Welcome to the Metaverse: Reality 3.0?

What we do with a display today, we might one day do virtually in a 3D format, with the aid of virtual reality, augmented reality, functional avatars, and much more (some of it now only scarcely imaginable). The tech giants all agree on one thing: the Metaverse is coming! But what in (or out of) the world is it? Don your VR goggles and step out of your day-to-day reality into an alternative experience, in which “everything seems possible.” Will we be spending more and more time in the metaverse? 

Will important parts of our lives increasingly be conducted "there?"

What about science, education, medical care, business, play and leisure time, or even sexual experience? What are the possibilities and advantages? And what are the hurdles, the downsides, and the dangers? 

The metaverse concept is bursting with mind-blowing possibilities, and it gives rise to countless critical ideas and questions. We’ll tackle some of the most important.

On our agenda:

• The progression from hypertext to the Web to cyberspace to metaverse, and what it all means for science, universities, corporations, people, and culture.

• The metaverse as an embodied Internet, entered rather than simply stared at on a screen

• A digital, persistent, synchronous, and "live" interactive environment

• A fully functioning economy

• An adjacent possible reality being imagined and, perhaps, realized in the not-too-distant future?