Half Moon Talk 丨The future of the meta-universe, is it a good or a trap?

Is the future of the metacosm a good thing or a trap?

Half Moon Commentator, Science Fiction Writer: Han Song

When I went to the United States in 1996, when I was buying books at an American science fiction bookstore, the clerk recommended "Avalanche" to me, saying that it was the hottest science fiction book in the United States, describing the future of mankind. Unexpectedly, many people are talking about this book today, because it is it that proposes the concept of metacosm. Similar notions of humans living in a virtual world have appeared in science fiction novels and movies such as Neurosquatch, The Matrix, and Ready Player One. But science fiction is, after all, about something far away. In my opinion, the metaverse is currently so hot, more like a dream created by capital due to the downturn of the Western economy and the spread of the epidemic, and there is no better theme in reality.

The metacosm is about people being able to survive in a digital world in a digital way. It requires a strong sense of immersion, and when you go in, it's as if the virtual world is the same as the real thing. In this sense, this is not a completely new concept, or even a science fiction concept, because humans have been interested in immersing themselves in virtual experiences since ancient times. I even feel that the illusion caused by a drunkenness in primitive society is the earliest "metacosm". Next, human beings invented art, poetry novels, drama, movie games, which are essentially "metaverse", immersing people in a fictional world, and some people are difficult to distinguish between true and false. It's just that the carrier is different, now it's a digital carrier. But whether it is a number, or a substance such as paper or a screen, it is actually an extension of the flesh, if the nervous system is also understood as a part of the flesh.

Some people say that the metacosm is fundamentally different from the existing virtual reality, true Internet and other technologies, because one of the core technologies of the metacosm , the development of blockchain technology, can carry out unique identity authentication, engage in distributed bookkeeping, establish a transaction system, etc., and can combine virtual and reality. But if in essence, the metaverse is not fundamentally different from virtual reality, it can be roughly considered that they are one thing.

Who are the digital world immigrants in the metaverse? There are probably two kinds of people who are more willing to go. One is the poor, the metaverse is the super Internet café of the poor, an experience hall, a helmet, a nasogastric tube, maybe ten dollars a day, is a happy life for a day, and time in the metacosm can be accelerated, and a day can live a happy life for several lifetimes. The second is the old man, you can find a young identity and face in it, and you have rich life experience, if you have money, it is to live again, return to youth, and be at ease.

However, it is still a relatively distant thing to create a world that can be compared to the same as in "The Matrix" and "Ready Player One". This requires a lot of preparation of hardware and software, to solve the chip problem, to solve the problem of computing power and power. Netizens entering the metaverse can not just look, multi-sensory simulation problems, not wearing a helmet glove can be done, and even need a big breakthrough in neuroscience. Therefore, at present, many of the metaverse is hype, especially those who buy land through the metacosm, which is basically hype.

Science fiction has a characteristic, everything it predicts will appear, but it will appear later than predicted, such as the freedom of navigation in the solar system, super artificial intelligence, flying cars, the Internet of Things, 3D printing, and automatic driving, all of which have not appeared at the expected time or achieved the expected effect. The metaverse will do the same. In general, in the foreseeable future, people's attention will still be focused on the real world, solving problems such as the real economy, scientific and technological innovation, population growth, and the gap between rich and poor. Some people say that in the metaverse, scientific and technological progress can be accelerated, such as many simulated things are taken inside, get data, and then return to reality. But also to see that the metaverse does not match the real world, where human behavior is different, and what is obtained cannot fully correspond to reality.

Then again, if you create some low-level metaverse versions, you can also attract a lot of people. Look at the subway where everyone looks down and immerses themselves in their mobile phones, I believe that as long as they have experienced high-quality virtual reality helmet glasses, they will be impressed by the magic of the artificially constructed second world. Many people will be addicted to the metaverse as if they were addicted to online games. There may be many scenes in the metaverse that are more exciting than the real world, allowing people to experience an extraordinary and rich life. After all, spaceflight and space exploration are also difficult, and if the way the driving force is changed, it is a luxury for ordinary people to go to heaven on a large scale, and it may be easier for hundreds of millions of people to enter the virtual world, where they can have a near-real Mars experience through rendering technology. Even in the long run, the expansion into the universe may also be achieved through the metacosm, because future space exploration is more likely to be carried out in a digital way, and aliens may also achieve their first meeting with humans through the channels of the metacosm in the form of digital stand-ins.

Of course, the metaverse still can't replace the real world. The universe has evolved for 13.7 billion years, the earth has evolved for 4.6 billion years, and their complexity, esotericness, and change are endless, where is the current imagination of human beings comparable? The metacosm is also difficult to simulate and restore the material world at the cosmic and microscopic levels. To explore and understand the mysteries of the universe, it also requires hard work in reality. We need to build high-energy particle colliders and fusion devices in reality. On the other hand, the metacosm does not necessarily lead to inner volume, and it is even more impossible for it to lead to the destruction of mankind. In fact, virtual and real can go hand in hand.

I think the metacosm is likely to drive the progress of the TCM health industry in the real world. Because if there is really a metaverse, people want to live there, and in the case that the upload of consciousness cannot be achieved, then they first need to live in the real world in the flesh. You need to have a healthy body, or at least a healthy brain, to fit the brain-computer interface into it, so that you can experience the wonderful metaverse.

But life and civilization will come to an end one day, and even our universe will go to a hot death. Therefore, the hope of eternal life in the metaverse may eventually prove to be a delusion. It is conceivable that when the metaverse was born, the thing that ended it was already in the making. (End)