Metaverse things: context switching between realities
When am I? Where am I?
I had these questions when I stepped out of Singapore Changi Airport, visiting my home country after 2.5 years of living abroad. As I looked out the car window, sights, sounds and boy, the heat! They all felt so familiar, yet so foreign. I told a friend, “it was as if I’m a cat, and Singapore life was my past life — and here I am!” It is an odd feeling I still can’t put a finger to.
What’s this odd feeling?
I breezed through my first week, battling jet lag and following the family around on errands. Something feels odd. My brain couldn’t comprehend. My heart couldn’t either. I guess it’s something I can only immerse myself in and embrace the journey. Some times I felt like as I was in Singapore, I had my life (mainly in Sweden) on pause. This wasn’t true though, I’m still doing things in Singapore, reconnecting with loved ones, going about everyday things and working.
As I ponder over this unique feeling, it’s gotten me thinking quite a bit about alternate realities. I was chatting with Beverley and we got to talking about having parallel universes. As usual I extrapolated that to parallel dimensions and alternate realities, likening it to what I am feeling at the moment. It’s not a bad thing, this odd feeling. I just feel rather drained and it’s hard to comprehend what’s going on. Perhaps I’m just ‘context switching’ and adapting to being physically present in Singapore, acknowledging my “past life”.
Can we keep up with instantaneous context switching?
This begs the question then, of what happens when the world of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) kicks in fully and we find ourselves seamlessly weaving in and out of immersive experiences and alternate realities? Can we keep up with the instantaneous context switching? We talk about ultra reliable low latency connectivity (URLLC) and reduced or no latency in the promise of 5G and the future of connectivity. Devices, software, infrastructure are gradually keeping up with these requirements. But do we, humans, have what it takes in us to jump through realities like spaceships jump through wormholes?
What do time travel and cross-reality travel have in common?
Traveling across time zones is like traveling through time. I often tell folks I traveled through time while going halfway across the world. You land and you’re a day ahead, losing a few hours — you traveled to the future. You head back and suddenly you get to repeat the day all over again — you traveled to the past. And our bodies try to adapt, with light as our indicator, thus the phenomenon we know as jet lag. I was just wondering the other day, if it’s Monday where I’m at, and Sunday where the person I’m currently talking to is, are we in Monday or Sunday? When are we?
Going in and out of different realities that exist on a common plane of time could possibly bring about a lot of things to adapt to, instead of just light and weather. Be it a different social support system, different habits, social cues and social behaviors, it is quite a number of tasks to readjust to both physically and mentally. That requires quite a bit of context switching. So I guess what I’m wondering is, are we there yet? Are social support systems ready to catch those who might not be able to keep up with the many realities of the future? Are policies strong enough to withstand the extensiveness of interconnecting webs? Can we multitask with earth life (this life we’ve always known) with metaverse life?
Are we ready for the metaverse and another layer of “reality”?
I have faith in the connectivity, software and hardware pieces coming together to support this. It remains to be seen though, if we can keep up emotionally and if we can build “reality safety” quickly enough. After all, there are still a ton of Tinder swindlers and cyber scammers out there and you’d think it’d be easy enough to with today’s technology to protect victims and fight crime… I guess, we’ll see.
