4 ms·

That’s not what you see when you wear the glasses, you will see a symbol, a series of symbols, a facsimile of life that you will convince yourself is real. It’

by Affric 3mo ago

That’s not what you see when you wear the glasses, you will see a symbol, a series of symbols, a facsimile of life that you will convince yourself is real. It’s not elf like, it’s not magic, it’s not a sense, quite the opposite, it’s replacing sensing and processing with reading. The death of aptitude, prowess, and the human experience.

lmm 3mo ago
> replacing sensing and processing with reading. The death of aptitude, prowess, and the human experience. Replacing something all animals do with something uniquely human, perhaps the most important thing that sets us apart, is the death of the human experience?
- Affric 3mo ago
  Other animals use symbols, Koko clearly used symbols. Not using our senses except to read symbols is the death of human experience.
BeetleB 3mo ago
> That’s not what you see when you wear the glasses, you will see a symbol, a series of symbols, a facsimile of life that you will convince yourself is real. aka the "Digital photos aren't real photos!" argument.
- apsurd 3mo ago
  it’s not wrong. it’s what is unique about the AR medium in particular. “heightening reality” is whats in discussion. we can talk about it, but its not the sane discussion as photos, or video games, or VR.
- Affric 3mo ago
  No, it’s the “reading about exercise isn’t exercise” argument
gavinray 3mo ago
> a facsimile of life that you will convince yourself is real This already describes our base experience of "reality". It's a predictive sensory hallucination.
- entontoent 3mo ago
  Yeah, this is how I feel. "Reality" is already heavily mediated. Why are people so enraged that a person might want to mediate or enhance it further? Often lately the same people who claim they value "creativity" and "art" seem to believe the the only valid forms of creative and artistic expression are the ones that existed when they were born. Everything else is degenerate art. I guess we've been here historically, though :/
  - Affric 3mo ago
    I skilfully use computers to make art every day. I also can identify a bird by myself, have my own sense of timing and rhythm, and can figure out things about a person myself. It doesn’t augment reality, it simply puts a display on your face, like the article says.
entontoent 3mo ago
I feel like you would love the book "Simulacra and Simulation" by Jean Baudrillard. It agrees with you, and there's a sense in which you're right. I wonder what you think our eyes are doing, though, and what you think magic is. What makes it not elf-like? We are creatures of the field and forest. The things that we invent are of the field and forest. Are you saying that for you, the symbol translation needs to occur within cells and neurons instead of within a machine? Okay, well imagine we find a way to do that instead. Are we then more elf-like to you, because the senses would become part of our body? Or are you saying that regardless of the path that we take to read wind and water with our eyes, we will never be like elves? That this could never be magic? Do you believe we need an External Being With Authority to grant us magic? Or a random, chaotic External Force like evolution? It seems to me that regardless of when you "install" a sensory apparatus, before or after birth, your experience of the world will be similar (unless one or the other is more inconvenient for technical/social reasons). If we can live in better harmony with nature due to enhanced senses that allow us to see the invisible motions of Earth, if we can identify birds and plants by sound and sight, if we can emit and process sonar, scan resources beneath the surface, better utilize and eliminate invasive species, spot predators from thousands of yards away (so they can remain in our ecosystem without being killed)... I mean that's magic to me?
- Affric 3mo ago
  Our eyes, sight: close enough to magic. It creates an experience, that in people without synesthesia, cannot be encapsulated within another experience. Elves know and sense, they have names for things, they don’t get told the names of things by something else. There have been people in on earth who read their environment well, who can reliably predict rain from wind and feel. We perhaps, someday, will be able to create new experiences, senses, that cannot be encapsulated within our current senses, we might be able to expand our current senses (vision in all directions, new colours, new audible frequencies, quieter sounds, et cetera). What that isn’t is looking at a display or listening to a speaker. I use computers every day. My phone, pedestrian crossing signals, guitar pedals, food, books, the web. Art, work, recreation. I just don’t think these glasses amount to augmented reality but a distraction from reality. We can learn to, and I have to an extent, identify our environment and surroundings. The Pokédex is a fun novelty but knowing how to name a creature or a rock or a person based on what we perceive rather than someone or something else telling us what it perceives is simply a higher state of existence and a richer internal world. And yeah, internalising another language is inherently better than using Google translate. These glasses ain’t it.

by Affric 3mo ago

lmm 3mo ago

> replacing sensing and processing with reading. The death of aptitude, prowess, and the human experience. Replacing something all animals do with something uniquely human, perhaps the most important thing that sets us apart, is the death of the human experience?

Affric 3mo ago
Other animals use symbols, Koko clearly used symbols. Not using our senses except to read symbols is the death of human experience.

BeetleB 3mo ago

> That’s not what you see when you wear the glasses, you will see a symbol, a series of symbols, a facsimile of life that you will convince yourself is real. aka the "Digital photos aren't real photos!" argument.

apsurd 3mo ago
it’s not wrong. it’s what is unique about the AR medium in particular. “heightening reality” is whats in discussion. we can talk about it, but its not the sane discussion as photos, or video games, or VR.
Affric 3mo ago
No, it’s the “reading about exercise isn’t exercise” argument

gavinray 3mo ago

> a facsimile of life that you will convince yourself is real This already describes our base experience of "reality". It's a predictive sensory hallucination.

entontoent 3mo ago
Yeah, this is how I feel. "Reality" is already heavily mediated. Why are people so enraged that a person might want to mediate or enhance it further? Often lately the same people who claim they value "creativity" and "art" seem to believe the the only valid forms of creative and artistic expression are the ones that existed when they were born. Everything else is degenerate art. I guess we've been here historically, though :/
- Affric 3mo ago
  I skilfully use computers to make art every day. I also can identify a bird by myself, have my own sense of timing and rhythm, and can figure out things about a person myself. It doesn’t augment reality, it simply puts a display on your face, like the article says.

entontoent 3mo ago

I feel like you would love the book "Simulacra and Simulation" by Jean Baudrillard. It agrees with you, and there's a sense in which you're right. I wonder what you think our eyes are doing, though, and what you think magic is. What makes it not elf-like? We are creatures of the field and forest. The things that we invent are of the field and forest. Are you saying that for you, the symbol translation needs to occur within cells and neurons instead of within a machine? Okay, well imagine we find a way to do that instead. Are we then more elf-like to you, because the senses would become part of our body? Or are you saying that regardless of the path that we take to read wind and water with our eyes, we will never be like elves? That this could never be magic? Do you believe we need an External Being With Authority to grant us magic? Or a random, chaotic External Force like evolution? It seems to me that regardless of when you "install" a sensory apparatus, before or after birth, your experience of the world will be similar (unless one or the other is more inconvenient for technical/social reasons). If we can live in better harmony with nature due to enhanced senses that allow us to see the invisible motions of Earth, if we can identify birds and plants by sound and sight, if we can emit and process sonar, scan resources beneath the surface, better utilize and eliminate invasive species, spot predators from thousands of yards away (so they can remain in our ecosystem without being killed)... I mean that's magic to me?

Affric 3mo ago
Our eyes, sight: close enough to magic. It creates an experience, that in people without synesthesia, cannot be encapsulated within another experience. Elves know and sense, they have names for things, they don’t get told the names of things by something else. There have been people in on earth who read their environment well, who can reliably predict rain from wind and feel. We perhaps, someday, will be able to create new experiences, senses, that cannot be encapsulated within our current senses, we might be able to expand our current senses (vision in all directions, new colours, new audible frequencies, quieter sounds, et cetera). What that isn’t is looking at a display or listening to a speaker. I use computers every day. My phone, pedestrian crossing signals, guitar pedals, food, books, the web. Art, work, recreation. I just don’t think these glasses amount to augmented reality but a distraction from reality. We can learn to, and I have to an extent, identify our environment and surroundings. The Pokédex is a fun novelty but knowing how to name a creature or a rock or a person based on what we perceive rather than someone or something else telling us what it perceives is simply a higher state of existence and a richer internal world. And yeah, internalising another language is inherently better than using Google translate. These glasses ain’t it.