One thing that really reminds me how far we have to go with VR technology is a night like tonight - 20 degrees F outside. Absolutely frigid. I can't imagine a feasible technological solution for full body programmable variable thermoperception. And the haptics for feeling wind gusts? How would you even do that?
@JCorvinus presumably instead of trying to simulate the effects of physical phenomenon on our body we can take the more direct approach of emulating the neural correlates of those signals and stimulate the brain stem
@pee_zombie Yeah, that's probably the only feasible way to do it, and is a good part of what my article in my pinned tweet is about, except for taction instead of thermoception. Neural stimulation is its own big challenge though. Invasive means surgery and lots of risk of complications, noninvasive means difficulty in acquiring and delivering signals. I wonder if any progress has been made in biocompatible materials recently...
@JCorvinus yeah invasive interception is dangerous but tbh I'm not sure much else is feasible for the sort of sensory fidelity we'd ideally want. a neural cutout enables SAO-like scenarios but also Altered Carbon ones; remains to be seen which wins out
and, I'm not so sure it's desirable to avoid metabolic reactions to virtual environments! seems like it would be ideal to have alignment btwn mind state and body state to minimize any weird dissonance effects
@pee_zombie Oh also I just did some reading and it looks like sensory information might be fed back into thermoregulation? That could be bad news - you don't want your virtual experience of being very cold while actually in a 70 degree room to cause endocrine production to warm you up. I wonder if there's a distinct layer between sensing and perception that might be where one can intervene...