The first mention of the word Metaverse was from the 1992 Novel Snow Crash written by Neal Stephenson. The book explored many ideas from consciousness to religion and the possibilities of a digital reality world. In this book, He envisioned a digitally-generated reality where humans could exist without going with their physical bodies, but with a computer-generated body called the Avatar. This Virtual World would be shared by everyone. Anyone could have the type of life they want, different from what they have in the physical world- in reality.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The word Metaverse was coined by Neal Stephenson in 1992
- the ideas of Metaverse has been explored and expanded by many creators
- top ten ideas from Snow Crash about the Metaverse
The World after Snow Crash
After two decades-plus of Snow Crash, the Metaverse is gradually moving towards becoming a reality. Because, Many of the ideas from the book have been explored by different creatives and creators, including in the 2009 blockbuster movie Avatar by James Cameron. Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, (an adaptation of the 2011 novel of the same name by Ernest Cline) as well as the 1999 thriller, The Matrix.
We will be looking at a few key ideas as envisioned by Neil which may greatly influence the reality of contemporary Metaverse ideas. Currently, many of these words or ideas are still in use today, while some have been reconstructed to fit our modern consciousness
Top 10 Visions of the Metaverse
- Avatar: They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. According to Neil, the physical body takes the form of software. Maybe a kind of a solid hologram programmed to represent a person, and is unique to their identity, or any identity they chose. These averters can take any shape or form.“You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse.” He wrote.
- Ports: This is like a kind of gateway to the Metaverse. Compare the airports from which you can enter any city or country.
- The HyperCard: This is a kind of Avatar that looks like a business card. But it can store or represent a chunk of Data, either Text, audio, video, or any digital information. It can contain all your pictures, podcasts, books or collection of Digital NFTs. Just think of a digital storage card that can store a limitless amount of data.
- A Daemon: This is a Robot programmed avatar that does not represent a person that lives in the Metaverse. Although, Neil had described it as having a kind of spirit living inside a robot in the Avatar. A daemon is programmed to carry out specific tasks; they can work as a dancer, a striper, Waiter, Bouncer, anything one can imagine.
- The Black Sun: This is like an elite clubhouse meant for celebrities, elites, and Hackers (those who had programmed the Metaverse). This place is restricted,can be accessed by members, or strictly by invitation.
- Hackers: The code writers of the Metaverse. Compare programmers. They wrote the codes that brought the Metaverse to life. Examples; Architects, Artists, Designers, and other creators.
- Metavirus: This is the virus of all viruses. According to Neil, “It’s the atomic bomb of Informational warfare — a virus that causes any system to infect itself with new viruses.”
- Snow Crash: This is a drug, stored in a HyperCard. It was one of the ‘highest’ drugs in the Metaverse. It can also ignite the Metavirus relative to the system of the person that has been exposed to it. Snow Crash was also described as ” a fixed pattern of black-and-white pixels, fairly high-resolution. Just a few hundred thousand ones and zero…”
- Metaverse: Neil was the first person to coin this word in a written document because he felt words like virtual reality were too awkward to describe the space he envisioned. For him, The Metaverse is a computer-generated universe (a virtual space) that is accessed through Augmented or virtual reality or any other related AR tech.
- Babel: This was described as a gateway in our minds that was somehow opened. Something that made it possible for us to connect the binary world with the spiritual and physical. Although, it also alluded to the biblical meaning of the same word.
You can check out How life enfolds in the Metaverse.
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(Special mention: The Ideas expressed in this article are based on the Fictional world of the Metaverse and the ideas in the Novel Snow CrashBy Neal Stephenson)
