Well, nature is certainly not some piece of crap to tear apart and use up, but it is not either something to mystically revere. I would never tear apart and use up some parts of nature like my friends or my doggy, but have no objections to doing so with other parts or nature. Building a house, and also cooking a meal now that I think of it, are examples of tearing apart some part of nature and using it up.

Could it not be possible to create virtual subatomic particles that function at least remotely similarly to real life subatomic particles? Could not the Hadron Collider give us the necessary clues to finally understanding the mysteries of the atom enough to transfer the physical atom into a virtual earth atom? If so, our software engineers could recreate earth and all or a portion of its geology and evolution from scratch by tinckering with virtual elements. Now that we have a genome handy and can map the entire human DNA, could we not produce a virtual baby that accurately resembles a real life baby and grows and lives according to its virtual genetic programming acting according to its virtual environment?
BTW, I recently read an article speaking about the possibility of building supercomputers that are built out into the sea and use seawater to cool them and to generate the electricity to power them. Pretty fascinating stuff!

Like I said, I am completely new to VR. Any constructive feedback would be appreciated.

Other than that, I’ve seen it raised earlier that we may opt for all sorts of other things then a canned reality. What we could achieve in a world where we can write the rules has fewer limits than you may imply, even if the limit on definition and clarity is a major one.

Though I do acknowledge true reality is likely going to persist and be desireable. We may, however, see a similar situation in the game vs. reality relationship many people have these days.

Anyway, I’m going to wrap up by saying I think Stross isn’t a bad writer. I was a big fan of Atrocity Archives and somewhat of Accelerando. I suppose we can poke holes in his work or anyone else’s but we might as well be barking our way up fog. SF is more than anything about conjecture.

So I suppose I’m more interested in new conjecture and not as much in defacing Stross’ work or anyone else’s. The best way to deal with a concept that seems hackneyed is to dilute it with new ones. Let’s show the fantasy boysd we still have some steam!

My point is that we are continually carrying out reality-entangled quantum computations, far richer than anything that can be done on any digital machines in the near future—and that it’s a mistake to put too much mental energy into the digital machines around us both because they are somewhat feeble and because, viewed in the light of the history of technology, digital computation will most likely be utterly outmoded in a couple of hundred years. This isn’t “pretentious,” it’s a philosophical, scientific, and historical fact about the world we live in.

As far as I know, I didn’t call YOU an ultrageek, although if you want to take the word personally, feel free to adopt it as a banner. Having worked as a C++ programmer, I certainly have an ultrageek side myself.

I’m trying to imply that ‘reality’ is a unique result of our own sensory intake. To say that it is ‘more real’ than what a computer can give is pretentious. That is because it implies we’d try to simulate the intangible concept of reality. We can only see an incredibly small band in the electromagnetic spectrum, our minds work in 3 dimensions (many leading theories clock in over a dozen) and we think blindingly slow.

Assuming reality is a dynamic, malleable thing (hypothetically, so I don’t get rebuked right off the bat because of conflicting views) it could expand into something truly posthuman. We could see the solar winds, feel the weather systems of an entire continent, memorize the exact makeup of a single blade of grass. We don’t wholly experience reality as is, simply by taking things for granted and the like. To say we have “Real Reality” right now seems to me very pretentious and shortsighted.

So anyway, no worries, not trying to wage war here, I just like debate. However, I distaste being typecast as an “ultrageek.” Buzz terms are definitely not a way to win over the opposite party. So, anyway, I know this is out of date, but I read it, so I’m making my two cents about it known aswell.