The Internet of Feeling
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The world is becoming obsessed with ‘digital’ as many want to spend more time in the digital realm — some call the MetaVerse. Personally I can’t see why, as sentient beings the MetaVerse seems boring uneventful and dull. When one can swim in the sea, feel the cold, taste the salt hear the seagulls, feel the waves, or walk in a forrest, feel the breeze, smell the damp and resonate with your surroundings.
Big brands have convinced themselves they need a MetaVerse a glorified place for customers to shop, try things, use things virtually apparently, experiencing what exactly? You cannot examine the products quality, the material or features that indicate quality. The entire ‘experience’ is an optical scan from images that hit the retina leaving the cortex to render the brain, to deliver the experience, the physical reaction. Unlocking fun, excitement, emotions and certain arousals, but you still cannot FEEL what is going on.
SEEING is no longer believing! Today you have to be able to FEEL what is going on, every jump, jolt, force, punch, kick, bullet, rain, wind through our skins, our muscles and skeleton dealing into our deepest humanity. After all consciousness is the ability to experience being alive, using most or all of our senses. Otherwise it is a rendered simulation right?
The question that springs to mind — can we live, co-exist and experience both realms by flipping back and forth between the physical and digital. Or is it more complex or is it just that simple? You be the judge.
So why write this article? I’ve been at the forefront of technology for decades and my day job comprises of listening to pitches and trying the various ‘frontier technologies’ that have the potential to advance humanity, push civilisation to the next phase or indeed kill us all. But then I tried a full immersion membrane.
Opposing Forces
There are several opposing forces that limit what it’s like to be human or not. In the sense of biological entity as opposed to non-biological we’ll go into more later. The morally right and correct, the ethically concerned, the government rules and continued manipulation by the few who prey on our instincts, our pursuit of fun, entertainment and efforts to live a good life.
