Universe, metaverse, and innaverse
I have heard it said that there is a second universe, which Neil Stephenson has christened the "metaverse", being our online digital identities. But there is, I think, a third universe which I will call the innaverse - our private inner thoughts, our inner life, our imaginations. In the metaverse, you have your blog; in the innaverse, your private journal.
In fact there are 6 billion innaverses at present: 6 billion imaginations, 6 billion private thoughts, 6 billion consciousnesses. You are present in some of them; in most of them you do not exist. Some people long dead in the universe are currently alive in several innaverses, though only for a few seconds or minutes. People, ideas, and things are constantly appearing and disappearing from innaverses. Ideas do not exist in the physical universe; they exist only in the innaverse (and more recently, the metaverse).
Also, innaverses are disconnected. With a few controversial exceptions, the innaverse of one person is inaccesible to another. And as people are born and people die, their innaverses appear and disappear with them.
posted by Jonathan @ 4/22/2007 02:15:00 p.m.
2 comments
2 Comments:
Very interesting concept. And I agree mostly, but I would submit that peoples' inner thoughts are are shared and are connected to other peoples' lives to varying degrees. Rarely we see someone who has somehow chosen absolute alienation from all other people. Like Mr. Cho in Virginia.
At the other end of the spectrum would be people whose love for others connects them closely to other people, sometimes many different people. The possibilities are endless, I think.
Most people struggle in between, learning daily to integrate their inner thoughts to the outer world. Isn't it refreshing to have a friend about whom it can be said, "What you see is what you get."?
Heh - Interesting idea, openjoe, that innaverses are in fact connected!
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