From where do people get feelings of divine? The divine connection to their particular deity. There are two viewpoints. One is that fully religious persons can actual feel the presence of their god in their daily lives. They receive a quiet ecstasy for staying true, following tenets, and believing in their deity. Their gods give them a feeling of serene that carries them over the rough waters of the day.
The other viewpoint is that there is no god and that feelings of divine are just confused misappropriations of human feelings. These human feelings have a particular purpose in our human biology and the religious have applied their meanings to a particularly non-divine occurrence.
Personally, I believe in god, though a rather non-involved god, a deism god. I see god in the beauty of the world, its scientific nature and in the fine line that so many things were created. Seeing god for me is reading how a beautiful and complex fractal can be expressed in a simple one line equation. I don't, however, believe that humans are the center of the Universe and it was all created for us. To me it seems like a lot of creating to do for one little race, but I digress from the topic at hand.
One question that could be asked is if it could be possible for the human body to generate these feelings? If there is no wellspring for it to come from then it must be divine. If the glove doesn't fit, then you must acquit. However, I see there are many explanations for these feelings. People can achieve transcendent calm through meditation, through a well developed orgasm, high amounts of exercise - the "runners high", or any other paths to achieve that sense of high well-being. Chemically its also easy to find the markers of those feelings. Those chemicals that coarse through our bodies to help regulate our actions. So we have no shortage of scientific explanations.
However, for those that believe in an active god, does it matter if there are scientific explanations? Cannot god reach through the rules of the universe and tweak the bowstrings of peaceful pleasure to give religious ecstasy? Surely for the faithful this is possible, because that's all you really need is faith. This brings up a different question all together. Can you really debate religious concepts using science because cannot all answers be 'faith'? Maybe this is a fruitless discussion because those of the faith will always have that to fall back on as their answer, for everything.
Either way, my believe, based on my scientific understanding of the human body is that religious ecstasy springs from those very same chemicals that aid us in meditation, spear us in orgasm and propel us through exercise. We are human animals who's behavior is coded into our bodies. Behaviors that can be used for any purpose.
Signed,
Ecstasy of Thought
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Bible in the Schools
There's an article in TIME magazine about why we should allow non-preachy Bible study in our schools. Their reasoning is that the Bible and Christianity are major forces in the world therefore we should study them. I believe that's not enough to warrant such a viewpoint. High school is about preparing those young adults for the future and giving them limited instruction just isn't enough. Its not that I'm opposed to learning about the Bible in a historical perspective, its just that given the short time of high school and the state of the world right now, I believe that giving a class based on the religious text of only one of the world's major religions is a mistake. We should be expanding minds in high school to give them a taste of the wide world so they can make their own decisions, not furthering our own beliefs.
There is also the issue that Bible study in our schools doesn't do justice to the millions of non-Christians in the country. Therefore, its better, if you're going to have a class about religious text then should learn about all the different texts, the ways they've been used for good and bad over the millennium, the ways in which people change them and the different viewpoints that people learn from them and use them. In this way, we can give our young minds the proper tools to make decisions for themselves.
Signed,
Open Minds
There is also the issue that Bible study in our schools doesn't do justice to the millions of non-Christians in the country. Therefore, its better, if you're going to have a class about religious text then should learn about all the different texts, the ways they've been used for good and bad over the millennium, the ways in which people change them and the different viewpoints that people learn from them and use them. In this way, we can give our young minds the proper tools to make decisions for themselves.
Signed,
Open Minds
Saturday, February 24, 2007
The Human Animal
Due to the nature of my work, that I must continually solve problems, I have developed my thinking so that I get to what is actual there and not what we perceive. Therefore, its hard for me to see we homo sapiens in any other way than as high order mammals, or really smart animals. I realize that this is controversial to some due to the conflict ion with most religions, but I find it hard to see it any other way. Through logic and observation I cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. So I'm left with the fact that humans are just highly evolved animals.
To some, a lack of divine origin means that we are ruthless cunning creatures without morals. They cannot imagine that ethical and moral systems can be developed without a deity showing us the way. My thinking is that morals and ethical systems are just higher functions of group dynamics. Homo sapiens cooperated because it was a way to gain an edge over the other animals. The more we cooperated the more we gained. Our entire economic system is based on a complex system of cooperating.
Our own bodies have evolved to enhance this cooperative nature. We get good feelings when we are helping others and improving society, even if the immediate feelings are less forgiving. A woman who helps build a Habitat for Humanity house gets just as much reward as the person who receives the house. I'm not saying that we are completely societal animals. There is a push and pull between individual gain and societal gain. Just look at a major crisis like Katrina. When people started to see that cooperation wasn't going to get them anywhere, then they were all for the individual, and this conflict lead to some losing their lives.
Signed,
The Universe (Part II)
To some, a lack of divine origin means that we are ruthless cunning creatures without morals. They cannot imagine that ethical and moral systems can be developed without a deity showing us the way. My thinking is that morals and ethical systems are just higher functions of group dynamics. Homo sapiens cooperated because it was a way to gain an edge over the other animals. The more we cooperated the more we gained. Our entire economic system is based on a complex system of cooperating.
Our own bodies have evolved to enhance this cooperative nature. We get good feelings when we are helping others and improving society, even if the immediate feelings are less forgiving. A woman who helps build a Habitat for Humanity house gets just as much reward as the person who receives the house. I'm not saying that we are completely societal animals. There is a push and pull between individual gain and societal gain. Just look at a major crisis like Katrina. When people started to see that cooperation wasn't going to get them anywhere, then they were all for the individual, and this conflict lead to some losing their lives.
Signed,
The Universe (Part II)
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Facing your death
My wife's grandfather passed away last week and though I did not know him that well, it was a instructive experience for me. With death there is always sadness, but there are other emotions as well. In this case, I saw in my wife's family the normal emotions, but also others I did not expect to see. As the eldest daughter, my wife's mother, read a history of his life's accomplishments I could tangibly feel a fierce sense of pride for a father that had accomplished much in his life.
James Lumpkins had been in the Army for twenty years, the reserves for another ten, had earned three bronze stars, started and sold a very successful business and had raised a large loving family. Its almost unfair of me to condense his life down to one or two sentences, but I'm just hitting the highlights here. He had lived in the windows of history, being one of the last to leave Saigon when it fell, had been one of the last to leave Cuba when Castro kicked the US out and had been apart of the early electronics technology development. While the funeral was sad and I certainly was affected by it, it was his very full life and his conscious realization of his death that interested me.
Here was a man who had probably done most everything he had wanted to do, was leaving behind a very full and healthy family, filled with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. He knew his death was coming as his body had been shutting down over the last few weeks. He had opportunity to talk to all of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and was allowed the time to set all his affairs in order. While the last few days of his death were painful for him, as his lungs shutting down created a drowning sensation for him, and his agony probably prevented any higher conscious thoughts except for the strong desire for the end, the weeks before that must have been an interesting time.
I wonder what it must have felt like to know you were dying and soon. That your last conscious days in this Universe were coming rapidly to a close. Death is something that we bright flames don't like to think about. It reminds us all to well of how fragile we are and that can be very unsettling. Its an understanding that first really hits the moment you have children and only gets worse as time marches on. Yet, how instructive would those last few weeks be, to ponder on the deepest questions that beset us in our lives.
However, I think that not all, or probably most, do not see it this way. For many, it is not at the end of a very full life - regrets, dreams and things undone yet remain. I can imagine that in those there is a certain fear of that unknown. A feeling like the bad child didn't clean the house while mom was at the store and instead spent its time throwing rocks at the bird feeder. I wonder if this is where the need for an involved and active god comes in, from that fear, but death through the eyes of the world's various religions is wide and varied and not so interesting to me.
If I had a full life like James Lumpkins, what would it feel like to know that the end was near. There are a few eternal unanswerable questions by us mortals - like what came before the Universe, or what happens after death. The first I don't think we'll ever know, but the second we might get a glimpse of on our way out. I don't pretend to know what happens after, I know its not a fiery cave with pitchforked red men, that's just way to campy, but to be on the doorstep to that unknown place would be a strange, and maybe awful, sensation. Yet, it could also be like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. The deep empty space might be both terrifying and awe inspiring.
I hope I don't have the opportunity to learn for a long time, I'm ecstatically happy with my life as it is now, but somewhere down that long and winding road, I hope that when the end comes, it comes with a certain peace that I think James Lumpkins had at his end. I hope I can pat my children, grand children and great grand children on the head and smile weakly at them. I hope I can spend those last few weeks remembering all those things that I had done with a feeling a pride. I hope that if there is some great accounting of my life at the end, that it'll have been said I lived life to the fullest that I could, and left it a better place, much like James Lumpkins.
Signed,
Death's Door
James Lumpkins had been in the Army for twenty years, the reserves for another ten, had earned three bronze stars, started and sold a very successful business and had raised a large loving family. Its almost unfair of me to condense his life down to one or two sentences, but I'm just hitting the highlights here. He had lived in the windows of history, being one of the last to leave Saigon when it fell, had been one of the last to leave Cuba when Castro kicked the US out and had been apart of the early electronics technology development. While the funeral was sad and I certainly was affected by it, it was his very full life and his conscious realization of his death that interested me.
Here was a man who had probably done most everything he had wanted to do, was leaving behind a very full and healthy family, filled with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. He knew his death was coming as his body had been shutting down over the last few weeks. He had opportunity to talk to all of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and was allowed the time to set all his affairs in order. While the last few days of his death were painful for him, as his lungs shutting down created a drowning sensation for him, and his agony probably prevented any higher conscious thoughts except for the strong desire for the end, the weeks before that must have been an interesting time.
I wonder what it must have felt like to know you were dying and soon. That your last conscious days in this Universe were coming rapidly to a close. Death is something that we bright flames don't like to think about. It reminds us all to well of how fragile we are and that can be very unsettling. Its an understanding that first really hits the moment you have children and only gets worse as time marches on. Yet, how instructive would those last few weeks be, to ponder on the deepest questions that beset us in our lives.
However, I think that not all, or probably most, do not see it this way. For many, it is not at the end of a very full life - regrets, dreams and things undone yet remain. I can imagine that in those there is a certain fear of that unknown. A feeling like the bad child didn't clean the house while mom was at the store and instead spent its time throwing rocks at the bird feeder. I wonder if this is where the need for an involved and active god comes in, from that fear, but death through the eyes of the world's various religions is wide and varied and not so interesting to me.
If I had a full life like James Lumpkins, what would it feel like to know that the end was near. There are a few eternal unanswerable questions by us mortals - like what came before the Universe, or what happens after death. The first I don't think we'll ever know, but the second we might get a glimpse of on our way out. I don't pretend to know what happens after, I know its not a fiery cave with pitchforked red men, that's just way to campy, but to be on the doorstep to that unknown place would be a strange, and maybe awful, sensation. Yet, it could also be like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. The deep empty space might be both terrifying and awe inspiring.
I hope I don't have the opportunity to learn for a long time, I'm ecstatically happy with my life as it is now, but somewhere down that long and winding road, I hope that when the end comes, it comes with a certain peace that I think James Lumpkins had at his end. I hope I can pat my children, grand children and great grand children on the head and smile weakly at them. I hope I can spend those last few weeks remembering all those things that I had done with a feeling a pride. I hope that if there is some great accounting of my life at the end, that it'll have been said I lived life to the fullest that I could, and left it a better place, much like James Lumpkins.
Signed,
Death's Door
Sunday, January 21, 2007
What's wrong with religion and how to fix it
There is an interesting statistic listed in the numbers section of a recent Time magazine - 85% of U.S. Roman Catholic dioceses that in a recent survey said they had learned church money had been embezzled in the past five years and 11% of those reported it was for 500,000 or more. Those of us that are students of history are not at all surprised by this statistic. Power corrupts absolutely and money is an absolute liquid form of power.
Yet money is not the only issue with religions. Religious power, that pious cocaine wielded by the highest members of each religion, appeals to those who wish to use power. Most religions are set up around the hierarchical system designed to funnel decisions to those at the top much like a business, but the philosophies of belief do not work well within such systems. Intellectual discourse needs freedom to maneuver and find its way to the truth. This is one reason that our education system uses tenure, so that our educators aren't tampered with by administrators or bureaucrats.
Religions at their core are a search for truth. We ask such questions as 'Why am I here?', 'What is my purpose?' and 'What should I do next?', and hope to get answers. To some in religion this search for truth is static and absolute. They hold the truth and expect others to come to them. Truth is a transit being, a shape in a dense fog, or slippery pig that slips from your grasp the harder you squeeze; however you want to see truth, its not easy to find. Truth is also not something that can be given or received, it must be found, shaped, sculpted or drawn out of the essence of our lives.
So my argument is this - that religions are corrupted by the very tools they wield, very ineptly, of influence and money, and are not actually set up to find the very things they should be finding. So what's next? If current religions are not able to facilitate the search for truth then what can we do to fix them? The easiest and least effective is just to say get the money out and reform the organization, but those would just be temporary solutions.
A different way might be to consider the very tools you would want on a search for truth and either find, use or make them. The first tool I would want is to be accessible to anyone regardless of location, economic status or any other polling statistic. The second tool I would want is a way to build consensus. We should not reach out to disagree or make bold statements, but make small incremental steps towards truth. Sometimes those small incremental steps come together to form one big Truth, but if not for the way we reach it, it cannot be seen.
If these tools seem familiar then the world is not so distant. These tools are the very innovations that are changing the world as we speak - the Internet and the wiki. While these tools are far from perfect and come with their own issues, they serve the search for truth much better than a hierarchical religion can serve. With these tools there are no leaders, no money or influence, only discussion, consensus and small steps towards Truth. Because it's the very act of seeking truth, of dirtying your hands in the potting soil of life, of being a participant rather than an observer, that brings one closer to the Truth. Truth is not an answer, it is a question, that must be asked every day of our lives.
Signed,
42
Yet money is not the only issue with religions. Religious power, that pious cocaine wielded by the highest members of each religion, appeals to those who wish to use power. Most religions are set up around the hierarchical system designed to funnel decisions to those at the top much like a business, but the philosophies of belief do not work well within such systems. Intellectual discourse needs freedom to maneuver and find its way to the truth. This is one reason that our education system uses tenure, so that our educators aren't tampered with by administrators or bureaucrats.
Religions at their core are a search for truth. We ask such questions as 'Why am I here?', 'What is my purpose?' and 'What should I do next?', and hope to get answers. To some in religion this search for truth is static and absolute. They hold the truth and expect others to come to them. Truth is a transit being, a shape in a dense fog, or slippery pig that slips from your grasp the harder you squeeze; however you want to see truth, its not easy to find. Truth is also not something that can be given or received, it must be found, shaped, sculpted or drawn out of the essence of our lives.
So my argument is this - that religions are corrupted by the very tools they wield, very ineptly, of influence and money, and are not actually set up to find the very things they should be finding. So what's next? If current religions are not able to facilitate the search for truth then what can we do to fix them? The easiest and least effective is just to say get the money out and reform the organization, but those would just be temporary solutions.
A different way might be to consider the very tools you would want on a search for truth and either find, use or make them. The first tool I would want is to be accessible to anyone regardless of location, economic status or any other polling statistic. The second tool I would want is a way to build consensus. We should not reach out to disagree or make bold statements, but make small incremental steps towards truth. Sometimes those small incremental steps come together to form one big Truth, but if not for the way we reach it, it cannot be seen.
If these tools seem familiar then the world is not so distant. These tools are the very innovations that are changing the world as we speak - the Internet and the wiki. While these tools are far from perfect and come with their own issues, they serve the search for truth much better than a hierarchical religion can serve. With these tools there are no leaders, no money or influence, only discussion, consensus and small steps towards Truth. Because it's the very act of seeking truth, of dirtying your hands in the potting soil of life, of being a participant rather than an observer, that brings one closer to the Truth. Truth is not an answer, it is a question, that must be asked every day of our lives.
Signed,
42
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Universe Around Us
One of the things I find most fascinating to think about is our purpose here in the Universe. My next few blog entries will be precisely about that subject. I cannot say that I will be able to cover the breadth and width of such thoughts, but I wanted to at least begin the investigation of the subject. My thoughts, which I will expose here, are to as much illuminate my own thinking for myself as for anyone else. Though at very least I would hope my children would some day read these words and learn something of me and of the Universe.
First and foremost, I cannot begin thinking about such subjects without laying down the framework. The framework of this thinking is that I cannot take from what is not there. Meaning, I must view reality in its starkest forms to understand it. Overlaying my own human weaknesses, needs, fears and wants will only cloud such investigations. I may at times stray from such starkness, but I will warn you so you know when I'm exposing my own humanness away from the piercing glare of reality.
The reality of the Universe is that its infinitely, compared to us humans anyway, wide, long and deep. We are but a mote speck on a grain of sand in a huge ocean. Strangely enough, this does not make me feel small at all, but my feelings are what is under investigation. The Universe is also ancient in a way that we cannot truly fathom. Billions of years can be summarized by a few neat little zeros trailing behind a concrete number, but they cannot express all that is contained. The Universe is also - moving. Moving in a direction that gives it both a beginning and an imagined end (though an end we cannot begin to understand). This moving is not necessarily a direction, but a progression. This progression is a central theme in my understanding of the Universe and our place in it.
Once, there was the Singularity. We don't understand how it came to be or what came before it. The nature of the Singularity wipes out any hint of information that preceded it, so for our understanding, the Singularity is the beginning of the Universe as we know it. From the Singularity the progression of the Universe begin. The Universe begin to cool and complexities started to happen. Remember at first, it was a homogeneous event and thing with nothing really to differentiate between one place and another, but as the Universe cooled, it began to create things within it like new atoms and gases.
As billions of years passed the Universe has gotten more complex. Galaxies formed in which solar systems, planets, nebulae, black holes, neutron stars, all of which form a higher order of the Universe expanded. What once was a Singular thing had become, in our human understanding, infinitely complex. This complexity isn't always pretty, nor is the progress. Sometimes whole systems are swallowed by black holes, or planets wiped out because they were too near a supernova. While it may seem complex and chaotic, the Universe is actually creating order out of what was once a homogeneous Singularity.
On our own planetary scale, we've seen the same progression. What was once a ball of rock and lava cooling in the cosmic winds of our solar system, has become a tangled messy green life filled planet we all call home. This increasing complexity is a design of the Universe and is something that will happen with or without us and for most of its history, has happened without us. This does not diminish our own place in the Universe, something that is hard for some people to accept, but I'll leave that for my next blog. This beginning was only to set the stage for this discussion.
Signed,
The Purpose of the Universe (Part I)
First and foremost, I cannot begin thinking about such subjects without laying down the framework. The framework of this thinking is that I cannot take from what is not there. Meaning, I must view reality in its starkest forms to understand it. Overlaying my own human weaknesses, needs, fears and wants will only cloud such investigations. I may at times stray from such starkness, but I will warn you so you know when I'm exposing my own humanness away from the piercing glare of reality.
The reality of the Universe is that its infinitely, compared to us humans anyway, wide, long and deep. We are but a mote speck on a grain of sand in a huge ocean. Strangely enough, this does not make me feel small at all, but my feelings are what is under investigation. The Universe is also ancient in a way that we cannot truly fathom. Billions of years can be summarized by a few neat little zeros trailing behind a concrete number, but they cannot express all that is contained. The Universe is also - moving. Moving in a direction that gives it both a beginning and an imagined end (though an end we cannot begin to understand). This moving is not necessarily a direction, but a progression. This progression is a central theme in my understanding of the Universe and our place in it.
Once, there was the Singularity. We don't understand how it came to be or what came before it. The nature of the Singularity wipes out any hint of information that preceded it, so for our understanding, the Singularity is the beginning of the Universe as we know it. From the Singularity the progression of the Universe begin. The Universe begin to cool and complexities started to happen. Remember at first, it was a homogeneous event and thing with nothing really to differentiate between one place and another, but as the Universe cooled, it began to create things within it like new atoms and gases.
As billions of years passed the Universe has gotten more complex. Galaxies formed in which solar systems, planets, nebulae, black holes, neutron stars, all of which form a higher order of the Universe expanded. What once was a Singular thing had become, in our human understanding, infinitely complex. This complexity isn't always pretty, nor is the progress. Sometimes whole systems are swallowed by black holes, or planets wiped out because they were too near a supernova. While it may seem complex and chaotic, the Universe is actually creating order out of what was once a homogeneous Singularity.
On our own planetary scale, we've seen the same progression. What was once a ball of rock and lava cooling in the cosmic winds of our solar system, has become a tangled messy green life filled planet we all call home. This increasing complexity is a design of the Universe and is something that will happen with or without us and for most of its history, has happened without us. This does not diminish our own place in the Universe, something that is hard for some people to accept, but I'll leave that for my next blog. This beginning was only to set the stage for this discussion.
Signed,
The Purpose of the Universe (Part I)
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Snow Crash
I title this blog as 'Snow Crash' because its about the fictional world in Snow Crash and how it will come to be reality. Now this isn't so far fetched as sci-fi is often a precursor to real world change. Most of the Internet and its issues were predicted by William Gibson in his novels. I read most of those in the early 90s when the Internet was just really taking off and it was strange how many things he had predicted correctly.
Back to the title book, Snow Crash, in which there is a 3D world created in the Internet that everyone uses as a location to do business, play or just do plain crazy stuff. This 3D world isn't far from the universes created by Second Life or World of Warcraft, though the former is patterned more from the Snow Crash world. Because the Linden currency can be traded to US dollars, its an extension of the real world, though the goods and services traded within are often strange and oft have to do with porn. Well, maybe that's not so different from the real world after all.
However, I think the Second Life world is not the only attempt out there. The guys at Google have also read the book Snow Crash and are trying to create the same thing with their Google Earth project. Personally, I think both of these attempts are interesting, but not quite there yet. Eventually there will be a convergence of technologies and ideas that will allow for a world like this to function as a Metaverse (term used in a few different sci-fi books to describe this virtual world).
First there has to be a world in which business can be conducted. Meetings should be more efficient here. Real world goods can be viewed, bought and sold (then shipped to your house in the real world). There would be service businesses to meet the needs of those in the Metaverse (there are some of these in Second Life and even in other games such as World of Warcraft).
Second, there should fun things to do in this world, beyond just a glorified visual chat room for sex. Virtual casinos, amusement parks, sporting events and other virtual games from the real world and maybe some that could never be done in the real world draw people to come to the Metaverse. Imagine suiting up on a virtual horse to ride joists at a medival tourney, or racing pods through canyons ala Star Wars.
Third, there has to be a minimum level of technologies to make this seamless and at least hyper real. Broadband will probably need another boost, though the base speeds are there, its just improving the efficiencies. Video cards and computers will need a few more jumps to handle the visuals at a price that everyone can afford.
The fourth is that the software and information needs to be stored on the Internet and scattered among individual users so its a robust system. So it pretty much has to be an open source software system. If one individual company stores the information, then that can create issues if it all falls apart. Diversifying the structure gives it robustness for both technological and legal reasons.
The last reason, and I'm not sure if this is a must, but its my gut feeling. Is that the display must go beyond just a screen. No matter how big you make the screen it still has that 'game' feeling. A true Metaverse would be immersive and give weight to its existence. My gut feeling comes from a game I played at a mall back in the early 90s. It was a virtual reality 3D game that required a headset to be put on. The graphics were super blocky and the colors very bland, but I was absolutely blown away by the feeling of realness that the headset gave me. When a teradatyl picked me up and dropped me from about 100 feet, my arms were flailing as if I truly were falling and hitting the ground was a jolt that no other game has ever given me since. It was quite an experience that left a lasting memory. Its that kind of experience that would allow entertainment beyond sex chats, would allow for real meetings and would create a weightiness to the Metaverse that would help people believe it was a real place.
Signed,
Hiro Protagonist
Back to the title book, Snow Crash, in which there is a 3D world created in the Internet that everyone uses as a location to do business, play or just do plain crazy stuff. This 3D world isn't far from the universes created by Second Life or World of Warcraft, though the former is patterned more from the Snow Crash world. Because the Linden currency can be traded to US dollars, its an extension of the real world, though the goods and services traded within are often strange and oft have to do with porn. Well, maybe that's not so different from the real world after all.
However, I think the Second Life world is not the only attempt out there. The guys at Google have also read the book Snow Crash and are trying to create the same thing with their Google Earth project. Personally, I think both of these attempts are interesting, but not quite there yet. Eventually there will be a convergence of technologies and ideas that will allow for a world like this to function as a Metaverse (term used in a few different sci-fi books to describe this virtual world).
First there has to be a world in which business can be conducted. Meetings should be more efficient here. Real world goods can be viewed, bought and sold (then shipped to your house in the real world). There would be service businesses to meet the needs of those in the Metaverse (there are some of these in Second Life and even in other games such as World of Warcraft).
Second, there should fun things to do in this world, beyond just a glorified visual chat room for sex. Virtual casinos, amusement parks, sporting events and other virtual games from the real world and maybe some that could never be done in the real world draw people to come to the Metaverse. Imagine suiting up on a virtual horse to ride joists at a medival tourney, or racing pods through canyons ala Star Wars.
Third, there has to be a minimum level of technologies to make this seamless and at least hyper real. Broadband will probably need another boost, though the base speeds are there, its just improving the efficiencies. Video cards and computers will need a few more jumps to handle the visuals at a price that everyone can afford.
The fourth is that the software and information needs to be stored on the Internet and scattered among individual users so its a robust system. So it pretty much has to be an open source software system. If one individual company stores the information, then that can create issues if it all falls apart. Diversifying the structure gives it robustness for both technological and legal reasons.
The last reason, and I'm not sure if this is a must, but its my gut feeling. Is that the display must go beyond just a screen. No matter how big you make the screen it still has that 'game' feeling. A true Metaverse would be immersive and give weight to its existence. My gut feeling comes from a game I played at a mall back in the early 90s. It was a virtual reality 3D game that required a headset to be put on. The graphics were super blocky and the colors very bland, but I was absolutely blown away by the feeling of realness that the headset gave me. When a teradatyl picked me up and dropped me from about 100 feet, my arms were flailing as if I truly were falling and hitting the ground was a jolt that no other game has ever given me since. It was quite an experience that left a lasting memory. Its that kind of experience that would allow entertainment beyond sex chats, would allow for real meetings and would create a weightiness to the Metaverse that would help people believe it was a real place.
Signed,
Hiro Protagonist
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