M-Theories

Both sides of the matrix

I am almost ready to get back to my readings.

I have been thinking about how the topics that interest me are all Ms of some kind or the other: the Matrix of Metaverses, Money and Metropolises most recently, but also Math, Mind, Metaphysics, Meditation and Morals.

Every M in this list can occupy us for several lifetimes, but it’s rare that we see how they’re entangled. In the matrix, we are told that the digital world is false and war rages in the real world outside. But it’s the digital that captivates us, like a bullet passing us by in slow motion. In contrast, the real world is there, but it’s not present.

In the real real world, the Matrix isn’t neatly partitioned between war on the outside and the Brave New World inside, for the inside and the outside of the real real Matrix are entangled - to take just one example, cities are both digital and physical entities, with the digital creating uniform experiences across the globe (Zoom is the new McDonalds) but of course, you step outside your home office and you have to deal with traffic on the street. That’s why it’s important to talk about the Metaverse, Cities, Climate Change and Crypto as a tangled web.

But how?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that it’s only in trying to answer it will anything like a solution present itself, or what I call ‘writing for reading,’ i.e., it’s through the act of writing will a method of reading texts on VR or Metaphysics present itself.

I will get started with that web next week.