Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"There was a time when one old eccentric guy with a notebook could do something important to science. Now even the resources of a major university are often not enough."
- Jerry Pournelle
 |
| Virtual Reality (Virtual Matrix) | ||
| An early use of a term very similar to the idea of cyberspace. |
Early use of a similar term; see The Veldt, the 1951 short story by Ray Bradbury that is probably the first full description of the concept.
| "Well, this virtual matrix we're in was built up the same way. I knew you were with me, but I felt omnipotent... and lost. Then the phylogenetic codes came snapping in, one by one, and everything sort of... crystallized." She stops, perched on one leg, and looks searchingly at her Other. "What would've happened if I'd come through into here on my own? Psychosis?" "If you'd made it," Beth says. "I doubt you'd have been able to. It's a complicated trick, and only a very stable, imaginative adult mind can originate it. Youngsters entering Fourth Level are guided in. If a child did come through without support? It's a horrifying thought. Total solipsism, I suppose. Something like the cyborg Dreamvats, but worse—there'd be no constraints. A mad god in a closed universe. We stabilize our generated reality here by consensus, and that includes sophisticated social compulsions as well as the phylogenetic wired structures..." "Basically, we're the only dysentropic probability vector in these 'virtual realities': the ontology's plastic. There's a sort of consensual cocoon around us modifying our immediate environment synchronistically." |
| Technovelgy from The Judas Mandala,
by Damien Broderick. Published by Not known in 1982 Additional resources -
|
The earliest use of the term is probably in Antonin Artaud's The Theatre and Its Double (1938). He describes theater as "la realite virtuelle", literally a virtual reality "in which characters, objects, and images take on the phantasmagoric force of alchemy's visionary internal dramas".
For virtual reality-stale gaming systems, be sure to see dimensino - alien entertainment center from Time is the Simplest Thing by Clifford Simak (1961) and rifle range - virtual skeet shooting designed by aliens from Way Station also by Simak (1963).
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Judas Mandala
More Ideas
and Technology by Damien Broderick
Tech news articles related to The Judas Mandala
Tech news articles related to works by Damien Broderick
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
| Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests |
| Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs... What are the odds?'
'It is as you thought when you constructed the time crystal, my master Vaylan.'
'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
