with virtual reality each of us potentially, the full flowering of this technology means
each of us can create a universe of our own construction.
A universe that reflects our own archetypical spaces, you know, our own iconographies.
We turn ourselves inside out.
You don’t just come into my room and see my books to see who I am.
Now you get to come inside my mind.
That’s what kind of blows my mind.
The new spaces of intimacy that will be made possible when you can invite your lover or
your friend into your world.
Come visit my world and you get to inhabit that as a sort of cosmos of the mind.