The Virtual Explorer

The Real Reason Facebook Wants A Metaverse

2022-01-16T19:27:00.001+00:00

2022-01-10T14:15:00.001+00:00

As of right now the Facebook Metaverse is just a concept. Today concepts, and the energy they generate in the form of hype, are driving economic elements in the quest for unicorns. Telsa is the most valuable car maker in the world because....well its going to happen. Theranos was going to change medicine, the bitcoin is going to do something something someday.

Just right now its a bunch of very wealthy people trying to find bets that will return unicorn returns. The 10% you can get from property investment just is not enough for our new generation of Cyber Capitalists. The only threat to their ability to generate insane quantities of money is reality itself.

Right now Facebooks project is 2 full decades behind Second Life, and nobody is hyping up Second Life.

The fact is people don't like using virtual reality of immersive reality. They are not too keen on using spatial technology unless they get something like finding a place on Google or getting a Uber. Beyond that people have still shown an indifference to hostility to spatial technology on the internet.

Rober1236 Jua the Cyber Trekker

Back to Metaverses?

2022-01-10T14:05:00.003+00:00

Four years ago I gave up on metaverses and virtual reality. Well suddenly because of Facebook the concept of metaverses is hot again.

The argument for the emergence of the metaverse now after it flopped is pretty strong. Firstly CoVid has created a crash course in virtualizing life. People are used to virtual living, working, living and loving people at vast distances. Also people have better technology.

Beyond this MFT and Cyber currencies have created many of the preconditions that will make business more viable in virtual reality.

But my counter was always psychological: I felt the experience was innately unstable. People experience highly immersive virtual reality as a kind of mental break. People become the worst version of themselves, and for all the happy utopian projects that sit empty there are sadistic pits where people wallow in their worst selves.

For me the metaverse completes something AI and Social Media have started: a society free of cultural norms or values. On say YouTube content makers avoid saying certain taboo words in a fully anti-social manner. Values don't exist as felt shared meaning but just games played against AIs in an ever confusing meaningless dance.

Well lets see should be fun.

Rober1236 Jua the Cyber Trekker

A virtual universe?

2017-10-04T15:55:00.001+01:00

Either we don't live in a simulation, or computing works differently outside the Matrixhttps://t.co/wwqMISSQvQ pic.twitter.com/MswePCwFTo
— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) October 3, 2017

I think many people are getting the implications of the Simulation hypothesis wrong. In the above article Cory Doctorow, to sum up, presents it as:

1. There are likely many advanced civilizations in the universe.
2. Over time an advanced civilization would be able to produce a simulated reality as rich as our own.
3. They would likely produce millions it not billions or trillions of such universes
4. Therefore a person in a universe is most likely in a simulated universe, as there will be a vast number of these for every real universe.

He takes this simple idea apart, but this form of statement of the simulation hypothesis is really just a straw man. Certainly this is one way of thinking of potential simulated reality; but it is not the only or best way, and it really misses the deeper point.

I would point out that philosophers from Plato of Descartes presented a form of the simulation hypothesis in their works. Plato, as far as I can tell, seems to believe it in a form while Descartes thinks he proved it is not true.

This idea which has had such a massive impact on western thinking is not as silly as the one present by Doctorow nor as easily disproven.

A more accurate summing up of the simulation hypothesis would simply be:

This universe is really a simulation run in an information machine.

And the idea is a flavour of a much deeper and more important idea:

Our universe is really just information.

The second wording is probably widely accepted by Quantum theorists and Cosmologist today as far as I can understand.

What is interesting is that from the point of view of an observer in the Universe it might be hard to tell the later from the former definition,. If my reading of modern Quantum theory is correct it may be said that the universe might as well be a simulation.

I will focus in on one of Doctorow's main points against simulation: that to simulation all the particles in our universe would take a device so extremely massive as to be massively larger than our universe. And I quote

It turns out that figuring out these particles' locations scales at n^2, meaning the amount of computing power needed doubles with each additional particle, which means that "storing information about a couple of hundred electrons would require a computer memory that would physically require more atoms than exist in the universe."

No.

A simulation does not need to model each particle of it's universe, it only needs to fool a observer for each and every observation they might make.

Think about if you were going to make a simulation of a universe to fool a conscious being into thinking it was in a real universe. You could write a program for each and ever particle in the universe meaning you could only build a small simulation relative to the universe in which you started.

Or you could be more clever. You could keep more high level descriptive data of the universe, and then when your conscious observer asked about the existence of a particle you could just come with the answer for that one question on the fly.

You could answer these questions with a set of probabilistic models that govern the details of a coarser grained universe, and when someone asks a question the answer would be governed by a model on the fly.

Sound familiar. This is what we get with quantum mechanics.

And it gets more interesting as you bush this further.

Ask yourself ways that someone could figure out if the universe was being modelled via bits. You could ask if the universe was a simulation lying to you with far less information then it seems to have.

I could random select a particle, which I am utterly free to select at will, and the universe would then have to give me it location or speed. I will get to this in more further. Then I could follow that same particle randomly for as long as I want. By doing this the computer would have to keep data about the history of all particles I might want so that the universe could keep its 'story straight'.

I could then ask where a particular particle was over a vast amount of time making sure that the universe was keeping everything straight, right?

This is the standard way we find out if people are lying, we ask about the same thing over and over, going over the story until something does not fit and we conclude we are being lied to.

One problem is that this is not how the universe works.

I assume my reader knows something about Quantum Uncertainty. If not click the link.

When I look at a particle on the quantum level, I then can never ask another question about that particle. I can then only get a limited set of one time data points about a particle in an initial observer, then I can never check it again.

It seems like the universe is saying, when really pressed, that it won't take any more questions.

Its almost as if some programmer is trying to make it so that I can be fooled by a system that did not need to keep track of where ever particle is?

I am not saying that Quantum theory means that the universe is a simulation, but I am saying that the simulation hypothesis is a better metaphysics for the quantum universe than our ordinary assumptions about how reality works from day to day life. We assume things have speed and location, and that things remain things moving along set paths over time. On the quantum scale we find these assumptions break down.

But, and this is where things great really exciting, quantum physics makes perfect sense if we assume the universe is a computer model and the programmers could not model every particle in the universe. Rather we can ask about a single particle once, and our answer is determined by probability theory. We could fool an observer this way by using a probability formula to answer questions about a single particle, and then not allow then not allow any follow up.

This does not mean we are living in a simulation, it means we might be living in a simulation. The thing that is certain is we are not living in a universe that acts the way we assume it does before we know Quantum Uncertainty. Its our everyday universe in our own mind which is a false simulation.

Step back and think about how you would fool an observer about a universe, making them think the universe was vastly bigger than it was. That is how would you create the experience of a massive universe using fairly limited computing resources. This is a very common issue with simulations, you keep the model running a set of variables that sum up the interactions of invisible lower particles.

In the 1990s I created a economic simulation with this very goal in place, I wanted to fool people in to believing that it was a proper market place. I created a model that simulated millions of consumer deciding what to buy with a few variables.

It worked pretty well. And it worked because I hid the information about actual consumer, I didn't allow you to drill down to the person in the model. And I also added levels of probability in determining the sales in the market based on the players turns in the simulation.

I was able to make the kind of computing available to be in the mid 1990s on the LambdaMoo MUD object oriented programming language. We even had to deal with the fact LambdaMoo didn't support real numbers.

Dozens of users felt the game was realistic, and the outcome over time confirm to economic theory, a few players with early advantages were able to form a monopoly over certain markets just as real retail markets tend to behave.

Now lets say someone is playing a simulation, they are able to make precise observations about the universe, but I am assuming the universe is not really keeping detailed information about the particles when not observed. How can I get away with it.

For example even given quantum uncertainty I might be able to look at say a cup or water and follow it conduct to determine, given a long enough time of observation, what the life spans of all the particles would have to be to check that the computer is keeping track of all the particles, that the program is keeping its story straight. By looking at the system long enough I could collect enough information to conclude what the trillions and trillions of atoms in the glass of water are doing.

Now imagine I wanted to pull this off with a fairly limited computer. How would I keep an observer from making billions of observations of a glass of water in order to drill down to a model of every molecule? How about I make it so that as the user observes the system the amount of data they can capture is decreasing over time.

I could do it by making the case that each 'turn' of the simulation I get to hide more and more information to compensate for what the observer is collecting, so that their total knowledge of my universe never excides my computer model.

I know this is a bit esoteric but I would argue is that is precisely how entropy works, it is like as we collective knowledge about system more and more underlying knowledge becomes hidden, meaning the systems could be simulated with a probability computer, really just generating a limited number of random numbers each time I make an observation.

Again this is NOT to say we are living in such a simulation, that our universe is actually a much smaller computer trying to full us that it is a bigger reality, but the universe we find ourselves and understand can be fully explained in this idea, while the ideal of a all knowing God who knows were everything is at all times seems to be impossible.

So the simulation hypothesis turns out to be more than just a silly argument about alien races and computer systems, it is one of the greatest thought experiments into trying to define ourselves and more deeply understand how our physics emerges as a kind of dance between our minds, which run an inaccurate simulation, and a universe that looks more and more like an information system.

Virtual Chess World

2017-05-17T10:58:00.002+01:00

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Egypt/158/79/22

Chess Wonderland is lovely, but very little detail available about it, and it would be cool to be able to play the game but I didn't find it. Still it looks amazing, and it follows the enclosed space method, giving it an all around environment.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Egypt/158/79/22

Augemented Reality

2017-05-09T16:23:00.001+01:00

Christmas town in Second Life

2016-12-17T12:35:00.002+00:00

Christmas town, and more problems with SL interface

More dancing in SL, which often feels like a slow radio

Nice effect with he reflection but it is still made by having a duplicate under the surface, increasing prim count and slowing download to make an effect that should jus the a surface feature on primes.

Antiquity Texas in Second Life

2016-12-17T12:21:00.001+00:00

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Antiquity%20Texas/186/17/29
Antiquity Texas suffers from much of the clumsy nature of SL interface, you spend a great deal of time trying to figure out what is going on to see nothing is going on.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Antiquity%20Texas/186/17/29

The SIM has a complex entry which seems useless

RIP Rober1236 Jua

2016-06-13T18:48:00.001+01:00

My rather aged and ignored Second Life persona is, due to failure to remember a password on my part combined with terrible password reset on Linden Lab's part, the AV Rober1236 Jua is now dead. So that is that.

Off the Wall, good music too

2016-06-02T19:18:00.002+01:00

Off the Wall is pretty cool, and the music is really good.

Off the Wall http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Off%20The%20Wall/109/160/4

2016-06-02T19:13:00.003+01:00

Off the Wall looks great, and the music is awesome really

VR and Psychology, I told you so.

2016-05-05T11:52:00.004+01:00

BBC had a very interesting article about using VR to treat paranoia.

I was very impressed to read this as is something I concluded some time ago.

Summing up my ideas:

People in Virtual Reality bring their true selves, they are not suturing on to disconnected selves as is the notion of Post-Modernity.
Since the person is actually there, the freedom of VR allows us to get at the personality of the person.
Therefore VR has massive psychotherapeutic opportunities.

PTS and paranoia are interesting starts, but there is much more opportunity in looking at deviant disorders, in trying to address sexual and violent issues in a 'dream like' state like Second Life, where a person can be more themselves than in any real world setting.

Sean Murray May Have Replaced Morgan Freeman As God

2015-10-04T15:44:00.001+01:00

Ater exploring Second Life until it stagnated, I might have a new adventure with No Man's Sky.

David Rumsey Maps 1 - MUSEUM - HISTORY- CARTOGRAPHY - MAP

2014-06-05T00:00:00.000+01:00

David Rumsey Maps 1 - MUSEUM - HISTORY- CARTOGRAPHY - MAP
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rumsey%20Maps%201/168/82/16

Exploring an amazing world made of old maps brought to life in 3D.

Is this a thing? My sudden aversion to Second Life

2014-03-06T13:34:00.000+00:00

I wonder if anyone else has had the issue I am currently experiencing? After years of exploring virtual worlds over the past 6 months I have developed more than just the typical boredom: they actually make me physically illl to be in them. I get headaches, anxiety and aversion when I go in to any virtual reality.

This make taking my class on Virtual Worlds and Literature really hard. LOROL gave me terrible headaches and made it hard for me to sleep.

Since then it has just gotten worse. I can't take more than 5 minutes of Second Life till my head feels like it is going to split. Everything looks ugly, sounds ugly and makes my skin crawl.

I can't believe that just 6 years ago I used to spend about 10 hours a week in Second Life and blog about it almost everyday, now if I spent an hour in it I can't sleep.

Has anyone else known of a case like this? Is it a common reaction over time to Virtual Reality? Does it have a name?

Reality is Virtual to start with

2014-01-07T11:34:00.000+00:00

Slavoj Zizek gives it pretty straight: reality is already virtual. We have always lived in a virtual world. We always are creating virtual models of everyone in everyday life, ignoring certain facts we know and then constructing an ideal image.

Zizek talks about how power is virtual. The example I give is people working in jobs imaging they are being watched, judged and potentially fired when most likely there is no effective structure. We keep society going imagining power rather than real power.

We are playing simulated ideas in reality all the time. My understanding of this that culture and society always was virtual, that there is no real difference between a a virtual reality and a reality, both are created and operated via imagination.

The idea that virtual reality is false is wrong in a deep way. If we claim it is false because it is full of beliefs that we know are not true than social life is always equally false. If we assert normal life as real, we must hold that are ideal assumptions as having a reality. In fact in virtual reality we might show more of our real selves.

Tudor Rose, an amazing small SIM

2013-11-07T13:03:00.001+00:00

Tudor Rose is an amazing small SIM that shows the state of the art of emerging virtual reality.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rosemont/70/155/23

Minecraft? For real?

2013-09-25T10:27:00.001+01:00

Frankly I don't get Minecraft, why would you go in to a world like this when you can go in to Second Life, with less restrictions and more options?

There is almost something nightmarish to the idea that the post-singularity above could become, from processing power, our future over the world below:

I am actually depressed by Minecraft, this ugly block world has replaced a real effort to make something lovely. It seems all the attention given to Second Life 7 years ago is now being flooded on silly little block world Minecraft, why?

I just don't get it.

Coursera class on Online Games relationship to literature

2013-09-14T12:30:00.002+01:00

So far, the Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative at Coursera is great #gamemooc
— Tindriel (@tindriel) September 10, 2013

A moving tribute to the firefighters at 9-11

2013-09-11T09:57:00.001+01:00

A moving tribute mixes film and a simulation of the stairs in the Twin Towers for the firefighters who survived and died on 9-11, already 12 years ago.

Dead

2013-09-08T15:10:00.002+01:00

Deadpool sort of sums up everything wrong with Second Life. You TP in, zombies see you and form and come and bight you. The zombies looks cool and the technology to make them emerge and find you is interesting. Then you TP somewhere else.

Spaces are unconnected, experiences are strange but mostly meaningless.

Looks cool

2013-09-08T15:04:00.000+01:00

Zwicked Textures, this is a store. Why most people have left those makers who remain have crated an interesting looking space, but its still a bit isolating.

Maker Madness

2013-09-08T14:57:00.001+01:00

I don't suspect this is going to make me very popular, but I think that it is time to talk about what I call Maker Madness in Second Life. Makers are the new cool, and there is no question that we need a culture of more makers and less takers (i.e. bankers).

The problem in Second Life is that people's making is starting to be an obsession. Second Life is full of cool things and cool places, but visiting it is more and more like visiting a centre of autistic idiot savants. There are wonderful little pieces everywhere but not idea how they fit together.

In Second Life you can buy cool devices to fly, but you have no where to fly and no one to fly with most of the time. You can buy an amazing new identity and go to a dream like place but nothing is happening. Its all getting so autistic.

The universe inside of Linden Lab's computers has drifted from a community to a closet, a world made of unloved toys that used to be more fun. Our strange relationship with toys and things, with making and falling out of love becomes an real place. A crazy place.

Nomads and Second Life

2013-09-03T12:13:00.000+01:00

You many not connect the Internet with the Mongol Empire, but perhaps you should. I was thinking while exploring the excellent SIM Karekorum, the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire. Perhaps the SIM seems so right because so much of the Mongol way of life matches our lives in the web. Mongols were nomadic people, establishing new relationships between vast ranges of what happen been before open space.

Much has been made of the Web creating a new generation of technological nomads, and if it is true perhaps on a spiritual level we new nomads should take the time to connect with our larger human heritage. The Mongols in Central Asia have produced a culture which had a Nomadic core.

But along with motion or stillness, the Mongols had a great respect for diversity, their ancient Capitals had embassies, Buddhist, Taoist, Confusion, Christian and Muslim houses of worship. The Khans of Mongolian valued their status on how many cultures could fit in their cities.

The Mongols also were great samplers of cultures, in the west they became Muslims mixing with the ancient culture of Persia, in the East they became the Yuan Dynasty, they established the Dali Lama and built the first palace of Beijing.

The Mongols connected spaces and cultures that had been long isolated. Their reputation as nothing more than destroyers is utterly unjust, given the cultures of the time.

Probably of any event in history the Mongol sudden explosion on the world stage can provide a kind of myth for the new nomadic web generation. Not fixed to a location but fixed to motion, open to new ideas and new cultures, embracing small scale mobile high technology. The Mongols great symbol is a palace tent on wheels, what could be a better icon for an Age of mobile Tablets?

Multi-cultural Second Life, body of the network

2013-09-03T11:29:00.001+01:00

Arab Avatar is an interesting mix of the old and new. Actually in reality I did swim in a pool that overlooked the Pyramids. But having these major features of Islamic culture on a Beach is the most Second Life of things.

On the other hand a place like Kiz Kules seems only to be Turkish because the people they chat in Turkish and there are a few Turkish flags, though the wooden houses might pass for old nice places in Istanbul

Portugal Center is one of the best executes SIMs I have ever seen, it really feels like a down town of a small city and it would be niece to see it at a crowded time.

Gopi Desert is popular with Koreans, one thing to note about Second Life is that different culture may use virtual space in different ways. For many Latin Americans I notice beaches and clubs are popular, while Koreans and Japanese like more complex RP environments. Germans I have noticed often execute very realistic and excellent look sims.

These are all off the cuff generalisations but I doubt any long term resident of Second Life would disagree that SIM take on a lot of baggage from the cultures that make them.