This blog is my sandbox for the first expression of ideas that I am developing for the larger work I am doing on virtual reality and the metaverse. So while I try to wait until the thoughts are fully cooked, sometimes I will go ahead and post ideas knowing that I will change my mind later. I hope someone may comment, disagree, or agree. Any engagement will help me.
The title of this post comes from the 1950s and can mostly be attributed to John Searle from Berkeley although I recall some said similar things earlier. He published a book titled Construction of Social Reality where he explains the concept. To oversimplify, the argument is that the dominant form of our reality is from the signs and symbols what flow about, not the atoms and photons. In modern life even something like money is not physical but a social construct that depends upon our continued belief in it. The idea is hard to swallow at first but with some study you can see that it is true. Let’s take a simple idea he discusses from his speech-act theory discussion.
A fact can be created by a spoken utterance. Take a lawsuit as an example. Fact in a courtroom is not some Platonic ideal but what a jury or judge decides. Hearings of fact conclude with a decision as to the facts in the case before the trial moves ahead. For a criminal case the conclusion is the guilt of the accused. She may be found either guilty or not guilty. Once the sentence is pronounced by the right person at the right time in the right way, that is the fact and cannot be changed without another procedure. The fact of the matter is what is pronounced.
This is very interesting to consider in the current political climate. Currently Donald Trump claims that we won the 2020 presidential election. But in the political process the winner of the election is decided at the completion of a pre-established process. That process allows for its own challenges in court. Yet despite no court victory Trump and many of his supporters believe he won. What is truth?
In many cases, truth is what people believe. Trump apparently believes he won. Many of his supporters believe he won. One classical definition says justified true belief is sufficient for knowledge. That is his truth. In this case the very foundations of the democratic process is attacked to support that belief since his justification for that belief differ from the results of the process. This shows how maleable social reality is.
Our modern sensibilities were formed by idealistic notions of absolute truth. In science I can claim gravity is just a theory and does not exist. Yet every experiement I conduct based on the theory of gravity will agree with the theory. Unless and until we can demonstrate a deviation we either accept the current theory that gravity is the reality or we propose an alternative. Popper proposed A theory or hypothesis is falsifiable (or refutable) if it can be logically contradicted by an empirical test. While the theory has been extended, it has not yet been refuted by any such demonstration. Gravity is real.
But how does one show that a guilty verdict is false? It requires a new trial and unless or until such a trial is performed, the social fact is that the verdict remains. The accused is either in prison or free until it is changed. Social reality is different from physical reality yet it is just as real for us on a day to day basis. Gravity exists whether I believe it or not. But a guilty verdict creates a fact just as effectively as gravity causes things to fall. Unlike gravity the guilty verdict can be reversed while gravity cannot.
To consider a virtual reality requires a consideration of what will be in that reality. Unlike the reality we are thrust into when we are born, this one is constructed. That construction includes the most essential elements of a reality such as existence, space, time, gravity and many other things that we find in our physical reality. Those who design and construct it must make decisions about these matters even before the appearance of objects in that reality can be considered.
Some philosophers have given careful thought to our contemporary reality. One in particular is Jean Baudrillard. He points out how we are very quick to accept the symbol of a thing for the real thing. He likes to point to the recreation of the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas or the Disneyland Main Street as examples. After a few generations some people do not even know this are imitations of real objects. The symbol becomes the reality. With enough time, objects in a popular virtual reality will become as real as the imitation Eiffel Tower to some. The sign loses its referent yet continues on in the reality. He develops his ideas from there but that is the start.
Virtual reality may be the most complete social reality we will ever create. And in this sense of the word I do not mean the virtual reality we perceive wearing a head mounted display. That virtual reality can grow to permeate our physical reality as the objects in it stand in for the real world. With enough sensors and actuators changes in the virtual world can have real world consequences. Seeing into that world will be done through many different channels including phones. It is ultimately a cyberworld that can perceived in a number of different ways. The rendering of that cyber realm is for the humans who want to inhabit it.
Since human belief is influenced by media, a universal virtual reality (the most utopian of the ideas for the metaverse) may be a return to the post war period when few television channels and magazines existed, allowing the society to become unified in beliefs and attitudes. Since any metaverse will almost by necessity be built and likely controlled by a small collection of very large corporations (or government) if someone like a Trump can suppress alternative opinion in that reality, we can have an Orwellian dystopia. I am not the first to see this. But if someone like a Zuckerberg or Xi Jinping creates a virtual reality that is compelling enough, I hope you can see how this would happen.
The metaverse will be the social reality we allow to be constructed. I hope we exert enough influence to prevent the dystopia. But I don’t see how it will be a utopia either. It will just be a new facet to our reality.
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