For cyclists to technicians to gamers, augmented reality glasses promise enhanced performance, guidance during tasks, and holographic thrills. Don’t have a pair? Not to worry. Your perception of reality is okay—in a human way.
Augmented reality glasses are the physical version of some mind-opening drug. They can superpose an image on the environment, allowing the wearer, for example, to see a blueprint of a machine that needs some fixing. “Oh! I see what I need to do. This is the part in need of repair.” In video games they can also superpose a false reality on the environment. “He’s crouching behind the couch. Shoot before he does.” But note, augmented reality occurs in present reality.
You really want to augment reality, make a pair of glasses that shows all the consequences of present actions. See the future. Augment the present with the future.
Making a pair of glasses that reveals the future is beyond our capability. Even if we could get a pair to show some consequences, we can’t show the infinite variations of consequence. That’s our human problem. We can account for the obvious; the more insightful among us can account for more than obvious ramifications. No one, however, can definitively account for the reality of future reality.
“What you anticipate is rarely a problem,” I usually say. But note my use of rarely. Yes, you’re better off anticipating than not anticipating. Robert Burns phrased the problem of unknown consequences when he wrote in 1785 his famous poem “To a Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With a Plough”:
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
We all learn that our best laid plans often go astray. Oh! For a pair of augmented glasses, what wouldn’t many of us give? But then, if we saw the future, not all possible futures, but the defined future, the future as it turns into past, then we would probably ask, “What’s the point?”
So, if some company invents augmented reality glasses that can show me my future as it inevitably must be, I’ll probably use my money on something else, maybe something frivolous, something that throws my future into some doubt. I’ll try my human anticipation, flawed as it is. Having no guarantee is a gamble, of course, but it’s also a bit exciting, maybe more exciting than any virtual reality game can ever be. Anticipate, but don’t be surprised like the mouse in the poem; expect, as the saying goes, the unexpected.
Augmented reality glasses are the physical version of some mind-opening drug. They can superpose an image on the environment, allowing the wearer, for example, to see a blueprint of a machine that needs some fixing. “Oh! I see what I need to do. This is the part in need of repair.” In video games they can also superpose a false reality on the environment. “He’s crouching behind the couch. Shoot before he does.” But note, augmented reality occurs in present reality.
You really want to augment reality, make a pair of glasses that shows all the consequences of present actions. See the future. Augment the present with the future.
Making a pair of glasses that reveals the future is beyond our capability. Even if we could get a pair to show some consequences, we can’t show the infinite variations of consequence. That’s our human problem. We can account for the obvious; the more insightful among us can account for more than obvious ramifications. No one, however, can definitively account for the reality of future reality.
“What you anticipate is rarely a problem,” I usually say. But note my use of rarely. Yes, you’re better off anticipating than not anticipating. Robert Burns phrased the problem of unknown consequences when he wrote in 1785 his famous poem “To a Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With a Plough”:
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
We all learn that our best laid plans often go astray. Oh! For a pair of augmented glasses, what wouldn’t many of us give? But then, if we saw the future, not all possible futures, but the defined future, the future as it turns into past, then we would probably ask, “What’s the point?”
So, if some company invents augmented reality glasses that can show me my future as it inevitably must be, I’ll probably use my money on something else, maybe something frivolous, something that throws my future into some doubt. I’ll try my human anticipation, flawed as it is. Having no guarantee is a gamble, of course, but it’s also a bit exciting, maybe more exciting than any virtual reality game can ever be. Anticipate, but don’t be surprised like the mouse in the poem; expect, as the saying goes, the unexpected.
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