Poison impairs human body organisms to a point that can lead to system failure. The more poison, the higher degree of failure within the system it is interacting with. In essence, the poison unhinges the function of the organism from operating the human physical system. In turn, virtual reality has the same effect on the mind. Virtual reality unhinges the function of the mind from operating the human cognitive system. In order to understand how virtual reality does this, we need to first get a quick overview of how the mind functions.
Rene Descartes knew 400 years ago that mind and matter are different. Physics now understand enough about the power of the mind and the limitations of matter to know this is true. The traits of personality, intuition, emotion and thought cannot originate from a brain cell. The breakdown of a cell goes to molecules, atoms, subatomic particles and all the way to quantum planck length frequencies. Furthermore, the brain cell dies every 12 years. Consequently, there is simply no capacity within the construct of matter to harbor the mind. In computer terminology, the brain is like an adaptive biological motherboard while the mind is a separate operating system that runs and restructures the brain.
The human mind subconsciously saves to memory all information input that the body sees, hears and experiences. Memory is therefore just information that the mind can access and assimilate to attain unique perspectives. This process achieves the creation of new information. The velocity and bandwidth for this process is dictated by how the physical brain is neurologically wired. In turn, the brain is constantly being rewired by the mind to accommodate the mind’s velocity and bandwidth needs. So the more the mind is stimulated to assimilate information, the more the mind re-wires the brain.
But the physical brain is resistant to the cognitive mind re-wiring it. The addition of emotion to this process acts as a catalyst that stimulates the mind to increasing its force to overcome the brain’s resistance. Emotion can range from conflict to harmony and fear to inspiration. The two most powerful inducers of emotion are interactions with humans and music. Interaction with humans triggers the release of chemicals within the body and brain, which further intensify the emotions. This can create a self-reinforcing loop of long term increasing emotional intensity from conflict to harmony. The quickest way to induce emotion is through interaction with the complex vibrations of music (especially strings). This can induce emotion from the slow vibrations of fear to the fast vibrations of inspiration. All emotions can be induced not just by physical interactions but also by virtual ones.
Virtual interactions include movies and augmented reality as well. But those images are superposed on the physical world, thus providing a composite view. Consequently, the user’s continued interaction with the physical world limits the potential intensity of the emotional experience. In contrast, the complete programmed immersion of virtual reality isolates vision and the auditory experience. Therefore the near unlimited potential to increase the emotional intensity can untether perception from the physical world and unhinge the mind. This end result is inevitable as virtual reality technology and public accessibility advances. The devastating affects on society and the lawsuits against the companies that make that technology will lead to government involvement. Eventually, government will regulate all virtual reality and designate it’s use solely to approved agencies.
The reason virtual reality will not be banned completely is because it, like poison, can have extremely beneficial affects under controlled circumstances. Poison in specific amounts, under specific conditions, can heal and transform organisms. Similarly, virtual reality will be used by the medical field to heal trauma patients and by the military field to transform a terrorist into a model citizen. So virtual reality will have it’s uses. But it will not be scalable, sustainable or commercial.
This prediction, by itself, will not stop companies and investors from collectively allocating billions of dollars over the next decade into virtual reality. But the fact that most will lose their entire investment just may give some pause to consider this alternative paradigm.