The Power of the virtual

The main difference between the virtual and the real is our perception. We may call someone on the phone and listen to them describe a trip they made. The description may be very vibrant and visual to the point of feeling we’re there, but all the while, we don’t lose touch with the fact that we’re sitting in our living room. The virtual is not just about connecting with someone from afar or being separated by a physical distance and connected via sound waves or images transported online. The virtual I’m talking about here will replace reality. It’ll be done on a perception level at first but will eventually develop into on a physical level.

Virtual reality will be an environment where we ‘know’ this is our current location and where we can make decisions that change that environment. In some of the stories I craft, the characters have a place which is a combination of the online spaces we have now, like social media and the metaverse, which is, in my opinion, like a masquerade ball where you and others can pretend to be characters interacting with each other.

The virtual has not taken much shape in our life yet. Other than with the ordered chaos of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), creating avatars, learning a language (Yay!), purchasing real estate, and planning a wedding in the metaverse, the general public has not ventured into living their daily life in the virtual. The power of that is yet to be unleashed. However, it’s one possibility. There’s another possibility that human beings will remain uninterested in the idea and move on to other ways to expand their reality.

So that begs the question, do we really need to expand our reality by adding that virtual appendix to it, running the risk that it may take over our reality? The short answer is yes. Humans are curious beings, constantly changing themselves and their environment. They impact everything they come in touch with, even the rules that seem to control the world they live in.

Now, this would come with a power of a special kind. A power that maybe given in part to ordinary people for educational and or entertaining purposes. This will definitely be played on political and economic levels as well.

Now, this would come with a power of a special kind—a power that might be given in part to ordinary people for educational and entertainment purposes. This will definitely play out on political and economic levels as well.

Now is this virtual which will compete with the real, is it a possibility in the time being? In my opinion, no, not yet. The world as it stands today is not coherent in its power components to introduce the virtual into our lives. The world is not in balance, and I know people say that AI is here to stay and it is changing work places, communication, education, creativity and so on. Regardless of the theories of how and why everything surrounding that technology came to be, the AI is just a continuation of a series of tools that we’ve been developing and utilizing since the 50s, and the concept of the metaverse itself isn’t new as the term “metaverse” was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash.” The virtual is something a little bit independent and far more exciting and scarier at the same time.

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