The fascinating thing about your in-game body is that it will be much better than your natural body.
For example, take your eyes. Your natural eyes have 120 million black-and-white sensors along with 5 million or so color sensors on each retina. Your in-game eyes will have the same resolution. However, your natural eyes surround those sensors in a ball of watery aqueous humor along with a lens system that is far from perfect. That is why so many people need glasses and/or contact lenses. Your in-game eyes will suffer from none of these biological flaws. Nor will they dry out, get tired or cloud up. In-game, you will never need to blink and your vision will always be perfect.
photo by Andre Maritz |
The same sort of thing is true for your muscles. Your in-game body will have perfect muscles in perfect shape. They will perform like the muscles of an Olympic athlete. They will never tire, never overheat, never diminish in energy. Unless, of course, you change the game settings so that your in-game muscles tire and cramp like your real muscles do.
In other words, your in-game body will be a perfect super-human body. It will be beautiful, fit, lean and taut. It will perform perfectly, at a level far better than your own biological body.
The in-game world will match your in-game body. It will surpass reality. Imagine, for example, looking at a grassy field in a game. As you walk onto the field it will be perfect. Each blade of grass will be perfectly formed. It will have no weeds. You will be able, if you choose, to take your clothes off and roll in this perfect grass. It will feel just like grass, smell like grass, bounce like grass, taste like grass. But this is a simulated world, so if you want it one inch thicker or a slightly different shade of green, the change is instant. Change the breed of the grass, the moisture content, the soil underneath it, even add weeds if you want. To your brain the grass will be completely real because the grass’s sensations are flowing directly through the brain’s natural sensory nerve channels.
The same will be true of every in-game environment you experience. Run through a forest. Ski down a mountain. Stroll through a complete re-creation of Paris. Walk on the moon. Swim along a perfectly simulated coral reef.
But in addition, you will be able to do things that your physical body cannot possibly do now. Fly through the air like superman. Ride a magic carpet. Get shot at the OK Corral and then respawn to do it again.
In every way, these in-game worlds and your in-game body will surpass the real world and your real body.
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Discard Your Body Table of Contents
- Chapter 1 – Is our science fiction right?
- Chapter 2 – Your fragile body
- Chapter 3 – The power of beauty
- Chapter 4 – Other traps that your body creates
- Chapter 5 – Saving Christopher Reeve, and you
- Chapter 6 – The pull of video games
- Chapter 7 – The problem with video games
- Chapter 8 – Understanding Vertebrane
- Chapter 9 – Experiencing the in-game world
- Chapter 10 – A fateful call from Clarissa
- Chapter 11 – The proliferation of game worlds
- Chapter 12 – The lure of porn
- Chapter 13 – Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
- Chapter 14 – The day you discard your body
- Chapter 15 – Who will be first?
- A Revolutionary Mission to Mars
- Imagining Elon Musk’s Million-Person Mars Colony