A session for the Emerging Technology Conference was streamed into Second Life at Dr. Dobbs last week. The discussion was entitled “Second Earth” and mainly focussed on mirror worlds. It featured John Hanke from Google Earth, John Lester ( Pathfinder Linden ), Gur Kim Chi from Microsoft Visual Earth, and Jerry Paffendorf of Wello Horld.

I have to be honest – I was dissappointed in what they all had to say, they were simply presenting what they were up to really, whilst interesting is public knowledge really. I tried to squeeze some information out of Jogn Hanke about google’s rumoured virtual world, so far known as “MyWorld” – but I got the non commital answer “I would really like to hear about that…”

However John Lester, who always seems to have a broad conceptual and coherent overview of the role of virtual worlds as a creative opportunity, gave an interesting talk about immersion in worlds, which is relevant to the discussion of this blog.

He laid out the things he thinks human brains are good at :

1. Navigating a 3D envronment
2. Communicate and collaborate with other people in the formation of communities
3. Learn through shared experiences
4. Use tools (our minds were made for mergers)
5. Take partial data and create something whole (tiger in the grass)

He was arguing that the human mind “fills in the gaps” in current virtual world technology to enable a sense of immersion. He used the analogy of standing near a jungle and seeing a stripy tail, flash of large feline ears, teeth etc. Here humans piece together the partial data and make a mental leap to form a cognitive whole.

This applies to many virtual worlds. Of course, the more data there is – the more likely we are to really “see” the tiger. One aspect of this is the huge lack of the use of audio in virtual worlds. How many times have we walked around huge corporate headquarters islands, featuring lots of planted areas, beaches, busy foyers and cafes – all completely and unnaturally silent ?

My response to this presentation was : “I want to see and hear that tiger bounding right up to me !”