Metaverse Roadmap

Through David Brin's weblog, I found out about the Metaverse Roadmap Overview, and by page five, realized that I wanted to record my reactions vis-a-vis Mu. So this is a play-by-page commentary.

p5:

Here we have a wonderful mandala that is similar to the Room with Four Views. I'm going to guess about what it means before I read on. External and Intimate have obvious relation to Extraverted and Introverted - and I'll suggest that they adopt the terminology.

• Intimate technologies are focused
inwardly, on the identity and
actions of the individual or object;
in the Metaverse context, this
means technologies where the user
(or semi-intelligent object) has
agency in the environment, either
through the use of an avatar/digital
profile or through direct appearance
as an actor in the system.

The first part of this quote is obviously Introversion. The second half, the Metaverse context, describes an Introverted control of the Extraverted environment. This is how one describes the personality types that are framed by the letters I and J (I __ J), or, with an Introverted Perceiving (Pi) function in the dominant position and and Extraverted Judgment (Je) function in the second auxiliary position (Pi/Je).

• External technologies are focused
outwardly, towards the world at
large; in the Metaverse context, this
means technologies that provide
information about and control of
the world around the user.

Can't get any more Jungian than that - information about is Pe and control of the world is Je.

Augmentation and Simulation require a bit of parsing to map it to the Jungian Functions. Sensing is the mental function that deals with tangible reality. iNtuition deals with ideas and patterns and what we commonly think of as imagination (there is sensing imagination, but it's not usually the popular connotation).

• Augmentation refers to
technologies that add new
capabilities to existing real
systems; in the Metaverse
context, this means technologies
that layer new control systems and
information onto our perception of
the physical environment.

• Simulation refers to technologies
that model reality (or parallel
realities), offering wholly new
environments; in the Metaverse
context, this means technologies
that provide simulated worlds as
the locus for interaction.

It seems like each description is trying to define two different mental functions simultaneously, and opposite ones at that. That presents an interesting puzzle.

Introverted Sensing (Si) is a map vs. the terrain. Extraverted Sensing (Se) is present and immediate (true Telepresence would fall under this category). Introverted iNtuition (Ni) is metaphor and meaning, while Extraverted Intuition (Ne) deals with patterns amongst entities and metadata.

At first, it seems that iNtuition maps to Augmentation (that which is not there) and that Simulation (that which is there) maps to Sensing. So immediately, it seems that Mirror Worlds are Se, Virtual Worlds are Si, Lifelogging is Ni and Augmented Reality is Ne. But I'm already guessing that's incorrect, because the Extraverted and Introverted poles don't match up with theirs. It would seem to me that Virtual Worlds are Ni, augmented reality is Ne and Lifelogging is Si. So the poles of S and N don't purely overlap with Simulation and Augmentation . Changing our perspective a little bit (rotating the S and N poles 45 degrees), the diagonal pole of Mirror Worlds/Lifelogging map better to Sensing, while the other diagonal of Augmented Reality/Virtual Worlds map nicely to iNtuition. Reading on, let's see if I am correct by looking at the actual descriptions:

Virtual Worlds (Intimate/Simulation) - Ni

Virtual worlds increasingly augment the economic and
social life of physical world communities. The
sharpness of many virtual and physical world
distinctions will be eroded going forward. In both
spaces, issues of identity, trust and reputation, social
roles, rules, and interaction remain at the forefront.

-Hmmm...not a very good description on their part about what VRs are, just what they'll mean. But guess what? That's frequently the nature of Ni descriptions - ubiquitously enigmatic.

Mirror Worlds (External/Simulation) - Se

Mirror worlds are informationally-enhanced virtual
models or “reflections” of the physical world. Their
construction involves sophisticated virtual mapping,
modeling, and annotation tools, geospatial and other
sensors, and location-aware and other lifelogging
(history recording) technologies.

-Basically, an attempt at recreating the actual universe. While lifelogging is on the Si end of the pole, the usage of it is important here - to basically re-present reality as it happened, bring history to life, or Se-ness.

Augmented Reality (External/Augmentation) - Ne

In augmented reality, Metaverse technologies enhance
the external physical world for the individual, through
the use of location-aware systems and interfaces that
process and layer networked information on top of our
everyday perception of the world.

-Enhancing the external world ...on top of perception is exactly how Ne works - starting with the object and seeing patterns about and around the object.

Lifelogging (Intimate/Augmentation) - Si

In lifelogging, augmentation technologies record and
report the intimate states and life histories of objects
and users, in support of object- and self-memory,
observation, communication, and behavior modeling.
Object Lifelogs (“spimes,” "blogjects," etc.) maintain a
narrative of use, environment and condition for
physical objects. User Lifelogs, ("life-caching,"
“documented lives,” etc.) allow people to make similar
recordings of their own lives. Object lifelogs overlap
with the AR scenario, and both rely on AR information
networks and ubiquitous sensors.

-Only Jung could have described Introverted Sensing better.

The comment about overlap with AR information is interesting, because AR information is Ne, which is the polar opposite of Si. And gives us our first clue to the nature of Augmentation and Simulation.

Here we have what Jung called the Transcendent Function -the unification of the opposites into an emergent function. What this tells me that is that technology is perhaps the way for us to artificially achieve what is fleeting and difficult in 'normal' psychology - Transcendence. So Augmentation is the unification of Ne and Si, while Simulation is the unification of Ni and Se.

Let's map a Jungian mandala to their map:

I'm going to end the post at this point in order to break this up a bit, and to allow us to go further into each Type of world in depth in later posts.