Hey, guys – Helen here.
Full disclosure, Oculus came to us and said
they were fans of our work, which was 1.
Really flattering and 2.
Really awesome because because you know Jared
and I love that new tech.
Anyway, they asked if we had anything smart
to say about VR, and since VR has been in
the media a ton, lately – from the rise
of isekais in anime like Sword Art Online
and Overlord to smash hits like Ready Player
One – we got pretty excited.
Even Rick & Morty uses VR for one of our favorite
gags: Roy.
“What the hell.
Wha– wha – where am I?
What in the hell?”
“55 years.
Not bad, Morty.
You kind of wasted your 30s, though, with
that whole birdwatching phase.”
“Where’s – where’s my wife?”
“Morty, you were just playing a game.
It’s called Roy.
Snap out of it.”
Now, I know we here at Wisecrack can get pretty
technophobic, but we wanted to try this thing
out called optimism.
If science fiction is any indication, the
mass exodus to virtual worlds is inevitable,
but instead of jumping on the prophecy train,
we’re gonna talk about some of the philosophical
ramifications of VR technology and how it
can revolutionize storytelling and perspective.
And while we could view VR as just another
step in technology, like the jump from radio
to film, there seems to be something more
to it.
That something, we think, is a philosophical
concept called “qualia.”
Welcome to this Wisecrack Edition on the Philosophy
of VR.
And, yeah, wow, no spoilers ahead.
But before we get into qualia, we should say
something about storytelling.
There are a million reasons why someone would
tell a story.
The muses told you to, or the absinthe told
you to, or the amphetamines told you to.
But at the core of every story is a single
ask: to inhabit a character’s perspective.
Roald Dahl – author of everyone’s favorite
book about a greedy CEO exploiting immigrant
labor – said it best in Matilda: "The books
transported [Matilda] into new worlds and
introduced her to amazing people who lived
exciting lives.
She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph
Conrad.
She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and
to India with Rudyard Kipling.
She travelled all over the world while sitting
in her little room in an English village.”
By allowing us to inhabit the mind and body
of its characters, storytelling can challenge
our perspective and change our views.
But as amazing as these stories are, traditional
mediums like literature and film stop a little
short when it comes to inhabiting a perspective.
Whether we’re living vicariously through
Frodo delivering the Ring to Mordor, or the
Dude trying to get his rug back, — "They
peed on your f**king rug?"
"They peed on my f**king rug." — we’re
always reminded of the space between us and
the characters.
John Gardner in his book The Art of Fiction
calls this concept “psychic distance," or
basically how deep we are in the character’s
head.
It’s the difference between reading the
sentence, “He walked to the store” and
“He ambled to the store, wild thoughts racing
on his mind.”
The latter example brings us closer.
But regardless of how this story is told,
we can never collapse this psychic distance
to zero.
While staring at the pages in a book or at
a TV on the wall, we’ll inevitably notice
that these thoughts and feelings aren’t
our own.
And as it turns out, there’s a good philosophical
reason why this distance can never be fully
closed: this concept called qualia.
In philosophy, qualia is the idea that mentals
states like perception, sensation, thoughts,
and emotions all have a certain subjective
feeling to them.
When you sip wine or stare at the sunset,
these experiences are all unique to you in
that moment.
The key word here is unique – your friend
could do all the same things and still have
a different experience.
And you wouldn’t ever be able to really
explain this difference, either.
As philosopher Thomas Nagel explained in his
paper, What Is It like to be a Bat?, we could
know everything there is to know about bats,
but that doesn’t translate to knowing what
it’s like to be flapping about and navigating
via sound.
And that’s the weird thing about this whole
qualia debate: there’s an “explanatory
gap” between knowledge and experience, one
that has some pretty big philosophical and
everyday consequences.
For philosophers who believe that the world
can be explained by laws and science, they
now have to explain this new type of knowledge
seemingly unrelated to facts.
And for everyone else, we’re doomed to tell
funny stories about things that happened,
fail, and then fall back on the old “you
should’ve been there” defense.
The big takeaway is that this gap between
knowledge and experience is real, and no matter
how many words we write on a page, or how
many flashing images we have on a screen,
we can never bridge that.
Well, maybe not never.
So what does that have to do with VR?
Well, the reason why VR is so groundbreaking
– or in Morty’s case, mind bending: "I'm
Morty.
You're Rick." – is because VR gets us infinitely
closer to bridging that gap.
Unlike reading a book or watching TV, VR is
an “embodied experience” – you’re
right there in the story, sometimes inhabiting
the body of your favorite characters.
This not only drastically reduces the psychic
distance Gardner talked about, but it also
deals with the pesky qualia problem.
Can’t adequately explain how great your
vacation was to your friends?
Well, let them experience it themselves by
throwing a headset on 'em.
And we can’t emphasize this enough: the
difference between knowing something and experiencing
something is huge.
It’s why you can feel somewhat safe watching
The Ring on the TV, but crap your pants at
the 360 experience.
Combine VR with haptic feedback and full body
motion-tracking, and you can easily be fully
immersed for hours.
Now, before we move on, as I mentioned this
video is sponsored by Oculus Rift.
If you’re looking to dive into new worlds,
it’s available for only $399.
If you ever wanted to be a rage-filled green
giant, or a sass-filled trash panda, you can
save the world in Marvel Powers United VR.
Or, if you’ve ever wanted to get your table-top
strategy game on, and don’t have hundreds
of hours to build intricate landscapes, there’s
Brass Tactics, which looks so cool.
There’s also the story-driven Lone Echo,
and the robotic mayhem of Echo Arena.
And, they're all exclusive.
If you want to see me try out the Oculus for
myself, stick around til the end of the video.
Now, back to the philosophy...
Okay, I know what you’re thinking: Helen,
even if VR allows you to sit behind the eyes
of your favorite characters, that experience
is still subjective and unique to you.
Multiple friends could watch the same 360
film or play the same VR game, and they would
still all have different experiences.
We haven’t fully bridged qualia’s explanatory
gap.
And while that’s definitely true, VR actively
tries to combat this.
At Comic-Con, we caught up with Ian Forester,
CEO of VR Playhouse, whose team had just created
a VR experience for the show Mr. Mercedes.
When asked about the explanatory gap, he told
us how good VR tries to bridge it: “In trying
to create a fully immersive experience, there
needs to be a palette cleanser almost – it’s
what we refer to as ‘onboarding’.
You are you – we get that – but now you’re
going to assume a different role, and different
circumstance.”
Onboarding is essentially a tutorial section
in a VR experience.
It tells you about the character you’re
inhabiting and how to interact with the VR
world around you.
In doing so, onboarding combats the explanatory
gap by asking you to forget, well, yourself.
It’s kind of like the suspension of disbelief
in theater, except instead of asking us to
forget the stage, the curtains, the not very
convincing set, it’s asking us to forget
our actual selves.
So, how effectively can VR bridge qualia’s
explanatory gap – stripping us of us and
making us assume a new identity?
The short answer is: pretty damn well.
Recent studies have shown some science-fiction
level results.
For example, in one study when white subjects
inhabited a black virtual avatar, they actually
exhibit notably less racial bias than those
who didn’t.
In another experiment, when adults were placed
in a virtual child’s body, they started
exhibiting more childlike behaviors.
According to philosopher Frédérique de Vignemont,
our sense of self is deeply entangled with
the body we inhabit.
Partly because our body is the only thing
we both perceive and perceive with.
It’s a bit like acting – we notice our
costume and start adjusting our attitudes
accordingly.
And while we might not fully be able to know
100% what it’s like to be another person,
VR can get us close.
It’s exactly VR’s ability to almost inhabit
other subjective experiences that makes it
ripe for new therapy techniques.
Freud-Me, for example, puts patients into
a motion capture suit and a VR headset.
When the program starts, patients find themselves
in a VR replica of their own body, moving
exactly in sync with their real life body.
They then tell a silent Dr. Freud across the
room about their problems.
After they’re done, users then inhabit the
body of Dr. Freud and hear their own problems
from this “outside” perspective, before
offering solutions to… themselves.
The results are pretty crazy, with patients
reportedly experiencing greatly improved moods
after undergoing the VR therapy, all because
patients were able to step outside of their
own bodies.
And it’s not just virtual chit chats with
Freud that are seeing great results in VR
therapy.
Things like exposure therapy – or helping
patients conquer certain fears and phobias
by facing them – have huge success rates
in VR.
In one study, VR exposure therapy had over
a 90% success rate in treating the fear of
flying, which seems better than the popular
“pop a Xanax and down a bottle of wine”
approach.
By buckling patients into a new perspective,
it gives them a safer way to face their fears.
While some might consider VR a form of escape
from reality, we can also see how it can give
us an entirely new perspective on the very
not fictional world.
So, what does the future of VR hold?
Well, we may be a long way off from a full
Ready Player One, but with computers getting
stronger and wireless headsets coming out,
we're making progress.
And while we as a society sometimes indulge
in fear-mongering about future tech – from
Skynet to the Matrix – VR has the potential
to make a really positive impact.
Did you know there are guys who actually lug
heavy 360 cameras around mountain trails just
so people who can’t hike them can still
experience them?
And yeah, we might be scared of creating some
Ready Player One escapist nightmare, but as
social philosopher Ernest Bloch argued, daydreaming
and escapism actually can positively influence
society.
By exploring the possibilities of how things
could be different, we engage in an "immature,
but honest substitute for revolution" – one
that can bring much needed change to society
today.
Alright, so as promised, I wanted to check
out this Oculus and see what it’s all about.
I also just want to say that, without sponsors
like Oculus, many of our episodes wouldn’t
even be possible.
So, thanks guys.
Now, where's my headset at?
Let's do this!
