Blindsight, Unconsciousness, Google Glass and Virtual Reality

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Ego
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Blindsight, Unconsciousness, Google Glass and Virtual Reality

Post by Ego »

First, blindsight.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs ... nowing-it/

http://youtu.be/RuNDkcbq8PY?t=3m40s
In 2003, a patient known as TN lost use of his primary visual cortex, area V1. He had two successive strokes, which knocked out the region in both his left and right hemisphere. After his strokes, ordinary tests of TN’s sight turned up nothing. He could not even detect large objects moving right in front of his eyes. Researchers eventually began to notice that TN exhibited signs of blindsight and in 2008 decided to test their theory. They took TN into a hallway and asked him to walk through it without using the cane he always carried after having the strokes. TN was not aware at the time, but the researchers had placed various obstacles in the hallway to test if he could avoid them without conscious use of his sight. To the researchers' delight, he moved around every obstacle with ease, at one point even pressing himself up against the wall to squeeze past a trashcan placed in his way. After navigating through the hallway, TN reported that he was just walking the way he wanted to, not because he knew anything was there.
His eyes were perfect. The part of his brain that translated the signal from the eye to his conscious brain was damaged. Another part of the brain transmits the eye signal to the unconscious brain. That part was undamaged. He could not consciously see but he could unconsciously see. To say it another way, he could see enough to avoid obstacles but he didn't know that he could see.

Here's where it gets interesting. Those of us with normal brains cannot consciously see different images in each eye. This is know as binocular rivalry. The conscious-vision-translation portion of the brain cannot deal with conflicting images. It blocks one and sees the other. If one image is stagnant and the other is changing, the conscious brain - but not the unconscious - ignores the stagnant image and sees the motion in the other eye. The unconscious brain sees both images.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion-in ... uppression

There are a bunch of new studies showing that we are highly susceptible to priming by images shown to the eye that cannot consciously see. Show a photo of food and we become hungry but we don't know why. Show sexual images and we become aroused without knowing we saw anything arousing.

Google Glass shows an image to only one eye while the other is looking out at the constantly changing world.

Walk past Burger King and the photo of a Whopper gets fed directly to the unconscious mind without ever entering consciousness. Imagine the potential.

tl;dr Buy Google.
Last edited by Ego on Tue Dec 27, 2016 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

workathome
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by workathome »

Creepy bro.

GOOG should start paying dividends.

Tyler9000
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by Tyler9000 »

This also raises a good point about someone watching video while walking down the road. Sure, one eye is exposed. But it's not necessarily consciously monitoring the real world.

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Ego
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by Ego »

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to try to HTC Vive. I absolutely forgot I was in a room with other people. I was so utterly immersed that the real world just disappeared. The world as we know it is over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYfNzhLXYGc

sky
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by sky »

I would guess that about one third of all humans will enter virtual reality and never come back to the real world.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Who will feed them?

sky
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by sky »

They will be tube fed health-guru designed smoothies from the Soylent-McDonalds corporation.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

How will they pay for these smoothies?

Chad
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by Chad »

Ego wrote:Over the weekend I had the opportunity to try to HTC Vive. I absolutely forgot I was in a room with other people. I was so utterly immersed that the real world just disappeared. The world as we know it is over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYfNzhLXYGc
Completely over.
http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/20 ... ty/134077/

Slight depression/disappoint in life after using VR in certain ways. The scary and cool thing is this VR is like the Commodore 64.

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jennypenny
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by jennypenny »

Chad wrote:Slight depression/disappoint in life after using VR in certain ways. The scary and cool thing is this VR is like the Commodore 64.
While we were playing jackbox games on Christmas, we were talking about the Christmas we got Pong. We loved it and thought it was the most amazing thing ever, like straight out of Star Wars lol.

Chad
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by Chad »

@jp
Yeah, we had the same thing with the Atari 2600. I think I played Asteroids until 3 in the morning that Christmas.

My friends and I always joke that we would have never graduated from college if the current game systems had been around with Madden Football instead of the Nintendo Tecmo Bowl.

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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by theanimal »

Bread and circuses. I'll be deliberately avoiding participating in this.

ETA: That is as a player/consumer.

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C40
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by C40 »

Ego wrote:Over the weekend I had the opportunity to try to HTC Vive. I absolutely forgot I was in a room with other people. I was so utterly immersed that the real world just disappeared. The world as we know it is over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYfNzhLXYGc
Wow. WOW! That's the first video I've seen that shows what the current virtual reality system are actually like. There is CRAZY huge potential here. I could see the "% of people currently in virtual reality" becoming some kind of well-known measure, and the number just creeping higher and higher.

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Ego
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by Ego »

You guys know that I haven't been shy about speaking my mind about video games. And I am not prone to addiction. So I was incredibly surprised by the feelings it left me with. I had this thing on my head for about ten minutes. The moment I took it off, I wanted it back on. To hell with the others waiting patiently. I did not feel the least bit dizzy or nauseous. In fact, I felt great. And the thing that really worried me is that when I got home, I immediately googled where I can do it again.

From the article:

But some of the stories date as far back as 2013, when an initial version of the Oculus Rift was released for software developers.

“[W]hile standing and in the middle of a sentence, I had an incredibly strange, weird moment of comparing real life to the VR,” wrote the video-game developer Lee Vermeulen after he tried Valve’s SteamVR system back in 2014. He was mid-conversation with a coworker when he started to feel off, and the experience sounds almost metaphysical.

“I understood that the demo was over, but it was [as] if a lower level part of my mind couldn’t exactly be sure," he said. "It gave me a very weird existential dread of my entire situation, and the only way I could get rid of that feeling was to walk around or touch things around me.”


I feel a little like a drug pusher.... but here's where you can try it: ;)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/locations/htcvive

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C40
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness, Google Glass and Virtual Reality

Post by C40 »

It's like the heroin of video games is getting ready to explode. Immersive MMO open world games (like World of Warcraft and now many others) will be huge on this. "E-Athlete" could actually come to have real literal meaning.

I can see it being insanely popular with families too. (like the people who bought the Nintendo Wii). If I'm guessing, that Youtube video was using a technology that will also be big part of VR games in the future - having a video camera in the room, so when multiple people are playing, you can see (real time video representations of) the other players in the game. WOW! There are a lot of different ways that can and will go. Families playing together. Games where your looks matter (think Tinder crossed with a video game. Virtual dating. etc.). And more - strippers, prostitutes, webcam ("camgirl") shows where it's like the audience is standing in the room, porn shoots that sell live Pay-per-view type access.

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C40
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness & Google Glass

Post by C40 »

Ego wrote: I feel a little like a drug pusher.... but here's where you can try it: ;)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/locations/htcvive
How did it work? How long did you have to stand in line? How long did you get to use it? Do you have to pay anything or schedule an appointment?

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Ego
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness, Google Glass and Virtual Reality

Post by Ego »

I walked up and the guy was standing there waiting for someone to come up and try it. Remarkable considering it was Christmas eve. I used it for 10 minutes. It was free. I had to sign a waiver.

There are two sensors that see anything in the 16X16 box so (I believe) if someone else enters the box the sensors notice it and projects them.

theanimal
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness, Google Glass and Virtual Reality

Post by theanimal »

Ego- What about it is so addicting ? Why do you think you had such a positive experience?

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Ego
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness, Google Glass and Virtual Reality

Post by Ego »

Oh.... I don't think it was positive at all. It was how I imagine smoking crack to be. Utterly transportive. :lol:

Toska2
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Re: Blindsight, Unconsciousness, Google Glass and Virtual Reality

Post by Toska2 »

To express the first thought to come to mind with animal's second question. Is it possible to subconsciously alter one's mood flashing pictures too fast for the mind to register? Aka, Ego will never be able to answer the question because he has been manipulated.

*Hence the "drugged" experience

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