Deep Thoughts On The Metaverse
Is this where north begins?
I recently attended a groundbreaking conference called the Educators in VR Summit that has expanded my mind with some deep and provocative thoughts on the Metaverse. If you’re not familiar with the Metaverse, it is a collection of shared, virtual spaces constructed by the confluence of physical reality and virtual reality (VR) that includes augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), artificial intelligence (AI) and the aggregate of Internet technologies. During the week of 17–22 February, 2020 the Educators in VR Summit — the world’s largest, all immersive virtual reality conference — was conducted entirely in the Metaverse with speakers and attendees from across the globe sharing ideas and collaborating as never before, 24 hours a day, unencumbered by actual or virtual boundaries. It’s been quite a special thing to witness people participate in a truly humanistic endeavor, regardless of whether there exists a contrariety between them.
I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the transparent sharing of ideas, knowledge and emotions in ways I’ve never before experienced. It’s led me to consider the impact of what we’re achieving and has caused me to ponder what is real, what is virtual and what is creation… that creation being the Cosmos, the Metaverse and the humans and avatars that inhabit them.
Through this experience, coupled with the past 4 years of running a VR company, I’ve come to realize that we’re part of an emergent paradigm that is fundamentally changing the world as we know it. It may even change reality as we currently understand it to be, which may not be what we believe it to be.
These notions seem strange, I know. But, the title of this essay says it all, as these are my very deep thoughts on the Metaverse. Consequently, this should be read as the philosophical musings of a VR CEO who is creating virtual worlds not bound by Newtonian laws of physics.
As the little Buddhist Monk said to Neo in the first Matrix movie, “There is no spoon.”
In 1983, Stephen Hawking and James Hartle developed the idea of a “no-boundary proposal” (the Hartle-Hawking State) in which they envision a universe that is smoothly expanding from a zero point size. They developed this into a formula that depicts the “wave function of the universe” (originally introduced by the astrophysicist Hugh Everett) by where the past, present and future all exist at once. Therefore, pontificating the beginning of the world as we know it, the beginning of us as we know us to be, would be meaningless since there is no reference to a time before. There is only the past, present and future happening all at once. That notion alone is a shocking proposition for many, myself included. However, not pontificating the beginning of the world as we know it would just be plain boring.
So, let’s not be boring.
Consider this: If I were on a quest to find the northernmost point of Earth and I followed the North Star, unwaveringly travelling a path in its direction, I would eventually arrive at the North Pole. But, after arriving at the northernmost point of the North Pole and asking someone there to point me in the direction of north, they would explain to me — no doubt with some derision — that my question is senseless because this is north, where we are standing. They would explain to me that this is not where north begins and that I cannot travel in any other direction to get to north because this is where north exists.
There is no other way to get to north because we are already here.
This is in-line with the “no-boundary proposal” that Hawking and Hartle developed in the early eighties. I believe this helps illustrate our current understanding — or misunderstanding — of time, space and reality in-general.
Are we already standing on north?
In order to consider such a profound notion, we must also acknowledge its relation to the Anthropic Principle. The Anthropic Principle was first postulated by Nick Bostrom, the Swedish philosopher working out of Oxford University who considered the possibility that we all might be living in a computer simulation.
As the CEO of a virtual reality company developing virtual worlds that immerse a person so completely that they forget about the real world around them, the Anthropic Principle gives me pause.
This principle led to the development of the Bostrom equation, which equips us with a relatively credible quantification of simulation probability. This is important because math is an undeniable truth that helps explain the universe in ways we may not be able to do otherwise; hence the “no-boundary proposal.”
In Nick Bostrom’s Anthropic Principle he postulates that in order for the universe to exist as we currently know it to exist, it must first be compatible with the conscious intelligence of the entity that observes it. That entity is us… humanity.
When immersed in the Metaverse, we observe a reality that is entirely virtual and we almost immediately cognitively process that virtual reality as actual reality. This is our observer moment in the Metaverse.
This impacts how we perceive our own natural laws of reality and whether or not they are, in fact, real and natural. If we are living in a computer simulation then two questions immediately form:
(1) Who created it (i.e who turned it on)?
(2) Can and/or will it be turned off?
While there are many other questions that arise in such a proposal, these two are pretty difficult to avoid. So, regarding the question of creator, I would not only seek answers in science and mathematics, but also in religion as all are quite important cogitations of our present reality. They must be examined together and with equal weight. Not doing so is a certain path to misunderstanding and not at all a path to objective truth.
Regarding the question of cancellation, the fear is that life can and will be turned off at any moment. But, such fear should not entangle us in a laissez-faire approach to life. In fact, life is a precious gift that is turned off at every moment simply because we die. So, such a fear is unsound. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Studying this leads us to an understanding that our ideas of what is real and what is virtual are not quite so independent.
One method to challenge this is to calculate the cosmological constant — or its equivalent — of the Metaverse, perhaps the metalogical constant. The cosmological constant arises in Albert Einstein’s equations of general relativity and is the energy density of space. It is through those equations that we learn our actual universe is expanding, not contracting.
But, what about the Metaverse? Is it also expanding? Are we creating a digital cosmos? Have we already created a digital cosmos? Has someone else already created our digital cosmos?
While there are more questions than answers at present, It is through these understandings, or misunderstandings, that we can ponder where north begins as it relates to the Metaverse.
In the Metaverse, we may already be standing where north exists.
Thank you for taking time to read and ponder with me. My hope is that this essay is as thought provoking for you to read as it was for me to write. Regardless, it was just plain fun!
For more thoughts, essays and other fun posts, you can find and directly message me on Twitter @TheVRCEO
