The Ultimate Interactivity

In media, what are the standards by which interactivity should be judged?

Should we assess the degree to which interactive media exceed words printed on paper in their ability to allow us control over outcomes, or should we measure the degree to which they fall short of the free form complexities in real world experience?

Let us first examine those apparently polar opposites for what they really are.

Words on paper are not without interactivity. Readers can control many variables. They can access content at random, they can visit any page as many times as they wish at intervals of their own choosing, they can visualize from the words what the characters and the action look like, they can revise their responses with repeated readings, they can imagine life for the characters after the denouement, they can conjure endings they prefer over the one the author wrote. Reading a book can be as interactive as the reader wishes it to be.

Real life, by contrast only appears free before it is actually lived. In retrospect, it seems like events turn out as they must, scripted by the choices expressing who we were then and the role we played, with sudden interventions by fate over which we have no control. There is not much interactivity where the actions are automatic, resulting from training and best practices. Any two climbers will likely ascend to the top of a Class 5.11 mountain, a similar end for similar decisions. An avalanche triggered by one skier but not another the previous day under seemingly identical conditions, is just bad luck. One got away with the risk, one didn't. And a fool may defy all odds by succeeding where experts succumb. Are the combined workings of skill and fate truly interactive, or do they just play out the notated moves in a cosmic ballet?

If our two end anchors are not what they first seemed, what are we to make of the middle? Can we define interactivity without comparison with absolutes that are not so absolute after all?

Consider a thought experiment that someday soon might be achievable. Imagine a Virtual Reality experience furnished by a headset device that delivers sights and sounds according to our movements. The audio and visual imagery is convincingly realistic because it responds to our behavior in that environment. This is pure simulation. How do we assess its interactivity?

We have control over ourselves in this virtual world but cannot be completely sure of the responses. We can stumble, and then we can get up and keep on going. We have no skill set other than our wits, and there are no rules and objectives other than what we set for ourselves. This simulated world clearly has its own structure of cause and effect, but this is not a game, not a story, this is an exploration of an environment.

I would argue that this thought experiment represents interactivity with penultimate purity, as self directed learning.

What is the ultimate form? We look back upon an experience, enjoining a dialog with ourselves about meaning. Reflection provides the ultimate interactivity, and it happens entirely within our minds.