A revelation!
I've decided that the purpose of Virtual Reality is to turn humans into
cephalopods.
Some of the Cephalopods
have a marvelous organ called the Chromatophore, that is essentially a display
built into their skin. They can create luminous, quickly changing, colorful
images all over their bodies. It is absolutely enthralling to watch them
flash each other, seemingly communicating in a visual language. People have
to use their hands to craft images, so there is an imbalance between our
ability to see and our ability to visually create. Not so for some of the
squid, octopi,
and most especially the charming cuttlefish. These creatures are also stunningly
smart. They should serve to excite fantasies of truly alien intelligence
on Earth far more readily than whales or dolphins.
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