Timelines Timeliness

(Image from eBay)

Just in time to assuage unhappiness with current politics, the concept of multiverse timelines has caught fire:

On Joe Rogan’s podcast last month, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen explained his theory that “the timeline has split twice in the last nine months. . . . The world was going to head in two totally different directions.” The first split was when Donald Trump was shot in Butler, Pa., on July 13. The second was on Election Day. Twitter is awash with posts from some users exclaiming that they “love this timeline” and others lamenting that they “hate this timeline.” Ezra Klein, doyen of the intellectual left, said in a Nov. 19 podcast that he’s watching Mr. Trump’s nominees “to see what timeline we’re in.”

The notion of this timeline implies the existence of that timeline—an alternative reality in which things unfold differently. Much as the idea “We are living in a simulation” saturated social media during the Covid-19 pandemic, “this timeline” is the latest exclamation of discomfort with our present reality.

Though it’s especially prominent among those who are online and anti-Trump, references to the timeline aren’t the sole province of the left. Last month, David Friedberg, co-host of the tech podcast “All-In,” repeatedly used the term to indicate his elation with political circumstances: “I am so shocked and surprised in a positive way that we ended up on this particular timeline. . . . We’re on this timeline and I do think the United States, as Neo, dodged a lot of bullets here.”

The invocation of Neo, hero of the film franchise “The Matrix,” is telling. The concept of timelines originates in science fiction and is linked intimately with the multiverse, the idea of parallel realities with similar people and personalities but different events and outcomes. This connection to science fiction is perhaps why the theme has resonated with Silicon Valley’s newly right-leaning techno-utopians, as well as members of the left.

Human beings have always believed--or imagined--that there are realities different and maybe better than the one we are stuck in. From heaven to reincarnation, from a simulated universe to a multiverse, there may be a super-reality where our good behavior is rewarded or our lives can have a second chance.

Just as Marxists saw benefits in religion because it was the "opiate" of the masses, conservatives won't decry multiverse-ology because it keeps many leftists quiet, and besides, it may be true (!). Meanwhile, your humble blogger has given up trying to understand the current timeline and is just enjoying the show.

Apple Introduces the Vision Pro

Apple introduced its Vision Pro headset today:

Apple said the device, which will sell for $3,499 and won’t be available until early next year, would be a new way to interact with digital content in the physical space using the user’s hands, eyes and voice to interact with apps.

Users can control the device with their hands and experience movies, TV shows and games in a more immersive way. [CEO Tim] Cook called it a new “spatial computing” platform...

The Vision Pro can project a massive movie screen into any environment for a user, as well as capture or play three-dimensional video, making it possible for a user to watch a movie on a giant screen or interact with life-size personal photos or videos projected into their living environment.

The $3,499 price will be a barrier to mass adoption. However, thousands of people in the Bay Area alone have room in their budget to buy one. The question is whether the Vision Pro has enough unique and valuable features to cause these buyers to pull the trigger.

WSJ tech reporter Joanna Stern tried it on:

During my 30-minute demo, it weighed down on my nose and made me a bit nauseous. (Apple says these will get better by the time it ships early next year.) But wow…the interface and hand gestures are intuitive, 3-D movies are finally making sense and it really felt like a huge dinosaur broke through a wall right in front of me...

The Vision Pro is different from any other headset I’ve tried because of how easy it is to toggle between seeing the real world and the digital world. An Apple Watch-like Digital Crown on the right brow allows you to control the immersion: To go more virtual, you scroll in one direction; to see more reality, you scroll in the other...

Apple is differentiating itself with an experience that is fully grounded in reality. This is not virtual reality where you escape your surroundings. Instead, it’s all about bringing the digital world to your real world. What Apple calls “spatial computing.”

Like curious others I'll hie me down to the local Apple Store when the demo is available. If the experience is as immersive as some reviewers claim, and if they catch me in a weak moment, who knows what I might do?

Reconstruire Mieux, Non

Only Luddites would object to a pool on the roof.

2½ years ago Notre-Dame Cathedral was engulfed in flames. Somehow, miraculously, it was spared. In what has been termed "the world’s greatest act of collective cultural philanthropy"

Over $940 million has already been collected from donors, some 340,000 in all, from all over the world.

Initial attempts to modernize the reconstruction met with vociferous resistance, and the exterior will be restored to the original.

Now the controversy is over the interior.

The illuminated pictures do look like Disneyland

Now we learn from the Telegraph newspaper (and two European online journals) that the cathedral interior is to be updated—and in the most radical fashion.....the intact interior, is to be transformed into something akin to a contemporary art installation or theme park...

The grand nave, the central passage of the cathedral, is to be lined with Renaissance-era paintings, one above each of the Gothic capitals.

The idea is to make the Catholic faith comprehensible...to the 12 million tourists, many with little or no knowledge of Catholicism, who arrive each year. To make them feel more welcome, phrases in their native languages are to be projected on the wall.

Traditionalists, which include your humble blogger, do not believe in "restoring" documents, works of art, or other relics to make them more "accessible" to modern viewers. As the essayist points out:

If those tourists want information about the Catholic faith in digital form, they can find it far more abundantly on the phones in their back pockets. It is a losing game to compete with virtual reality; the result can only be a simulacrum of a simulacrum.

With the right technology one can have both--the original physical experience of Notre Dame and the visual and auditory enhancement that can be superimposed over the physical. Using augmented reality tools would be more informative than images projected on walls, and there is no need for any controversy over reconstruction.

Just make sure the WiFi signal is strong.

Note: to their credit the French didn't have the nerve to call the project reconstruire mieux (building back better).

Alzheimer's Patients: the Fifties Were Happier

I'd be happier there, too (WSJ photo)

A new aid for Alzheimer's patients is reminiscence therapy, [bold added]

a therapy that uses prompts from a person’s past—such as music, movies and photographs—to elicit memories and encourage conversation and engagement.

The 1950's are reconstructed in

Glenner Town Square, a new adult day-care center for dementia patients that is like entering a time warp. The 11 storefronts that surround an indoor park represent the time period from 1953 to 1961, when most of the patients were in the prime of their life.

Reminiscence therapy is not a cure, and the jury's out as to whether it even slows the advancement of the dieease:

Most participants showed no improvements in a series of cognitive tests done before and after the intervention. But they did become better at talking about autobiographical memories when triggered from older objects....The program is mostly geared toward patients who are in the early to moderate stages of dementia, who are typically living with family or at home with caregivers. Their family members or caretakers drop them off at the facility.

Glenner Town Square is an ingenious effort but only an intermediate treatment that will be superseded by virtual-reality rooms similar to Star Trek's holodeck minus the corporeal elements (touching a Studebaker instead of only viewing it).

There's nothing wrong with dementia sufferers reliving past times when they were happier. When the technology becomes available, we'll start doing it, too.

Fake News....You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Looks more impressive from within than without

Humorist Joe Queenan says that the problem is not fake news, but fake news that makes us feel bad. If it makes us feel good, we should get more of it.

Everybody should have a fake Facebook page where they can pretend to have a great job, spouse and car—and great hair. People should fill their Facebook pages with photos of mountains they have never climbed, reefs never snorkeled, women never dated and degrees never earned. Some Facebook folks already do.

Mr. Queenan's suggestion, while amusing, has a limited shelf-life. Soon the hardware and software will become so advanced that we can create entire virtual worlds that will be indistinguishable from the real thing.

Subject to our imagination, we can be rich, beautiful, talented, and/or famous in virtual reality. The danger is that we will never want to leave.

This week Christians will celebrate Easter, when humankind overcame death. Soon we can overcome the unpleasantness of life by escaping into fake worlds.