A holodeck is far superior in my opinion. Why wear something on your head while sitting in a chair. When you can recreate a physically interactive, life like environment.
Is there any technology in TNG that's already outdated?
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A holodeck is far superior in my opinion. Why wear something on your head while sitting in a chair. When you can recreate a physically interactive, life like environment.
^The point is that an advanced enough VR system -- we are talking about the 24th century here, not your local video arcade -- could feel like a totally immersive, physically real environment. Think The Matrix or Voyager's "The Thaw." What I'm saying is that when TNG was developed, the concept of virtual reality hadn't yet become widely known, so the developers of the show came up with the more complicated approach of the holodeck. If TNG had been developed a few years later, they might've chosen to make use of the VR concept instead. I'm speaking from a writer's perspective, talking about the outdatedness of the concept rather than the technology per se.
And of course on a starship, where excess mass and resource consumption are to be avoided, a more compact, efficient VR system would make more sense than a bunch of big rooms drawing huge amounts of power creating elaborate forcefield constructs.
And of course on a starship, where excess mass and resource consumption are to be avoided, a more compact, efficient VR system would make more sense than a bunch of big rooms drawing huge amounts of power creating elaborate forcefield constructs.
You don't get full immersion unless you directly manipulate the brain. Sony has a theoretic patent on manipulating the brain directly using ultrasonic pulses, but so far no success.
But as you said in another thread, each individual's brain encodes information differently. So eventually, each VR system would need to be adjusted for every single individual. That would be an enormous effort to create customized VR interfaces for everyone. And the customer itself can't borrow it from others, can't just test it for a while before he buys it, and can't buy it on eBay for a cheaper price because it just doesn't work for him.
And the holodeck is the actual goal in current research, with omnidirectional carpets being developed, ultrasonic sound waves making it possible to actually touch holograms, etc... using head mounted displays and body suits is actually the thing we want to get away from. It works for everyone, you don't need to bother with how each brain works. And in Star Trek they have replicators and holograms and forcefields anyway in regular use. The holodeck in Star Trek is actually just a side effect of the technology that was developed for other usage.
But as you said in another thread, each individual's brain encodes information differently. So eventually, each VR system would need to be adjusted for every single individual. That would be an enormous effort to create customized VR interfaces for everyone. And the customer itself can't borrow it from others, can't just test it for a while before he buys it, and can't buy it on eBay for a cheaper price because it just doesn't work for him.
And the holodeck is the actual goal in current research, with omnidirectional carpets being developed, ultrasonic sound waves making it possible to actually touch holograms, etc... using head mounted displays and body suits is actually the thing we want to get away from. It works for everyone, you don't need to bother with how each brain works. And in Star Trek they have replicators and holograms and forcefields anyway in regular use. The holodeck in Star Trek is actually just a side effect of the technology that was developed for other usage.
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Not a technology but loads of times we get what seems like a new scifi idea. e.g. TNG All good things... Anti time is a relatively new concept in temporal mechanics in the 24th century. The fact that the idea was thought up in the 20th century makes the TNG concept outdated. Albeit its all gobbledegook but its something often seen on the show where they make the idea appear to be fresh to the 24th century. If its been thought of in the 20th century it ain't new! lol
Of course, then you have to ask the question why they ever get out, since they could run the ship just as effectively or more effectively from their VR hookups as well.
That's not true. I was speaking of storage, not input. When you and I look at a tree, our brains may store the image in different associational webs, but we're both receiving the same input signals from the environment. So the same sensory inputs in a VR system would work just as well. And the sensory areas of the brain are much more basic and universal than the higher levels of cognitive thought that I was referring to. We can already read a person's brain activity and discern what type of scene they're looking at. That's a much simpler level of analysis than reading what they're thinking or remembering about it. So the issues I was referencing in the other thread don't pertain to something like sensory input.
Which is irrelevant to the specific point I was making, which is not what you seem to think it was. As I said, I'm talking about this in terms of the creative process -- not as a practical technology, but as a concept used in a work of fiction. My point is that a few years after TNG gave us holodecks, VR began to become a common trope in mass-media science fiction. That made holodecks seem like a somewhat old-fashioned notion in storytelling terms; that is to say, if the show had been developed a few years later, its creators -- writers concocting a work of fiction -- would probably have incorporated the VR trope instead of coming up with holodecks.
I don't see that. VR was well around when TNG was created, and they decided to go for the dream goal of that research, since 24th century and all. In fact, the creator of the head mounted display and driving force in virtual reality systems, Ivan Sutherland, stated in 1965
And that view has never changed.
And the holodeck turned into a trademark that made it different from all the other shows (which all went the "normal" VR route). So it was a good thing.
And that view has never changed.
And the holodeck turned into a trademark that made it different from all the other shows (which all went the "normal" VR route). So it was a good thing.
The problem with VR is it's fake. When you get out of it, your back is hurting from sitting there and not breaking a sweat while running 5 miles. Holodeck is as real as it gets
From a story telling point of view, you can't do nearly as much with a VR tech than you can with a holodeck. For example, how do you do the story where the historian gets shot in "A Long Goodbye"? Or how about the baseball game on DS9?
From a story telling point of view, you can't do nearly as much with a VR tech than you can with a holodeck. For example, how do you do the story where the historian gets shot in "A Long Goodbye"? Or how about the baseball game on DS9?
There's no real threat in VR. You can't get hurt or killed. I already didn't buy that in Matrix. And wouldn't buy it in Trek. People complained about how ridiculous bullets that can kill are. It would be even more ridiculous to create a VR system for recreation that can kill you.
Yes, yes, I know all that, but the point is that it wasn't yet a common trope in mass-media science fiction, which always lags behind prose SF by a decade or two. Again, I'm not talking about the actual technology, I'm talking about the fictional trope.
I've offered no opinion on whether it was a good or bad thing. I simply pointed out that it seems to me they would've taken a different approach if the show had been made later. There is no value judgment intended, simply an observation.
Exactly. I'm the one who pointed that out. Making holodecks in a way that they can be potentially fatal is ridiculous, but it's a necessary storytelling device for creating danger. And most works of fiction involving VR employ similar dramatic contrivances so that people in VR will be in danger of actually dying. The number of VR-themed shows where death in VR poses no danger to the characters is extremely small. The only instances I can think of offhand are Caprica, the animated Code Lyoko (with certain exceptions), and the failed pilot Virtuality. Far more often, the conceit is that death in VR will kill you in one way or another, whether from the "shock" or some more fanciful excuse.
So yes, it's a silly contrivance to make VR actually dangerous, but it's an often-used one, and no sillier than the contrivances that make holodecks dangerous -- or the contrivance that holodecks didn't get pulled off the market completely the first time they killed someone.
Who's to say it has to be the kind of VR where you're just sitting there? Both fiction and real-life prototypes have presented us with systems in which the user's perceptions of one's environment are altered but one's body is actually engaged in physical activity. Like running on a treadmill while images, sounds, and scents of a path through the woods or a racetrack are fed into your senses. (That's just one simple example of the principle, of course.)
As I said, lots of fiction involving VR has embraced the conceit that dying in VR will kill the user. And a VR baseball game could work the same way any multiplayer computer game works today, just with a full-immersion sensory interface. Heck, we've seen plenty of SF shows and films in which people who were in physically isolated VR chambers perceived themselves as interacting in the same space -- The Matrix being probably the most famous example. So I'm amazed the question even needs to be asked.
And again, I wasn't making any kind of value judgment, wasn't saying one was better than the other. I was simply making what I thought was an interesting observation about the creative process and the state of SFTV concepts in the late 1980s.
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^I think the confusion arose from the thread topic. The idea is that we're listing things that are outdated. That, by definition, is a value judgment. You mentioned VR vs. holodeck, and the natural response was that a holodeck is not outdated in comparison to VR. In fact, many would consider VR outdated in comparison to a holodeck.
Regardless, we have no reason to think that VR technology would make larger technological strides (by the 24th century) than the holodeck. In fact, TNG shows a number of matter-energy devices (transporters, food dispensers, etc.) that would make holodecks more likely than vr technology (within the context of their society/culture).
Regardless, we have no reason to think that VR technology would make larger technological strides (by the 24th century) than the holodeck. In fact, TNG shows a number of matter-energy devices (transporters, food dispensers, etc.) that would make holodecks more likely than vr technology (within the context of their society/culture).
^I'm aware that I was employing a variation on the topic, which was why I was careful to phrase my original post in a way that made it clear I was speaking in terms of the concept rather than the specific technology. Apparently I didn't make it clear enough.
If both technologies existed and both allowed one to fully immerse one's senses into a lifelike computer-generated envoronment, VR would be far more practical for the people actually building the tech. Why build an entire room when all they have to do is make a hat that taps into your brain? The hat has the added advantage of being more portable than, say, a warehouse.
Here's a sort of offbeat answer — TNG's treatment of chess.
TNG follows TOS in a romantic vision of chess, in which emotion and intuition trumps cold logic and man is better than machine. Hence, Troi beats Data, just as Kirk beat Spock.
Little did the TNG writers know that a little more than a decade after the show ended such a romantic view of chess would be hopelessly naive, buried under a new era of chess in which machine beats man with impunity, opening theory is studied thirty moves deep, everyone down to strong amateurs employs computer engines and databases as an essential part of their preparation.
(Of course, it may be objected that 3D chess is so vastly more computationally complex than 2D chess that it escapes the analysis of even 24th Century computers. But it is not immediately obvious why this would be so — TNG era 3D chess has the same number and type of pieces as 2D chess and just 8 more board spaces, 72 versus 64; the increase in the number of dimensions that a piece can move is offset by the fact that a piece cannot move as far in a given dimension)
TNG follows TOS in a romantic vision of chess, in which emotion and intuition trumps cold logic and man is better than machine. Hence, Troi beats Data, just as Kirk beat Spock.
Little did the TNG writers know that a little more than a decade after the show ended such a romantic view of chess would be hopelessly naive, buried under a new era of chess in which machine beats man with impunity, opening theory is studied thirty moves deep, everyone down to strong amateurs employs computer engines and databases as an essential part of their preparation.
(Of course, it may be objected that 3D chess is so vastly more computationally complex than 2D chess that it escapes the analysis of even 24th Century computers. But it is not immediately obvious why this would be so — TNG era 3D chess has the same number and type of pieces as 2D chess and just 8 more board spaces, 72 versus 64; the increase in the number of dimensions that a piece can move is offset by the fact that a piece cannot move as far in a given dimension)
Well, you have to take into account Kirk's special rules (rule #1: I win, rule#2: I win). Troi probably has her own rules as well.
Are there any official rules how to play that 3D chess anyway? Can such a thing even be played?
Not "official," but there's been at least one fan-published rule book for 3D chess. It's a 12-page photocopied pamphlet called "Tridimensional Chess: Starfleet Academy Training Manual." The back cover and title page are adorned with Lee Cole's TMP graphic representing the rec room, which is a stylized 3D chess set inside an arrow. There's no publication information anywhere in the pamphlet, since it was hand-assembled. It has six pages of typewritten text about game play, a hand-drawn illustration of the board configuration and starting position of the pieces, and a centerfold which is a publicity photo of Kirk and Spock playing 3D chess.
And I can't find any information about it on the Complete Starfleet Library. You mean there's actually a Trek-related book you haven't found, Steve? Say it ain't so!
However, I did some research just now and I suspect this is the same set of "Standard Rules" developed by Andrew Bartmess in 1976, building on Franz Joseph's 3D chess discussion at the end of the Star Fleet Technical Manual:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=266923
The current version of the rules can be found here:
http://www.yestercade.net/tactical.htm
And I can't find any information about it on the Complete Starfleet Library. You mean there's actually a Trek-related book you haven't found, Steve? Say it ain't so!
However, I did some research just now and I suspect this is the same set of "Standard Rules" developed by Andrew Bartmess in 1976, building on Franz Joseph's 3D chess discussion at the end of the Star Fleet Technical Manual:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=266923
The current version of the rules can be found here:
http://www.yestercade.net/tactical.htm
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
I remember thinking when the episode first aired and Data said the search would take "At least several hours." I thought There's gotta be a faster way!
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
My self Trek-splanaton is that those table top computers Picard and others on the Enterprise had would be able to hold everything we need to link up to the internet to get now...but without linking up.
Same for the communicators...don't forget our cell phones need all those towers to work...I think Trek's communicators can contact the ship or another communicator on the same planet without outside help.
I can see where you're coming from there, but what would be the point? They would have to be linked to ensure all data was current anyway and most of the information stored seemed to be dynamic. I put it all down to being a design choice and the text displays picked for their simplicity. GUI might not be required with fully integrated voice activated AI.
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