The Next Big Thing appears to be virtual reality. Suddenly, VR headsets are being written up everywhere.
I was sufficiently intrigued to spend $15 on Google Cardboard, a VR viewer made of — yes — cardboard, which holds your smartphone in a snug little Velcro-tabbed flap and allows you to watch VR videos through two built-in lenses. The quality is not great (and why would it be for fifteen bucks?), but Cardboard does give you a taste of the VR experience. I watched a short documentary video via the free Vrse app; called "The Source," it concerned an Ethiopian village desperate for clean water. The image quality is not first-rate and the 3D effects are rather crude; figures in the foreground appear somewhat pasted on, like the images in an old stereopticon (or the ViewMaster toy from my childhood). But you do have a 360 degree view of the scene; turn your head and the point of view shifts appropriately. The experience was convincing enough to make me a little dizzy at times, and I was genuinely startled when someone abruptly appeared right "next to" me.
Even now, far more sophisticated VR gizmos are available, and naturally the technology will only get more realistic and affordable. It's not much of a stretch to assume that within ten years, and maybe much sooner, nearly everyone will be spending a certain part of his day plugged into an uncannily real virtual world.
All this has led my Facebook friend Ian, who occasionally comments here, to suggest that this trend represents, in part, an attempt to recreate the Summerland experience. I think he just might be right.
Image from a promotional video for the Oculus Rift VR headset
Summerland was a term coined by 19th century Spiritualists to designate the earthlike plane of spiritual reality to which most people gravitate shortly after they have died. Created out of the collective memories of the deceased, it feels as solid and real as physical reality does to the living. But unlike the earth plane, the Summerland environment is more directly under the control of consciousness, and some of its features can be creatively altered by an effort of imagination and will.
Because people at a similar level of spiritual development tend to flock together, Summerland is largely free of the conflicts and frictions that plague us on earth. And because it is a product of consciousness, it is an idealized environment - butterflies, but no mosquitoes; flowers, but no weeds.
If those of us who are currently alive retain any memory of a pre-birth existence, we may find ourselves unconsciously yearning for Summerland. This gnawing homesickness could be the basis of the persistent theme of paradise lost that resonates throughout world mythology. It may be why children, especially, are drawn to stories about magical kingdoms and happy endings. It may also be why some people become sad, even tearful, at the sight of a beautiful sunset or a scenic vista.
And it may help explain our urge to lose ourselves in a wondrous world of color and light, where nothing bad can happen to us no matter what adventures we embark on. For over a century, movies and television have exerted a hypnotic influence on millions of people (there's a reason Hollywood has been styled the Dream Factory); more recently, the entertainment experience has become interactive in the form of increasingly realistic first-person video games; and now VR is poised to take us to a whole new level of immersion in an unreal reality.
Some fans of the movie Avatar claimed to actually find it difficult to readjust to the real world after being immersed in the 3D (and sometimes Imax) world of Pandora. They said they felt sad and lost in mundane reality, and longed to return to the more colorful and exotic environment of the movie. Since Avatar arguably represents the highest technical and artistic level of 3D/CG imagery yet achieved, it's not too surprising that some people would get hooked on it. But VR technology will give us a vastly more immersive experience, one that makes even Avatar seem primitive by comparison. I will not be at all surprised if VR addiction (with its corollary: difficulty functioning in physical reality) becomes a leading issue in the next decade.
Imagine a fully immersive VR experience that is shared with thousands of other people via an online platform. Players interact with each other via avatars in a completely convincing 3D world. The environment has been meticulously designed to offer otherworldly beauty, dazzling variety, and total realism. The disagreeable features of real life are omitted, while the enjoyable aspects are abundantly available with no downside. In this world you can explore, study, party, fall in love, or just sit quietly on the bank of a babbling brook.
It sounds a lot like Summerland — the "heaven" that we may indistinctly remember. Maybe we are exerting our efforts as a society toward recreating that lost paradise so we can escape the travails of physical life and return to the place we came from.
But as Ian also observed in his Facebook post, Summerland is understood by Spiritualists to be a temporary place of rest and recuperation, a way station that prepares us for further challenges — either on higher planes or in a new earthly incarnation. If we should find a way to escape those challenges, are we missing out on the lessons that earthly life is intended to teach? Are we playing hooky when we should be in school, or going AWOL when we're meant to be in combat?
Or will VR serve, instead, to heighten our spiritual sense by reinforcing the idea that physical life is simply another drama played out for the ebenfit of consciousness — a "cosmic game," as Stanislav Grof described it? Will VR allows us to undergo shamanic vision quests without the need for ayahuasca, DMT, or peyote? Will it enable us to live a variety of alternate lives and have even more experiences (with concomitant opportunities for learning) than we can have now?
Perhaps the outcome will be mixed. Historical VR worlds may open us up to past-life memories, but also plant false memories of past lives. VR encounters with deceased loved ones may make some of us more accepting of a postmortem existence, while leading others to conclude that an afterlife is unnecessary. The convergence of physical and virtual reality may be liberating to some people and destabilizing to others.
I don't know. But I suspect that VR will be the next frontier in the expansion of consciousness and that it will take us in wildly unexpected directions. It may even take us home.
I recall...and recently re-read...a passage from a book which you posted a while ago in which a frequent lucid dreamer had a seeming OOBE in which he appeared in his own perception to have landed in a rock-solid hyper real afterlife and had a conversation with two inhabitants of that place about what was going on.
A few weeks ago, perhaps influenced by this, I had what I felt was my first known lucid (or semi-lucid) dream. I was walking along a fence-lined residential street when I slowly became aware of and fixated by the fact the normally blurry visuals of dream world (at least in my recollection of them) were becoming ever more sharp, clear and vivid taking on all the quality of waking reality.I was very excited by this, and though the term was never employed during the experience the concept of lucid dreaming was clearly understood by me to be at work.. I tested my surroundings by trying to conjure up a particular friend..nothing. At first that is. But soon there he was on the opposite side of the road and crossing over to me. But his face was different, younger, gaunter, slightly distorted. I interpreted this to be a younger version of himself (though he never looked like that) and after he indulged in chitchat of his own about his day I excitedly got to my bit..explaining to him that I'd realised none of this was real, and telling him what became of his real life self in the future!
This sense of visual solidity and reality began to fade as ultimately did the details of the dream after I woke. The final intriguing detail of the experience for me was that during it I could hear the rustling sound made when someone is turning the pages of a newspaper, and understood it to be being picked up by the physical ears of my sleeping body...again an indication I was aware of being in a dream...but this couldn't have actually been happening as it was about 2am at the time and there was no one else here. However..here's the intrigue...when I started typing out this tale on another message board the following morning I could hear precisely that sound for real coming up the stairs from a family member reading the morning paper. *scratches head*
Posted by: Lawrence B | April 11, 2016 at 06:26 AM
Great post Michael, interesting theory too. I actually somewhat experienced the difficultly of readjusting to reality after watching Avatar, a film I watched at the cinema several times and bought on DVD.
I think that your theory does in part explain it, I also think it's because we human beings have lost our connection to nature. Places truly untouched by man are rare, and the majority of people live in Urban environments. This desire to reconnect with the natural world also partly explains this VR phenomenon and the Avatar withdrawal IMO. I think that might party have been Cameron's message as he is an environmentalist.
Anyway great post - I hope summer land is a real place!
Posted by: Roberta | April 11, 2016 at 08:52 AM
Very interesting. But I could see this going very bad, with governments using VR to virtually anesthesize populations to keep them quiet. But I suppose we already have that with TV.
On the Summerland theory, it does certainly seem like a lot of what some people have created is designed to evoke Summerland, or is some kind of fleeting memory of Summerland. One of my favorite schools of art are from the Hudson River School paintings. Look at these paintings, and ask yourself if you're not reminded of something: https://www.google.com/search?q=hudson+river+school+paintings&biw=960&bih=484&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjTtu74h4fMAhVJXD4KHdnCBX0QsAQINQ
Posted by: Kathleen | April 11, 2016 at 01:04 PM
Interesting stuff Michael.
I've wondered about the effects of VR as well, and I think it will over time further diminish the authority of the materialism.
Even now atheist figure heads like Neil Degrasse Tyson accept the possibility that this reality is simulated or is functionally like a simulation.
Some physicists and philosophers suggest there's only patterns or information that come before even space & time.
So the grounding is already there in academia and on the spiritual side you have Eastern traditions and more recent ideas like those of Tom Campbell. (Not to mention movies like Matrix, TRON, Existenz, 13th floor...)
But even beyond this I think children who grow up in the VR worlds won't have the same adherence to mechanistic thinking, that the universe is like a confining machine.
Combine this with the use of alternative medicine and even psychedelics in medical treatment and you have a society much more open to accepting challenges to the materialist faith.
Posted by: SPatel | April 12, 2016 at 03:32 AM
I know Iann Barron, he was one of my supporters for my directorship of Mensa in the late 1990s. I used to talk with him regularly at various Mensa conferences and once spent a long weekend with him, his partner and family at his home in Bristol, along with a small gathering of friends.
My most abiding recollection was his describing to me how virtual reality would always fall down on one vital source of sensory input, that of touch.
BTW, did you know that Iann is also the man who developed parallel processing on the silicone chip?
Posted by: Julie Baxter | April 12, 2016 at 10:33 AM
Addendum to my last post - thanks to the person who posted this on Skeptiko:
2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: Is the Universe a Simulation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgSZA3NPpBs
Posted by: SPatel | April 12, 2016 at 01:12 PM
Julie wrote, "... virtual reality would always fall down on one vital source of sensory input, that of touch."
Maybe not. Haptic feedback gloves are already in development:
https://www.gloveonevr.com/
And eventually - who knows? - it may be possible to create the illusion of touch by directly stimulating relevant parts of the brain.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | April 12, 2016 at 01:30 PM
Well, Iann's comment was made in the late 1990s. Do you know if he and his company are still at the forefront of all this. I must confess I haven't followed developments since. :)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | April 12, 2016 at 01:59 PM
Ps. Just noticed, should have read 'silicon' chip!
There's always one, isn't there. ;)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | April 12, 2016 at 02:06 PM
One thing that occurs to me is, even if full tactile feedback could be achieved through some sort of brain interface, VR would fail to reproduce the intense emotional component that seems to accompany transcendental experiences e.g. feelings of oneness, universal love, more-real-than-real etc. These emotional states seem beyond the sort of thing that would be triggered merely by exposure to stimuli in a virtual environment, even if said stimuli were accompanied by tactile feedback, especially since the presence of the headset would be a constant reminder that you are, in fact, experiencing a simulation.
The idea of VR historical programs triggering associated past life memories could be interesting, especially if used to allow those who already report such memories to explore the events in a more immersive way that might be conducive to further recollections, but I've always seen VR, especially immersive VR as useful for solving more immediate and prosaic problems. The socially maladjusted people who commit mass shootings, who rape, or who prey on children could channel their destructive impulses into a harmless outlet. I also wonder what VR could do for the prison system. Could inmates simply be hooked into an immersive simulation that eliminates the violence and sexual issues that exist in prisons. I don't suggest VR as a panacea, but I do wonder what uses it might serve in those fields.
Of course, the Orwellian, or perhaps Huxleyan ramifications of VR's implementation do give one pause. It's not just addiction and withdrawal from reality that are frightening, but the potential for all sorts of propagandizing. Imagine what schoolchildren could be taught, or perhaps indoctrinated with, using such technology.
Posted by: Michael Vann | April 12, 2016 at 10:13 PM
If the world we live in is in any sense designed, I's take heart in the fact that VR is both possible and allowed.
Posted by: Wax Frog | April 12, 2016 at 10:14 PM
Air New Zealand recently had an exhibition of their history, featuring plane designs of the future. They had head sets that put you in another reality, the plane sides disappeared. I found it really freaky, probably like the Avatar experience perhaps?
I think thats what reality is like outside of our 3D illusion. All in our head with no physical sensations, after we cease to be material.
I think what life really represents can't be debated without looking at the whole picture. To me, hearing immaterial life speak to me, has to gel with my understanding of the universe.
A god, or quantum mass created from what we term consciousness. So each atom has to have a conscious base, and consciousness makes matter, even that of ours at some level. Science as yet just can't think in terms of conscious matter as a basis for reality.
The lack of touch got to me. That need to be grounded, perhaps thats what spaces people out when they leave here and become a speck of conscious atoms and a part of the universe connected to each being and event that ever was. Just another piece of conscious matter in the universe. Lyn x.
Posted by: lynn | April 12, 2016 at 11:06 PM
Everything we experience in this life happens in the brain. Information is sent as signals to the brain and our brain interprets and experiences it as touch, sight, smell, sound, taste, etc. All there is is consciousness. The "out there" that we believe to be so real is in actuality just energy and information. Atoms are mostly ghostly empty space and the sub atomic particles themselves are hardly like anything we know as matter being more like spinning eddies in a stream than a rock or a BB. The only reason my hand doesn't just float on down through the desk they are resting on is the negative charges of the electrons in my hands repelling the negative charges of the electrons in the desk. Everything we perceive as happening - happens in the brain.
“Consciousness Creates Reality” – Physicists Admit The Universe Is Immaterial, Mental & Spiritual
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/11/11/consciousness-creates-reality-physicists-admit-the-universe-is-immaterial-mental-spiritual/
"For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion."
Excerpt from The Universe as a hologram by Michael Talbot,
http://www.earthportals.com/hologram.html
Posted by: Art | April 13, 2016 at 12:07 AM
Great stuff "Art". Better explanation than mine.
Talbot- "He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something".
All of matter, we categorise and compartmentalise as he says. We are probably just "one" thing in a sense.
Ok, just before seeing Art's article, I'm bored doing uni swat. So asked in my head to my father. "where are you", as in place.
"I'm not anywhere, I'm everywhere". Me- "But aren't you a thing, one thing". Answer- "A thing can be multifaceted, multilayered in on itself, not just one single thing".
I take these head talks with a grain of salt. Whatever. But I think our understanding of the universe is fundamentally wrong, and clearly biased. Can humans really think outside of what appears to be a purpose filled reality? Reality seems to be a frequency, not solid or material. A hard one to get our head around. Lyn.
Posted by: lynn | April 13, 2016 at 01:16 AM
Faceted is probably the wrong word, so I'm told, and its creative. Thoughts create. so the universe perpetually evolves. Something like that. Lyn's gone a bit barmy, too much study. Cheers.
Posted by: lynn | April 13, 2016 at 01:31 AM
I know a year ago, and I posted it. Having head conversations about what plane my father was on. It came back as- reality was not out there but in his head. And I thought, to me, that wouldn't be the same. a bit like the headset on the plane.
But when you think about it, all of life is a thought registered in your head.
It also gels with how the woman from sensing murder had water in her lungs given by a spirit. and how a spirt entered my body and tabbed my immune system to make me feel run down.
It makes sense on every level, that we are all connected in some way. Cheers.
Posted by: lynn | April 13, 2016 at 01:52 AM
"Of course, the Orwellian, or perhaps Huxleyan ramifications of VR's implementation do give one pause."
Remember Huxley's "feelies"? They were movies augmented by tactile feedback.
Posted by: Roger Knights | April 13, 2016 at 06:48 AM
Saw this and was reminded of some old posts here: https://www.facebook.com/topic/Piers-Morgan/111987298817521?source=whfrt&position=1&trqid=6273062602183118336
What the hell is it with prominent atheists dismissing child abuse? Okay, two of them that I know of isn't exactly a trend, but...
Posted by: chel | April 13, 2016 at 11:35 AM
Art
Thanks for the link to The Universe as a Hologram. You indicted that the author is Michael Talbot but the linked article is attributed to an 'unknown author'. My first read was very quick but did I miss a reference to Talbot? This is a very thought-provoking exposition and worth printing-off. Thanks again. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | April 13, 2016 at 02:35 PM
Hi Michael, fantastic article, thanks for posting this & getting a discussion going!
I'm a long time "lurker" on this excellent blog, only ever commented on the Peake & Laszlo book....but I just had to comment on this one.
I used the oculus device with a samsung phone about 2 weeks ago now (a friend had it all), and I was absolutely blown away by it too. I've been itching to post about it on another forum (already mentioned in the comments) ever since but only got round to it yesterday....only to be guided back here to see this, on one of my fav blogs! (though I haven't checked here since probably Feb, so I can read through several entries in one go).
You & the commentators ask some great questions to ponder over, as I have been doing myself. Fascinating times ahead...
Haven't much time but my only contribution personally is, that I'm not often if ever blown away by technology....this was quite unique in that sense. Felt very futuristic...in a P K Dick-ian sense I guess.
In my experience, this is comparable if not possibly the equal in some ways to the awe & exhilaration of experiencing DMT or other psychedelics, or "astral projection" and lucid dreaming of a mundane order.
However, I would agree with much of the sentiment in Michael Vann's comments above that, imo, these technologies will not be able to reproduce more "deeper" or subtler "mystical" or "spiritual" experiences, because they are no so geo-spatial in nature.
Anyway, thanks Michael!
Posted by: manjit | April 13, 2016 at 03:42 PM
We think it's happening "out there" but in actuality it's happening "in there." It's like a video that is being played in the back of head, which is also part of the hologram. "Out there" is actually just a bunch of frequencies swirling around outside of ourselves.
And if the thousands of NDEs that I've read are to be believed all those millions of people killed in concentration camps are all still alive somewhere in some cosmic holographic film somewhere and we will be reunited with our loved ones after we cross over.
So that means we really haven't lost anything, all the things in this life that we think we have been separated from exist somewhere that we don't have access to right now, but eventually our physical bodies will wear out and the consciousness that we think of as "ourselves" will be set free from this body and wake up in the same place as all the people and things we have been separated from.
When I read the New Testament I read it from a holographic perspective. To me understanding the implications of the holographic universe is the key to understanding NDEs and the New Testament. Jesus and Paul didn't use the word "holographic" but that is obviously what they were talking about.
"Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Matthew 18:18
Posted by: Art | April 13, 2016 at 04:19 PM
Amos Oliver Doyle, you'll just have to trust me, it's Michael Talbot. I've read all the books he wrote - twice - and I know his style and what he wrote about. Plus that particular essay is copied and reprinted all over the internet and some of them say "Michael Talbot" and some say anonymous.
I suspicion that someone wanted to copy and paste it somewhere it was forbidden so they just said it wasn't copyrighted and it was written by anonymous. Anyway it's a brilliant synopsis of what the holographic universe suggests and if you read it before reading Talbot's book "The Holographic Universe" it makes it a whole lot more understandable.
Two other really good books that Michael Talbot wrote are Mysticism and the New Physics and Beyond the Quantum. I think NDEs are much easier to understand if you understand the implications of the holographic universe theory.
Another real important word to understand is "consilience" which I learned by reading one of Michael Prescott's blogs. I think it's a real important word to understand. It explains why I put such emphasis on the connection between NDEs and the holographic universe theory. They corroborate one another.
It's as simple as this... the place we call heaven is the original holographic film that our universe is projected from. When people have NDEs they simply transition from this reality, the holographic projection, to the original holographic film that our universe is projected from. The physics of heaven is the physics of holographic film. I know that to be true because I figured it out by reading NDEs and Talbot's books.
Posted by: Art | April 13, 2016 at 10:30 PM
"In my experience, this is comparable if not possibly the equal in some ways to the awe & exhilaration of experiencing DMT or other psychedelics, or "astral projection" and lucid dreaming of a mundane order." -Manjit
I like an amusing diversion as much as anyone. I think it's even healthy to escape into a good book or movie once in a while.
However, I think that VR and related tech. will never be an adequate substitute for mystical experiences because 1. they are not generated from within. The connection to the deeper (or higher) self isn't there. 2. It's someone else's vision.
Posted by: no one | April 14, 2016 at 09:03 AM
Art,
I was ready to buy The Holographic Universe as listed on Amazon but the negative reviews were cogent and overwhelming so I did not order a copy. Do you think there is any validity in the criticisms of this book? - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | April 14, 2016 at 05:29 PM
I read Talbot's book years ago. On my first reading I thought it was over-the-top in its acceptance of a variety of paranormal phenomena that seemed dubious to me at the time. but when I reread it a few years later, having become more familiar with the literature, I liked it much better. Though I think there are problems with his thesis (.e.g., if all physical things are holograms, then the brain must also be a hologram, so how can the holograms be produced by the brain?), it's still provocative and interesting. It's also well written and entertaining, even if you don't completely buy into it. I liked it enough that I read Talbot's other book, which concerns modern physics.
I suspect that some negative reviews may have arisen because the book was displayed in the Science section of bookstores, when it really should have been in the New Age section. It's a highly speculative work, not a science text.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | April 14, 2016 at 07:19 PM
When you buy a non fiction book do you think that every single thing in it will be true? Do you believe that it is either all true or all lies? I heard a preacher say that about the Bible one time. Personally I believe that a book can be made up of truth and fiction, that at it's heart there may be a true story but perhaps a story teller has embellished it a bit. Some of it can be true and some of it can be embellished.
Skeptical materialists are everywhere. If you go to Wikipedia almost every single article on the paranormal has been tainted by them. If you listen to them they will dissuade you from believing anything supernatural or spiritual. Their mind is closed to it. I have no doubt that they have also been to Amazon and other sites and torn apart Michael Talbot's books.
They are skeptical of any connection between quantum physics and parapsychology even though to me the connections are obvious. I'm not the first one to see it. Many other NDE researchers have commented on and written about the connection between the holographic universe theory, Dr. Kenneth Ring PhD for one. Ring even required his students to read The Holographic Universe when he taught a course on NDEs at the University of Connecticut.
But because of my beliefs I believe it doesn't matter. If you want to subscribe to what the skeptical materialists preach then by all means go ahead. Personally I find my belief system much more comforting and uplifting. I'm much happier since finding and reading about death bed visions and believing that one day I'll get to see my loved ones again when I cross over and perhaps even before that time. Maybe my mom will come and greet me on my deathbed and be there to help guide me to the other side. I find death bed visions very believable.
I believe that reading Michael Talbot's book will help you understand near death experiences better and that there is a connection and corroboration between the two. There is "consilience" between them and that the two together makes the story that much more believable. People who have NDEs say things that seem to match some of the things I have read about quantum physics and the holographic universe theory.
When they say that they saw more colors than normal that is just a reference to the fact that since they were no longer in the body they were able to see the entire light spectrum instead of just a small part of it. There are more colors because we are limited by our physical bodies and only see a very small portion of the light spectrum instead of the whole thing.
They say that it was "realer than real" because according to Dr. Craig Hogan, director of Fermilab, there is an inherent blurriness or fuzziness in a holographic projection but that blurriness wouldn't exist in the original holographic film because they are connected to all the information instead of just a small part of it. And since this place we are now is the holographic projection that would mean that there is an inherent blurriness.
And lets talk about having access to "all information". In holographic film all the information is interconnected and each piece contains the whole and everything interpenetrates everything else. That is why after we cross over and transition to the original holographic film we have access to "all knowledge."
Telepathy? Does it need explanation? We are connected and "one" and therefore I know what you are thinking and you know what I'm thinking. Again, it's that information holographic thing.
Same with 360 vision, whatever you focus you attention on that is what you experience. You are living on holographic film so you will be able to see as much or as little information as you want.
And thoughts being things and your consciousness creating reality? Because you exist everywhere at once whatever you think of that is what you think about and see. You see what you focus your attention on.
From Mark Horton's NDE (the most holographic NDE I've ever read and also my favorite):
"From this vantage point, I had to merely think of a place and time and I was there, experiencing everything about the place and time and people present.
I have always, I don't know why, had a very strong "pull" toward Scotland. I have some Scottish ancestry, but no more so than English, Swedish, and Prussian, but I don't know why I have such a strong affinity for the land, its history, its culture, and the music. (No sound in this world can stir the feelings that the sound of bagpipes arise in me!) Well, one of my first "trips" was to Scotland, on a high cliff overlooking a grey, crashing sea during a violent thunderstorm. I was there! I could feel the wind lashing at me and the driving force of the rain while I could see and hear the crashing of the thunder and the sea. All I had done was have the merest fleeting thought of the land and I was there!"
http://celestial.kuriakon00.com/nde/mark_horton.htm
Posted by: Art | April 15, 2016 at 12:11 AM
Julie Baxter:
"My most abiding recollection was [Iann Barron] describing to me how virtual reality would always fall down on one vital source of sensory input, that of touch".
Hmm . .I wouldn't have thought this difficulty is insuperable. I was thinking that eventually we could stimulate the brain in various ways? (like Michael Prescott suggested).
I wrote a prediction on my "random musings" blog about virtual reality. I said there:
"I think eventually Virtual Reality will be huge. Bigger than TV, bigger than the Internet, bigger than smartphones, bigger than anything ever.
Eventually, after 200 years or so, virtual reality will be come indistinguishable from reality. You'll be able to experience anything you like. Any time in the past, anywhere in the world with bots interacting with you almost as realistically as real people.
And one will be able to interact with real people in a shared virtual reality.
All this in perhaps as little as 200 years. Can't wait! Quite literally . ."
http://ianwardells.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/i-think-eventually-virtual-reality-will.html
Posted by: Ian Wardell | April 15, 2016 at 07:49 AM
Oh, OK guys. I will buy a copy of Talbot's book. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | April 15, 2016 at 09:52 AM
@Ian: Well, Iann was commenting almost twenty years ago. :) And I remember there was much discussion about the possibility of human intelligence evolving into a non-biological life form. I thought it possible then and I haven't changed my mind . . . . . . even thought I don't much like the idea.
@Amos: Good! :)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | April 15, 2016 at 03:48 PM
\\"Oh, OK guys. I will buy a copy of Talbot's book." - AOD//
------------
Just remember when you buy a book you don't have to buy the whole thing. Those parts which you find useful keep for yourself and those parts that are too strange to swallow discard. I have read so many things that seem to parallel or corroborate the holographic universe theory.
To be honest that is what I do with the New Testament. Believe it or not there is a whole about the New Testament that sounds very "holographic" to me and which because of consilience I think might actually be the truth - and those parts that sound silly I just ignore. You can do the same thing with The Holographic Universe.
I don't let skeptical materialists tell me how to think or what I should or shouldn't believe. This Universe we live in is stranger than we can imagine, to quote Sir James Jeans. Or as Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of modern Quantum Physics said "Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real."
It's a beautiful thing to believe in life after death. It gives meaning and purpose to life and helps overcome so much of the grief that goes along with losing loved ones. Instead of crying that they are gone forever we cry that we will miss them for a while but eventually one day we will be reunited with those that we have loved in this life. And by the way Death Bed Visions are awesome. If you haven't read Final Gifts by Maggie Callanan and Visions, Trips, and Final Rooms by David Kessler I highly recommend them.
Posted by: Art | April 15, 2016 at 05:46 PM
My first thought is that VR can never duplicate or offer direct pathways to the supersensory realms "out there" described by mediums, OBE and NDE subjects, meditators and spiritual adepts.
The reason is because VR 'speaks" directly to the five senses. It doesn't speak from the realm outside of the five senses -- the supersensory realm.
VR, it would seem, may well have a promising future as a technology that can "ape" supersensory experience, but not duplicate it.
VR's inherent limitation is that it is a part of physical creation, not the metaphysical realms.
That said, I could see how VR could possibly help trigger an extrasensory experience, by helping the mind to relax and accept an influx of input from non-customary realms.
It could also make the metaphysical realms seem less far-fetched and foreign, and more able to be accepted by one's consciousness, thus enabling one to more easily relax and accept input from the non-physical realms. It could give your mind a boost in the right direction.
Overall, it would seem perhaps that VR provides yet another permutation of physical creation -- but not a direct doorway to metaphysical domains.
Having written all of the above, I see now that the poster no one has strongly alluded to what I am saying, and much more succinctly. He wrote:
Bingo!
Posted by: [email protected] | April 15, 2016 at 07:54 PM
Thanks for your advice Art. I have to say that I am familiar with a great deal of thoughts about alternate realities, OBEs, NDEs and related things but have not spent a lot of time considering in detail a holographic universe, so I think that Michael Talbot's thoughts will be interesting to me.
I have never considered picking and choosing that which fits my preconceived ideas about what reality is all about nor have I---as much as I would desire it---selected those ideas which comfort me and support my desire for my continued existence after physical death and discarded those which may present a contrary view. That is my particular problem as nothing is ever settled in my mind and doubting and searching are my constant companions. My search is for what is, not what I might wish it to be. There are of course those things which ring true to me and those which do not. I think that I need to pay special attention to those things which do not happen to fit my particular paradigm of reality but doing so means that questions are never answered to my satisfaction.
I find the reality I am in to be an exquisitely beautiful place and often think that it is the first heaven. Today especially with the warm temperature, Spring flowers blooming, trees leafing out and the bright sunshine I think to myself that 'this is what heaven must be like', at least I hope it is what my heaven would be like. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | April 16, 2016 at 08:18 AM
AOD, Speaking of ringing true have you read any death bed vision books? There are some really good ones out there. They "ring true" to me. I don't see how dying people can be making this stuff up. There is a lot of weird stuff about people who are dying, like they got one foot in this reality and one foot in the other.
Like Terminal Lucidity for instance when they get it all back even when they got some serious mental problems like alzheimers patients suddenly waking up and having normal conversations even if they have been silent for a couple of years. And when they have death bed visions they'll be talking to their dead mother and then turn and start having a normal conversation with their daughter sitting next to them.
People who label them hallucinations don't understand how hallucinations work. You can't be hallucinating and then turn and just act normal. And besides all these dying people can't all be hallucinating the same thing? Why aren't they hallucinating polka dotted elephants and such not instead of their dead loved ones?
And when they do hallucinate dead loved ones why does it bring them so much comfort and remove their fear of death? All of a sudden go from being agitated and afraid to being quiet and serene and talking about taking trips and when they'll be leaving? Seriously read "Final Gifts" by Maggie Callanan and "Visions, Trips, and Crowded Rooms" by David Kessler. They are awesome books. Two of my favorites.
Posted by: Art | April 17, 2016 at 12:53 AM
Art, You won't like this - neither would Talbot - but I ask you to consider this, if just for a moment; This world may not be a holographic projection from the other side, but that the situation is actually the opposite - The other side is a projection of the mentality and feeling developed in this world.
ADCs seem to confirm this. What is summerland, but an idealized experience of the concepts formed in this world?
It would also help explain why we are here. We struggle and strive and are tested and laugh and love and hate, etc. and the psychic/perceptual stew the results *creates* the realms of the next world. So, without this world there wouldn't be anything in the next except for maybe a big loud OM!
Think about it for a moment.......
Posted by: no one | April 17, 2016 at 11:22 AM
No One.
I have always thought that the ones who survive are the ones who think they will survive. If you think you won't---you won't. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | April 17, 2016 at 02:33 PM
I know I'm bringing up a lot of things I'd like to hear opinions from Michael on, but Derren Brown's doing a thing at Thorpe Park involving a demon costume which I'm sure could be picked apart entertainingly here. It's on YouTube ads at the moment.
Posted by: chel | April 17, 2016 at 08:10 PM
No one, I tend to think the universe is the same here as there. I don't think it suddenly changes in different parts of the universe. Its more that we are confined within our bodies and our minds. Our minds work at a slower pace and within the limits of neuronal activity.
Remote viewing- seeing without eyes is an example of people simply changing their beliefs and harnessing their consciousness. Similarly a drug, releases your sense of self as perpetuating information. So it expands to encompass the full extent of universal consciousness.
Its an illusion of our own thinking. If we thought differently, the world would change to match those beliefs. Lyn x.
Posted by: lynn | April 17, 2016 at 09:16 PM
\\"This world may not be a holographic projection from the other side, but that the situation is actually the opposite - The other side is a projection of the mentality and feeling developed in this world." - noone
--------------------------
Okay so you know that people who have NDEs say that the other side seems "realer than real" or "more real than normal?" Right?
So, in 2010 in New Scientist Magazine Dr. Craig Hogan, director of Fermilab said that holographic projections are always a little bit fuzzy or blurry, that there is an inherent blurriness in a holographic projection.
Let's put 2 + 2 together here. This side is "less real" than the other side, and the other side where all the information is, is "more real than normal" so that would mean since this side is less real or blurrier, and the other side is "more real" that would mean that the other side is the holographic film and this side is the holographic projection.
So that means that near death experiencers are going to the place that is "more real" from the place that is "less real." Which would mean that they are going from the holographic projection to the place that is the film which would have ALL the information instead of just some of the information. It's because when they are in the holographic film they are everywhere at once, totally connected and one with all the information, and having access to all the information - it seems more real, or realer than real. Capisce?
Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram
http://www.nature.com/news/simulations-back-up-theory-that-universe-is-a-hologram-1.14328
and, " “Or, to put it another way, a holographic universe is blurry,” says. Hogan."
http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2009/01/16/evidence-for-the-holographic-p/
Posted by: Art | April 17, 2016 at 11:46 PM
"If you think you won't---you won't." - AOD
That doesn't seem to be the case, if mediumistic messages can be trusted. There are many instances of (purported) discarnate spirits reporting that they are surprised to find themselves in an afterlife, since they had never taken the idea seriously while on earth.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | April 18, 2016 at 01:59 AM
Michael, I think there is a difference between 'never taking the idea seriously' and seriously believing that you won't survive. But, I agree that there are some reports of people who haven't spent a lot of time thinking about an afterlife who report that during an NDE they experienced something suggesting an afterlife. There are also stories of people who seriously believe that they won't survive who remain in a sleep-like condition in the afterlife, sometimes for eons, until either someone wakens them or apparently of their own volition they wake up. (These latter reports may be fictional.) -AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | April 18, 2016 at 07:55 AM
Art,
A digital photograph is inherently fuzzy or blurry too. That is why I use the sharpening tool in Photoshop to make the photograph sometimes 'realer than real'.
I don't find my view of this dimension fuzzy or blurry necessarily. I do find print difficult to read sometimes without my glasses but otherwise---except for my droopy Irish eyelids getting in the way---my vision of this reality is quite clear and 'real' especially if I intently focus my attention outside of myself. When I do that what I see looks like a stage set, very real but somewhat artificial. I suppose a 360 degree view would seem 'realer' to me but I am quite satisfied with the realness of this earth. Probably without interference caused by human bodily weaknesses and the effects of earth's physical aberrations, things in a spiritual reality would seem clearer and more colorful to me.
As I understand it a holographic film, if there is such a thing as a 'film', is not recognizable as anything until laser light is projected on or through it, so just being in a 'holographic film' would not provide a realer experience without something else at play. There is a difference between a holographic projection and a holographic film. Right? Personally I prefer living in the projection rather than in the film.
I'm not sold 100% on this holographic explanation as anything other than another of many unproven ideas, albeit one that sounds scientific but when considered seriously has a lot of holes in it. (The 'film' that is.) - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | April 18, 2016 at 08:31 AM
Going back to Summerland and the notion of remembering - do you ever feel that some work of fantasy resonates?
Some works are clearly derivative, but even there the covers sometimes evoke that sense of esoteric truth.
The weird thing is that there's no overarching theme that brings this aesthetic effect. (Though the older styles seem to evoke it more than the bubblegum CGI-esque stuff of today...Willow/Lady Hawk/Last Unicorn/Flight of Dragons/Labyrinth outshine Marvel in this regard though I do enjoy the latter.)
Sometimes it's a world of superheroes, other times it's a medieval fantasy. Perhaps it has more to do with the quality of the art and prose, but perhaps there are - as Eric Weiss suggests in the Doctrine of Subtle Worlds - a variety of afterlife realities supporting/creating the mundane world.
Posted by: SPatel | April 18, 2016 at 04:11 PM
They've been talking about virtual reality
headsets for years. 25 years must be. I've been following this.
So slow to get the technology going..
Posted by: Tony B | April 18, 2016 at 06:11 PM
"As I understand it a holographic film, if there is such a thing as a 'film', is not recognizable as anything until laser light is projected on or through it, so just being in a 'holographic film' would not provide a realer experience without something else at play. There is a difference between a holographic projection and a holographic film. Right?" - AOD
True. A holographic plate is just a series of wave interference patterns. It does not look like the subject it is intended to represent. In order to produce an image, focused light (usually a laser beam) has to be projected either onto the plate (if it is reflective) or through the plate (if it is transparent). So yes, there is a big difference between a holographic projection of, say, an apple, and the holographic plate, which would not look anything like an apple.
See an image of a holographic plate here:
http://earth4all.net/the-mysterious-world-of-holography-the-science-of-holograms/
If we pursue the hologram analogy further, we have to ask: what is the analogue to the laser beam? One candidate is consciousness. Possibly consciousness is the "beam of focused light" that converts interference patterns into imagery.
It's also worth noting that not all holograms are reproductions of real objects. It is possible to create a hologram on a computer. Instead of shooting perpendicular beams of light at an apple and recording the interference patterns, which is how a holographic plate is usually produced, someone can create interference patterns directly on a computer. Conceivably this idea offers a way of reconciling the holographic universe theory with the idea that the universe consists ultimately of information. Maybe pure information is the substrate of physical reality, and consciousness is the render engine that breathes fire into the equations and turns information into holographic imagery.
All very speculative, of course.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | April 19, 2016 at 02:44 PM
I have read literally thousands of NDEs, death bed visions, mystical and transcendental experiences, even the New Testament and in all of them I see parallels or corroboration between things that they say that sound "holographic" and the way Michael Talbot describes the properties of holographic film. That can not be a coincidence. The parallels between these things can not be an accident. It's got to do with consilience - a word I learned from reading Michael Prescott's Blog. You can look it up on wikipedia if you are really interested instead of just trying to endlessly argue. I have spent the last 16 years of my life reading about this stuff and the connection between NDEs and quantum physics and the holographic universe theory can not be an accident. There are too many connections between them.
Posted by: Art | April 19, 2016 at 03:52 PM
Since we are talking about holographic imagery or holograms, I have to say that they can be pretty jaw-dropping. The Abraham Lincoln Museum is located in the town in which I live and they have a program there called 'Ghosts in the Library'. After the lights dim in the small auditorium, a young host presenter walks onto the stage and speaks for some time about Lincoln and the Civil War etc. As part of his presentation there are holographic ghost-like wispy images to illustrate the presentation. At the end of the presentation the host presenter dons a Civil War uniform , turns to walk toward the back of the stage and just vanishes! (Sorry to be a spoiler.)
If you are ever in Springfield, Illinois don't miss this presentation at the Abraham Lincoln Museum. You will be flabbergasted.- AOD
http://lincolnlibraryandmuseum.com/ghosts.htm
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | April 19, 2016 at 06:16 PM
\\"At the end of the presentation the host presenter dons a Civil War uniform , turns to walk toward the back of the stage and just vanishes!" - AOD//
---------------------------------------
A hologram embedded in a hologram! Exactly what The Universe as a Hologram talks about.
"For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?
Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion."
The Universe as a Hologram,
http://www.earthportals.com/hologram.html
Excerpt from Roger Ebert's final moments with his wife, "But the day before he passed away, he wrote me a note: "This is all an elaborate hoax." I asked him, "What's a hoax?" And he was talking about this world, this place. He said it was all an illusion."
http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/news/a26606/roger-ebert-final-moments/
On his deathbed Roger Ebert says the exact same thing that Michael Talbot talks about in the Universe as a Hologram. Coincidence? I think not! Once again, consilience!
Posted by: Art | April 19, 2016 at 11:42 PM
Non sequitur: Would anyone here choose to reincarnate into a form of human-evolved, non-biological life?
Posted by: Julie Baxter | April 21, 2016 at 06:05 AM
How could any life be "non-biological"?
Posted by: Luciano | April 22, 2016 at 05:03 PM
As an avid gamer, I find it exciting to think that we're witnessing the birth of a new era in digital entertainment and that within 100 years or so, we may be able to create holodecks, or something similar, and that VR is the predecessor of it all.
I must admit, that, until this blog post, I hadn't thought of the spiritual aspects of VR. It's easy to imagine that programmers and developers might create heaven-like landscapes and worlds that people can wander around in, but would we try to create spiritual experiences with that technology? I think so, but as no one pointed out, I don't think it could ever duplicate authentic spiritual experiences, considering how the experiencers often say that it felt more real than real, so to speak, and I doubt man-made technology will ever reach that level.
Furthermore there's one thing that does give me pause with VR... if we do create heaven-like worlds, there is the chance we many also try to create digital avatars of our deceased loved ones that we can interact with. It may sound therapeutic, but there's just something... wrong to me about walking up to a digital version of, say, my grandmother and having it follow me around, say things, etc. It would look like her, but it wouldn't be her, and just thinking about it gives me a nightmarish "uncanny valley" feel. And would we really want to do such a thing? Even if these avatars were life-life in every way, we would know they're not our loved ones, similar to how advanced aliens may take the forms of our loved ones to try and put us at ease (ALA "Contact"), but it feels wrong to impersonate those we love more than anyone else. Our attempts to try and create an digital afterlife that we can visit, while well-meaning, feels almost like a mockery, if that makes any sense.
VR has a lot of potential, but I think there are some lines we may want to think twice before crossing.
Posted by: Ian | April 23, 2016 at 04:17 AM