Cheeze_Pavilion said:
Arbre said:
My point was precisely aimed at those hypothetical people who'd find refuge in the holodeck to cater to the desires they couldn't satisfy because of real life limitations and barriers.
On the other hand, if people prefer real life challenges, then there's much less point going into the holodeck. Especially as they know it's fake.
I believe there would still be a pride in obtaining the *real stuff*.
But there's a problem with your logic there--if a person can't satisfy a desire in real life, how will a Holodeck effect whether or not they get the pride that comes from obtaining "the *real stuff*"?
Seriously--what's the problem for people having a device that 'caters' "to the desires they couldn't satisfy because of real life limitations and barriers"? If they weren't going to accomplish that stuff in real life, what's the issue with letting them accomplish it on a Holodeck?
What's wrong with giving "refuge" to people who have a reason to be 'refugees'?
It depends pretty much on the reasons you go inside. You probably only saw the positive ones, while after citing good reasons to play with holorooms (the possible tech), I tackled the question of the holodeck from a more negative point of view, which is about psychological disorder and addiction.
Mainly because the point you raised was about people spending most of their time, say life, inside a holodeck.
The thing is, not everybody would carve for real life challenges, and they wouldn't agree on the nature and difficulty of said challenges.
Some will look for very hard targets, other for easier ones. Some won't bother.
It's precisely those who will find little interest in the real life challenge, and even, maybe, mock them, making an excuse as the human intelligence was the tool which would one day bring us the holodeck, who would willfully get inside the holodeck.
There are plenty of reasons, now, why one would get into a holodeck. Some of these reasons might be similar to yours, others drastically different than yours.
- Liberty. A limitless exploration. Depending on the nature of your goal, the moral values you're ready to transgress, your activity inside the holodeck could be considered fun, enjoyable, peaceful, near meditative, or violent, deviant, perverted, etc. That said, you don't really require the holodeck, you could live like anyone outside of it, but either by curiosity or because psychologically, you don't feel strong enough to certain things in real life, you go into the holodeck.
- Physical handicap. You want to do something which your body forbids (including brain related limitations). The holodeck may become a solution.
- Homo-negation. Being tired of the human nature. A complete different mindset, which looks towards freeing one's mind from the flesh as much as possible. A real evolution, good or bad I can't tell, in the way a human would think. Frankly, that's more SF stuff and Kusanagi style mindset.
- Addiction. In a holodeck where you can get anything you want,
some people might get intoxicated and loose their lives inside an environment where everything is easy, new, extremely dynamic and easily shaped. Whatever the initial reasons were, at this point, you're returning into the holodeck because you have simply developped an addiction to the system.
Look at the amount of people turning into vegetables and getting stuck playing hours of FPSes or inside MMOs.