Hyper-Realism (Vr, Ar, Real Time News Feeds, Etc) Kills Your Imagination

As our tech makes society more “real time” and “photo realistic” and “hyper” we lose our imaginations.

Brain/Body

We’re effectively outsourcing power of suggestion (the work the brain does to fill in gaps in patterns) to external to the body technology.

More and more of our cognition is being done as raw sensory perception. We’re clogging the neural pathways with raw data (that producers of this content claim is more true, more real, more hyper than what your own brain can concoct.)

The uncanny valley will never be crossed by ever more hyper-realism. The uncanny valley is what we sense when raw sensory data seems “off” from our expectation / synthesized knowledge of reality. that synthesize MUST take place within the brain/body for it to feel consistent and believable.

I’m not suggesting the world exists within our brains. I am saying that the whole body/brain must be part of the process of perception and synthesis or else all this tech (and its side effects in society) will feel off to us. There are two strategies then: focus on balancing external incoming data with internal synthesis or just eliminate the parts of the body/brain that evolved to synthesize/imagine, etc.

By continuing to produce content, media, journalism, movies, web stuff, that attempts ever more hyper audio and visual reality illusions we will atrophy the parts of the body/brain that do synthesis. This is how biology works… use it or lose it, to a certain extent.

I think imagination, play and fuzziness of reality is useful, enjoyable and opens us up to more reality. So I would urge people to make and engage with content, people, experiences that awaken your imagination instead of slurping dopamine spiking hyper realism/The Answer at you all the time.

In short, go outside, look up, pick up a paint brush, make a mess.