In Love with Our Technology: Virtual Reality - A Brief Intellectual History of the Idea of Virtuality and the Emergence of a Media Environment

Abstract

The intellectual history suggests that desire for intelligence augmentation underlies the idea of virtual reality (VR). The assumption underlying this teleological thrust towards intelligence augmentation is that intellectual advances are made by improving and facilitating human thinking and problem solving. This was thought possible only if computers were integrated effectively into the whole ecology of thought by virtue of a human-computer partnership, or symbiosis. VR media are seen as augmenting intelligence by more direct, intuitive channeling of information through the senses to establish a more direct interface, or experience with knowledge. The history of the idea of virtuality shows that policy, personnel choice and placement, and research and development aimed to implement this vision for VR. Related work led to the internet as focus was placed on networked, cooperative interaction - computers and people working together to augment human intelligence.

Keywords: Virtual Reality, Virtuality, intelligence augmentation, Douglas Engelabart, Vannevar Bush, Memex, JCR Licklider, Ivan Sutherland, ultimate display, ARPA, IPTO, meta-technology, Robert Taylor, immersive VR, participatory systems, Alan Kay, Marshal McLuhan, interface, human-computer symbiosis