Ultimately, this [Tibetan literature] system will be in VR cyberspace. You’ll put on a helmet and come out two hours later, and you’ll be much more educated. Of course, most of the projects being discussed for virtual reality are for pleasure and entertainment. That’s why people are spending millions of dollars – they see what’s coming. But if you can try to get a little niche of spiritual virtual reality, that would be wonderful. There will never be very many people interested in these things. But the people who are will be able to learn it much faster, and in a much more powerful way.
Predictor: Roach, Michael
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Erik Davis interviews Michael Roach, an American Buddhist who was working at the time as director of the Asian Classics Input Project in the computer center at Sera May, a Gelukpa Buddhist monastery in southern India. Davis writes:”When Roach talks about the intersection of Buddhism and digital media, he gets a visionary glint in his eye reminiscent of VR designers and Net-heads speculating about the future … ‘The greatest piece of Tibetan literature is Jey Tsongkhapa’s “Lam Rim Chenmo” (“Greater Steps of the Path”), which is a big piece of plagiarism. It’s a long string of quotations taken from many ancient texts. Most Tibetan commentaries are like an onion skin. You start with the newer commentaries and peel your way backward. Correct authorship means transmitting what was already transmitted – but in a different order, or a different format. So the future of authorship in this tradition will rest with those who design the roadways through huge databases. If you have a hundred thousand pages online, it becomes overwhelming. What do you do with it? You need an interactive system.’ The interactive, probing nature of hypertext surfing is ideally suited for the logical, dialectical approach to enlightened understanding that the Tibetan monastic tradition prizes. ‘Ultimately, this system will be in VR cyberspace. You’ll put on a helmet and come out two hours later, and you’ll be much more educated. Of course, most of the projects being discussed for virtual reality are for pleasure and entertainment. That’s why people are spending millions of dollars – they see what’s coming. But if you can try to get a little niche of spiritual virtual reality, that would be wonderful. There will never be very many people interested in these things. But the people who are will be able to learn it much faster, and in a much more powerful way.'”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: Virtual Reality
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Digital Dharma: If Information Wants to Be Free, Spiritual Information Wants to Be Liberating. Just Ask These Tibetan Buddhists
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.08/dharma_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney