WTF is a Metaverse - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2022

hello everyone yeah um just gonna by means of a quick introduction um thank you very much already the MC for doing so uh but yeah I'm I'm Bobby Cochran I am a co-founder of chain Guardians uh chenbus and cryptoverse so three projects all interconnected via nfts uh and uh one governance token uh but all having their own kind of individual um you know Theses another on individual business models but mainly today I didn't want to necessarily talk too much about um the projects directly because that would probably buy you all to death and maybe me to death as well the best thing to do is if you want to learn more about us is to come check us out we have a funky little move with some cool anime characters just out there to the left um I have to confess I got up to about 75 of the way through this presentation and what I realized is I didn't know what the hell I was trying to say um but it were too close in the day to basically change it so you'll have to bear with me uh so I thought it's probably useful to actually you know present a slide which talks about the purpose of what I'm actually presenting here so first of all I wanted to basically divide Define with you all in the audience uh what the f is a metaverse uh it's actually a title that I have to admit I've stolen from our chief marketing officer we do a podcast called uh you know making a metaverse and the first topic is uh WTF is a metaverse and then I wanted to look really smart in front of you all and talk about philosophical philosophical thought and apply that to the metaverse uh it kind of links to my background and I think it's really prominent when we think about what our metaverse is and where it comes from and then uh finally I wanted to link it to the product that we are building as we are making a metaverse which is called cryptoverse so that's the purpose of this presentation I hope you come bear with me through it all and I hope that you engage and that you actually kind of put your hands up when I ask you to because if you don't I don't know what I'm gonna do so first of all um as a having a history as an English teacher that's my uh previous life I always like to start with the words themselves um so if we look at the word meta and where that comes from uh it actually comes from the the word Beyond um I've there's a fairly technical uh more in-depth uh analysis here of the etymology of the word meta but I won't come into we're thinking about Beyond here for meta and then we will connect to the kind of suffix of the word metaverse it actually comes from well a you know the fictional Universe in which the series fireflies were Set uh Firefly was set but we won't get too much into that the one that we're interested in is the clipping of the word universe so together we kind of get this idea of something beyond the universe if you Google or metaverse is uh it will tell you that in futurism and science fiction the metaverse is a hypothetical iteration of an internet as a single Universal and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality and augmented reality headsets in clock we'll use a meta versus a network of 3D virtual worlds for focus on social connection um absolute massive mouthful right um I I kind of like to summarize it as basically an alternate universe that exists on the internet right um but the word metaverse has been absolutely a kind of um just abused in mainstream media to the point now where most people don't really have a clue what people what what is meant when the word metaverse is used so I'm going to try and uh Define that with you all in the audience um I don't expect any of you to necessarily like know factually or have a like because you know there is no right or wrong answer as to what on actual metaverse is but I have really strong opinions like I do about everything so I'm hoping that you will kind of like um what's the word like you know just just work with me and and humor me a little bit so just by way of showing you of hands if you would be so kind I would just like you to basically put your hand up if you think uh the image that you see on screen is a metaverse so decentraland uh some of you may know it some of you may not um if you think it is a metaverse would you put up your hand okay a few and if you think it is not a matter of a support behind okay interesting one person standing out there okay um yeah well decentral and I would argue is a metaverse um it is enables people to have a social connection and ownership of the world itself and it's underpinned by web3 technology Roblox hands up if you think it is a metaverse hands up if you think it is not a metaverse okay and and I guess this this just goes to show we're getting a real mixture here and it's understandable I would argue Roblox is not a metaverse because it's it's centrally owned it's owned by a single company um and they make all the decisions as to the World building that occurs uh for me a metaverse enables the users to be vital in the world building decisions which occur sandbox uh hands up if you think it is a metabus cool and hands up if you think is not a metaverse we all think sandbox is a metaverse I'd agree again I think the the characteristics of the metaverse virtual ownership uh you know basically digital land the users are creating the content are all really key characteristics that I would argue as part of a metaverse fortnite hands up if you think it is a metaverse Amazon people think is not a metaverse okay there's more people getting involved as well so thank you guys that's great it's really important um yeah absolutely I totally agree I would argue it's not a metaverse but yet the mainstream media uh would would have you probably believe otherwise they would classify fortnite as uh as a as a metaverse I would argue it is a centralized virtual on world owned by One Singular company right the users might be able to change their skins and have some impact but they have no ownership if fortnite or epic decides to just pull the game tomorrow best in peace everything goes with it crypto voxels uh one of the earlier ones a little bit more Niche um but some of you may have heard of it uh how does some people think this is a metaverse no one knows this one did they one person good man yeah I'd agree it this one again is a metabolous it's a similar principles as decentraland and a sandbox right virtual ownership of land uh you know provable kind of ownership of of nfts and so on second life hands up if you've heard of Second Life yeah quite a few people that's good okay tons of people think second life is a metaverse a few people okay yeah all right some people know so handsome people is not a metaverse okay cool again so 50 50 it just comes back to my point that I'm trying to make is that so so convoluted is the word metaverse that it's sometimes almost impossible to kind of argue one way or the other I'd say a second life is as close to a metaverse as can be without it being a metaverse in the sense that it has all of the different characteristics but the one key thing that is missing is that if um the developers decide to turn Second Life off that's it there's no other users there's no other owners of the world that can carry on with that the IP the world it goes with them closing it off cryptoverse and some people heard of cryptoverse yeah people from my company are which is good are for my company um cryptoverse is is the metaverse that we are focused on building um and essentially you want if you don't know it then you wouldn't know whether or not it is a metaverse uh the word the suffix verse might give you some Clues But ultimately it has what I would say are all the key characteristics of a metaverse virtual ownership of land it's got the ability to kind of have developers pick up from where another developer would leave off it's got nfts It's got provable ownership and all of those and it's got the representation of cell through an avatar gets a bit harder now uh I I'm assuming everybody's heard of Zoom if if you haven't I mean I don't know how the hell you've come to a crypto conference um but hands up if you think Zoom is a metaverse yeah you see you guys are learning really fast I like this I like this crowd already so hands on people is not a metaverse yeah cool but the interesting thing is I've had conversations uh on Zoom with people from relay like top 10 protocols and projects that would argue that Zoom is a metaverse are part of the metaverse because it has interaction of Self in digital form um and it's got arguably some characteristics of for me it's absolutely not World of Warcraft we all will heard of World of Warcraft if you haven't you're way too kind of culture does again to be in crypto you should have heard of World of Warcraft uh hands up if you think well the warcraft's a metaverse hands up if it is not oh all right awesome yeah so absolutely again totally agree it's got loads of characteristics of a metaverse but again it's that key thing that is centrally owned by a company called blizzard right and if they turn off the servers then everything goes with it tons of people recognize this image okay cool it's the Matrix right is the Matrix a metaverse and some people think it is and some people think it's not a couple of brave people put hands up for not I would say not and the main reason is is because um the the Matrix is owned by computer programs right it's it's a virtual simulation it's made by them people and if they shut the Matrix off everything goes with it right so it's a centralized proprietary platform rather than the metaverse so in summer many projects will say we're a metaverse they're not I'd say a [ __ ] right many companies will have characteristics but they won't necessarily be an actual metaverse as I would Define it um mainstream media has diluted the term metaverse so far that it can mystically mean anything and anyone that's connected on the internet I call this type of mainstream Media or journalism journalism uh that comes to my background in in basically learn about journalism if you're interested in journalism it's really you should you should definitely have a look at a guy called Nick Davis um it talks about how terms are just convoluted um so at all the metaverse is nothing new and this is what I'm kind of trying to come back to here is is that the metaverse has been on the tips of tongues of philosophers for a very long time all the way from ancient Greece all the way through a post-modernism um the Swanky new term metaverse doesn't necessarily mean it is anything new so going back to the words and the meanings if we look at philosophy and we dissect the actual word itself uh Phil comes in from the initial meaning of the word love and Sophie comes from wisdom that always the interconnection so we've got the love of wisdom right um in terms of you know whether or not we're talking about the metaverse and whether it is kind of a reality and implying that philosophical thought to it um we first start with maybe a philosopher called descar uh who basically questioned am I real um and he came up with the answer kogito which means I think therefore I am so really sort of intellectual way of saying because I think and I know I'm thinking I therefore must exist right pretty complex all the way through a Plato ancient Greek um if we're talking about and thinking about a metaverse as like a new thing it's not Plato uh came up with this concept of a metaborce for what he called the allegory of a cave and he presented this theory that imagine if you were born and all you could see was a projection of Shadows onto a wall by the time you came of age there would be nobody and nothing in the world that would be able to convince you that what you was looking at is not real Allah what he's talking about here is that on alternate reality or a metaverse this comes through a social semiotics and how he argues we interact with the world is that we create meaning through um essentially what it calls a signifier which is a an object and then what we can know or what we think about when we see that the object so we might see an apple which is the sign and we think about you know the red or the leaf or whatever and then the mental connotation to that is that it's it you know it's something fresh it's healthy and so on and so forth and therefore that's where we create our meaning this study of science is called semiotics this is where it gets more important and prominent to the metaverse is where we talk about he's a post-modernist a post-modernist philosopher really smart guy uh French dude uh actually pretty cool and basically the whole thesis of the Matrix from the machowski brothers was centered upon buddhoulade's theories around the hyper reality uh in his Works which was called Similac of and simulation another really Posh term he had argued that the hyper reality is a big problem uh for essentially uh developed worlds and you talk and the reason he argues is that is because that we are becoming so kind of immersed in different forms of reality aka the metaverse that were unable to distinguish the two so yeah I mean I guess why the hell have I just been talking to you all about philosopher for so long um it's you know a good question and and this is where I got to last time I was like why why am I trying to say this what I'm trying to get at is that the metaverse is presented as this really abstract thing uh it's presented in so many different ways it's like is this it's that it means this on that um but actually in reality it's nothing new it's just talking about new forms of reality what is new is that we finally have the technology to engage with the metaverse we're finally able to create realities where it conforms to what boudreal ad calls the hyper reality where we're actually going to be unable to differentiate the two and that's what's really exciting about a metaverse foreign and this is really where I kind of want to wrap up what I'm saying in the matter is that the the metaverse is essentially just built upon different social constructs and different ethical layers of cultural values and models all stemming from philosophy and the idea of if we think about how philosophical thought presents the metaverses that you really have a choice you can make it a Utopia or you can make it a dystopia being a good or bad and the beauty of the metaverse is that we are the ones that are able to decide the direction of the type of reality that we want to be in whether that be a positive or A negative experience and therefore you need to be wary of um charlatans that would describe themselves as metaverses when they're a centralized proprietary platform because they're the ones that control the rules just like the Architects doing the Matrix they're the ones that monetize how they want they're the ones that control your data they're the ones that are that are feeding you your data feed and your SEO algorithm and content right so coming back to the actual final point I wanted to get to is that as part of cryptoverse what we're building is we're building what your imagination is we're building tools which empowers you to create the world that you want to be in as your alternative reality as your metaverse um through presenting as many opportunities for social and gamification kind of uh experiences that you build and you're the vital voice in determining you know what are the ethics of this world what are the cultural values and we have the opportunity together to build a metaverse through the cryptoverse which is our product and we believe uh through your Collective imaginations so this is the end of my presentation I hope you've been able to follow to some extent and I hope you all come and check out uh cryptovers.vip thank you