Step into the Grand Tour of the Metaverse

Everyone from their dog to their grandma has been inside the Metaverse at this point or at least has seen the jarring and jaw-dropping videos of how people react to putting on VR headsets and taking in the wonders of Virtual Reality. But the question still remains, to what extent will this technology go, what will be its cascading effects, and how will it change the face of human civilization for better or worse? 

To understand what it all means, we need to deep dive into the history of the Metaverse, the present state of the art, and the future speculations that are going on amongst the experts. So, grab your Virtual Reality headsets and let’s get started!

How it all started and the history behind it

 The history of Virtual Reality and Metaverse dates back to the 90's when in his 1992 dystopian science fiction book Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson first used the term "metaverse" to characterise a virtualized world in which people were elevated in social standing partly due to the proficiency of their avatars. Not only did the novel popularise the idea of digital avatars, but its portrayal of a networked 3D environment is credited with inspiring real-world web applications like Google Earth and NASA environment Wind.

Another example of Metaverse Development comes from Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel Ready Player One where the people of the world escape from their lives by diving into the virtual world called Oasis. This novel, which was later turned into a Steven Spielberg movie of the same name, ignited a new revolution and enthusiasm for the Metaverse amongst the population of the world. 

Turning our attention to philosophy, people have been debating the Cave Problem for 3000 years now where people trapped in a cave think that the shadows on the walls are the real world while being ignorant of the actual reality that they have never witnessed before due to their constraints. This notable problem by Plato is the basis of a difference between the real world and virtual reality. This also proposes the question that what if we are already in such a virtual world without understanding of knowing what the real world is. But I digress.

Jumping to the Present times for the Metaverse

Today, in 2024, we have come a long way from 90’s headsets and have reach Apple’s new Augmented Reality goggles, that even though being super expensive and clunky, are the Augmented Reality goggles that we have been promised we’ll have since Google’s failed venture in 2013’s Smart Glasses. Apple’s Augmented Reality Goggles are the first to reach such a milestone and we know that other players in the industry aren’t far behind and would reach this milestone soon with upgraded software and maybe a cost that would go down for the masses required for a full scale AR/VR revolution. 

Speaking of the Metaverse, we have already got several, from Facebook’s Meta to Roblox’s Metaverse. From Second life to Vyug, Metaverse companies have now begun coming out of the woodworks and are going mainstream. People can already access these worlds, run meetings, attend training sessions, and conduct their businesses in the Metaverse. 

Even though the technology hasn’t reached the Ready Player One’s level of realism or immersive reality, still haptics have begun being released by Sony and other players who want to connect more senses to the Metaverse. The vision is to have a complete Full Dive experience of the Metaverse where you can smell, touch, see, and feel the Metaverse as if you would feel the real world and there is no difference between the two. This is when Actual Reality becomes just an option for people to choose from amongst the multitude of Metaverses in the market. 

The Future that was Promised is Now!

If you were to listen to visionaries like Ray Kurzweil, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, then you would know that most of these experts believe in the exponential growth of technology that we are currently under promptly noted as the ‘Technological SIngularity’. A concept, borrowed from physics, that predicts an unprecedented level of growth for technology in all sectors that would yield a civilization changing event promised to be attained by 2045. 

With technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Genetic Engineering, Robotics, and Nanotechnology, we are sure to reach this Singularity soon and its effects are already being noted by the unprecedented accelerated growth of the A.I. field even right now in 2024. However, there are several caveats that are in the way before we can leave our human constraints and become transcendental beings who are immortal, have their own (metaversal) domains, and live like Gods of the old mythologies. Maybe, this is how civilizations develop and reach a stage of transcendence and maybe that’s how we solve the Fermi Paradox. But I digress. 

Coming back to the present, I would say that the Metaverse Development has already begun and there is nothing that can stop it from taking over the world (or worlds) soon enough. If you think that Social Media today is bad then what would you say when your child can’t get enough of the Full Dive Sword Art Online in the 2030’s? Whatever you may think, these changes are coming and we as a society should be excited for it while progressing with caution as the Metaverse  takes over. 

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