Avatar and the Exodus to the Metaverse

So, the Oscars are this weekend and whatever the outcome, there is little doubt about who won at the box office. James Cameron’s epic Avatar is smashing all kinds of attendance records and is on the path to becoming the highest grossing film of all time—by any measurement—while charting a new way of filmmaking.

Both the film’s technology and its tale—including environmental and racial implications—have prompted animated conversation. But Avatar also gives popular expression to a subtler and yet more vexing set of issues that increasingly confront us as a people: how and when do I become my avatar? What are boundaries between the “real world” and the virtual world? What are the ground rules for honesty, transparency and interactivity? When does what happens “virtually” become more authentic than what occurs in our day-to-day existence?

I had been one of those who assumed that visits to virtual worlds like Second Life were simply flights of fancy, but in a fascinating discussion recently at Intersections among experts in the virtual world, as we explored the idea of bringing our Veteran-Civilian Dialogue into the cyber universe, I was introduced to a whole new way of looking at “virtual reality.” I had not even connected the dots in this phrase: virtual means “almost the same as” (I am virtually finished, means I am almost there!) and so, it is not something altogether different from our current existence, but something almost like our day-to-day existence.

I also learned the term “metaverse.” According to Wikepedia, the metaverse is a fictional virtual world, described in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a three-dimensional space that uses the metaphor of the real world. The word metaverse contains the prefix "meta" (meaning "beyond") and "universe." Doug Thompson, CEO of Remedy Communications, who was present at our meeting, prefers metaverse to other cyber-terms because it “includes virtual worlds, mirror worlds (think Google earth), life logging (think Flickr) and augmented reality.”

And I learned of the sociological term for the trend in our culture today as more and more of us are engaged in an “exodus to the metaverse.” This exodus, populated by avatars, is a phenomenon that will only increase as technology allows us deeper sensory immersion into other “worlds,” and the lure of the journey becomes ever more enticing. At our meeting, Thompson made the point that when creating an avatar (which is Sanskrit for “the essence of the divine” and represents your presence in the metaverse) you never leave yourself totally behind. The avatar you create is an expression of part of who you are. So, even in the process of creating avatars, we confront important psycho-spiritual questions of identity.

All this has unprecedented social, psychological, theological and relational implications, both for us as individuals and for organizations committed to enhancing the common good. What are the ground rules for honesty and for human interaction? What is real and what is illusory? My colleague Scott Thompson was in conversation in Second Life with a sufferer of MS who proclaimed to him that this was the first time in her life where, though her fully-able avatar, she could engage someone without first being judged because of her physical limitations. That comment, of course, says more about the collective “us” than it does about her. But, which interactions with her, then, become more real?

The implications for our Veteran-Civilian Dialogue Project are profound. In Second Life, traumatic brain injury and horrific disfigurement caused by war can be eclipsed by exchanges between young, strong, attractive avatars in the metaverse. Skills of engagement and confidence in one’s core strengths can be kindled in Second Life and transferred back into “first life.” Introverts can become part of the conversation; extroverts can seek solace in the silence of observation.

At Intersections, we are committed to exploring those hard places where boundaries shift, old paradigms collapse and new identities emerge. This may be the most significant intersection of all because it represents the convergence point between universes real and virtual, collapses time and space, and will increasingly become normative as a way of interacting.

So, whatever film wins the Oscar for best picture, Avatar is the proverbial canary in the coal mine, introducing many of us to the brave new world that lies ahead. It is a world with huge potential for good or for ill; it is a world that, in many ways, is already here, and we ignore these emerging technologies at our own peril. Unless we begin focusing on the ethical, psychological, relational and social implications that this film implies, rather than hide from them, sneer at them or make fun of them, we will find ourselves ill-equipped to deal with pressing moral dilemmas that will inevitably be thrust upon us.