Kevin Kelly crystallizes our technological past, present and future in a vision of exquisite clarity. I recommend The Inevitable to anyone struggling to understand why everything is suddenly different, again.

Flash back to a family conversation about addiction to Facebook. A client’s post about hive mentality.  Are we all becoming one multi-souled organism, hungry for experiences, itching to evolve?

Is it true we are birthing the next paradigm shift, VR? It’s easy to imagine Virtual Reality taking the place of, or at least supplementing, “film” (Video.) That was a revolutionary medium that allowed us to suspend disbelief. Powerful for entertainment. Excellent for education.

VR has the potential to do more than that. Amplified by the ubiquity of the internet, it has the power to start a cultural revolution. We’re already moving from the internet of information through IoT and to the Internet of Experiences. With VR, our level of immersion is so undeniably complete, our physiological selves interpret it, and react to it, as real.

VR is a fake world that feels absolutely authentic….You have a very strong sense that you are physically present…in large part because you can do things—look around, freely move in any direction, move objects—that persuade you that you are really there.—Kevin Kelly

Interactivity makes all the difference. Together with beautifully crafted graphics, VR can create a truly exhilarating life experience.

Do read the The Inevitable. It addresses much more than this. It’s the most optimistic view of the future I’ve heard in a long while.