Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Shared Experience Simulator

Here's an idea: Shared Experience Simulators

What if we could get an electronic hookup to the part of a person's brain that receives impulses from our five (or more) senses. We could record those impulses and play them back for others to experience.

If I turn on my SES recorder for an hour at the beach, then I can later distribute that recording to others. They can play it back and experience every feeling, sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch, that I felt during that hour. It'd be a first person experience in which the person does (in their mind) exactly everything that I did in that hour except for knowing my thoughts (since they're not part of the sensory impulses). They wouldn't be able to change any of my actions or interact with their environment in any way different from the way that I did it originally.

If this idea could be created, the implications are endless.

Implication 1: Blind people could see. People in comas could experience some form of life again. People in wheelchairs could feel the sensation of walking (which might help their own recovery). Old people could do things their body couldn't handle. Nervous people could try a dangerous sport or activity without the risk.

Implication 2: Students could go through a day in the life (or an hour or whatever) of a person in a certain career as an epic form of job shadowing.

Implication 3: Imsomniacs could playback recordings of other people asleep and still get the sensation of sleeping and be rested.

Implication 4: The military could torture people by making them experience an SES playback. This would involve pain, but wouldn't hurt the victim's physical body in any way.

Implication 5: You could stream your SES recording live to the internet and let people download it from your site.

Implication 6: Celebrities and movie stars could make MASSIVE amounts of money by selling 1-time-use SES recordings from when they're doing a concert or making a movie.

Implication 7: Inception style recording within a recording within a recording. To prevent this, the SES could be designed so that it can't record and play at the same time.

Implication 8: The implications are endless.

Let me know some of your ideas based on the idea of a Shared Experience Simulator.
The comment box is just below.

2 comments:

  1. Implication 9: Children and Parents could "role-reverse" (think Freaky Friday) to understand each other's POV.

    Implication 10: Husbands and Wives could understand what the other really "did all day".

    Implication 11: I think you're a genius. We should get you tested.

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  2. All you need is a USB port on the cerebral cortex. Sounds do-able.

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