This feels like romanticizing the past. There are plenty of people today writing articles that claim to be taking a “scientific, serious approach” to, say, astral projection and people who will casually discuss such topics over coffee.
Apple claimed during WWDC ‘22 that 79% of U.S. buyers would only buy a car if it was “CarPlay-capable”. Biased source, sure, but the data indicates most consumers value music, maps, and voice assistant in their cars and the manufacturers are responding with about 98% of new cars supporting them.
Even if there is a chance it’s all a mirage, wouldn’t it be better to behave as if these and other creatures have an inner life?
Appealing to the philosophical zombie seems like an excuse to discard that our actions might cause real suffering from their perspective, on the unknowable chance they don’t mind.
On focal depth: In the real world you can look at an object close up and your eyes will adjust so that it is clear and objects at other ranges are blurry. Then, when you look at an object far away your eyes re-adjust focus.
You can test this by looking at your hand 6” from your face so it partially blocks your keyboard a couple feet away. You’ll notice that either the keys are blurry or your hand is as you shift focus between the two.
Future gen headsets will use eye tracking to understand which object in a scene you are looking at, and make that object sharp while making other objects blurry. This helps produce more realistic depth, while also dramatically improving performance as most of the scene can be rendered in lower resolution.