Building our understanding of metaverse | By Nina Jane Patel | Capone | March 2022

We have a responsibility to shape a better future.

The evolution of the Internet (web 1.0 + web 2.0) has given us a sense of fear and hope. The problems that technology has solved and created are manifold, complex and dynamic. As the dawn of Web3.0 approaches – NFT, DAO, DeFi, Blockchain technology, VR/AR/XR and all that is the “metaverse” – the question is whether its evolution will continue to provide innovative solutions and whether Web 3.0 will provide solutions to some of the global challenges we face. ?

yNow, we have a chance to guide and shape the future.

I work at the intersection of arts, culture, mental health, psychology, and technology – because of this interdisciplinary experience, I am acutely aware that the field of virtual reality, which forms the basis of metaverses, uses terms “borrowed” from psychology, mind/body wellness, and mental health practices. terms such as:

eLifestyle, presence, immersion, multisensory integration, intersensitivity, proprioception, sense of ability, body awareness

‘Tech leaders’ in the metaverse talk about existence, immersion, agency, ownership, and integration, but I wonder if they know the original intent of those terms? The context of its use in virtual reality has now shifted to describe the technology’s capabilities to design and build synthetic and immersive virtual environments with increased and improved functionality and fidelity. Meanwhile, these virtual environments virtually encourage a sense of Abstraction, Decreased Presence, De-potency in our organic and biological word. In fact, physical practitioners, body-based mental health practitioners, and mind-body facilitators really know the original intent of these words –

metaverse is a representation possible worlds etc. possible With the goal of making them look and feel as real as possible.

All of the senses are involved in the development of the body schema, including the auditory, sensory, gustatory, visual, olfactory, motor, vestibular, and somatic striatums. Vision provides visual information about the shape of our bodies; The vestibular senses provide us with knowledge of the positional relationship of the body to the environment; While the bodily senses provide us with tactile and positional information about the body in space.

Phenomenological philosopher Drew Lieder noted how the body tends to become conscious Awareness Mainly in the event of illness, exhaustion, or difficulty performing a practical activity. In contrast, in our daily activities, we largely ignore our bodies. On the contrary, we are engaged and immersed in our various practical activities. On these occasions, we don’t have to consciously think about how to walk, run, reach, grab, or any other similar activities. Therefore, body awareness is proactive most of the time.

aWhat are the implications for our true physical awareness in metaphysics?

The organizing principle of a physical ‘scheme’ or ‘scheme’ is the focus of much of this research. The body schema is a well-established concept in psychological science that refers to the tacit knowledge of the relational position of one’s body and its parts in space and time. Body image is conceived as dynamic and relational, constantly being restructured by acquiring new skills and movements. Consciousness (conscious and unconscious) and body movement are postulated to allow functional distinctions between the nature of the physical body and the nature of our bodies in space. As such, the body schema provides the basis for meaningful human interaction in the environment.

What is historically new – not only creating new psychological risks but also presenting questions about the resulting ethical and legal complexity – is the incorporation of The conscious and unconscious mind of a physical human being in the digital metaverse.

Our organic bodies and brains have evolved under very specific conditions and over millions of years, and are now informationally intertwined and integrated into technical systems to represent possible realities. Increasingly, it is not only rooted culturally and socially, but is also shaped by a technological niche or “AI”, driven by independent dynamics and always new characteristics. This creates a complex reflection, feedback loop, or information flow in which the biological brain and AI influence each other in ways we are only just beginning to understand. It is these complex relationships that make it so important to think about metaverine ethics in a critical, factual, and transparent manner.

So what am I trying to say? In short – if we are to use the terms personification, presence, immersion, multisensory integration, internalization, proprioception, sense of agency and ownership, in the context of the metaverse and the technology that underpins it. We must use these terms in their comprehensive sense as they relate to the virtual and organic worlds to ensure that the entire context of relational human interaction is understood not only by humans, but also by the artificial intelligence that metaverse will build… .