Role of Language / Semantics
JC: What about language and the role that semantics play in our definition
of self... doesn't VR represent the potential for a more fluid visual discourse
with the 'tool?' In Computers as Theatre you used a quote from
Jaron Lanier to illustrate this and define what is not accounted for in
his position. To summarize, the quote
goes something like: 'If you had given our ancestors VR clothing, would
they have developed language?' Lanier alludes to no longer needing to describe
action and physicality, because you will be able to create any action or
perception of physicality. Would you talk about what is not accounted for
in that description?
BL: I agree with Jaron in many fundamental ways. My quarrel with him in
the book was that I felt he oversimplified
the complexity of what had to be authored to achieve what he was describing.
I was a little hard on him in 1993. The thing that annoyed me, was that
he'd say something like, 'Well, you know, if you want to be a lobster, you
just reach behind your left ear and pull it out and there it is...'
Well, the AI (artificial intelligence) community has been working on that
problem for about twenty years and they haven't gotten very far. How is
it that the computer knew you wanted to be a lobster, knew what a lobster
looked like, how to make one, and on and on...
(continued...)
