“What happens after we die” is an ancient question that humans have grappled with for thousands of years. Religions, philosophers, and thought leaders have come up with countless theories about the fate of every human being after their life on Earth ends. To date, no scientific, fact-based conclusions have provided satisfactory answers.
psychologists have understand The fear of death—or the perception of death—is a major driver of human action. Developments such as cloning or the creation of virtual worlds, once science fiction, have become reality.
Now, in the age of the metaverse, humans are the architects of the new digital world and the new digital life. In the field of Web3, Metaverse has attracted the attention of many external investors and attracted the entry of established companies.The Metaverse Realm will have Estimated value is $5 trillion 2030.
Many people believe that the virtual world will “reshape” the current structure of social life.
This new origin of digital life raises an age-old question: Would death be different if life were recreated in a digital reality? Specifically, what happens when we die in the metaverse as humans and avatars?
What happens when we die in digital space?
What happens to us after we die remains a mystery as to the final or next destination of the human soul. However, different cultures around the world have different rituals related to death, the human experience that determines what happens to the body after death.
As more and more people continue to digitize their identities, create avatars and hold digital assets in virtual worlds, what happens after death Reappear.
The advent of social media is one of the earliest instances of humans facing digital identities after death.
On Facebook, for example, a user’s profile would be “remembered” as “a place where friends and family gather and share memories after a person dies.” It also acts as a security feature to prevent any future login attempts.
Meta – Facebook’s parent company has Actively Pursue the Development of the Metaverse. The company founder Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) released a video explaining the Meta universe in October 2021.
Although the clip doesn’t explicitly mention death, users began to question death in the metaverse. Not long after, a dark meme went viral on social media that included a quote from Zuckerberg: “If you die in the virtual world, you die in the real world.”
– Niche Gamer (@nichegamer) October 29, 2021
However, as digital reality evolves, the founder and CEO of the Metaverse platform is toying with the idea of death.
Frank Wilder, co-founder of metaverse platform Wilder World, said that as we build holy places in the metaverse and create new avatar versions of ourselves, the concept of “death” is no longer limited to physical death:
“In this digital world, we have the ability to imagine new forms of existence after death, such as preserving one’s digital consciousness or creating virtual memorials.”
Respecting “the sanctity of life is a delicate discovery,” Wilder said, and that people will inherit many different ways of choosing how they want to respect their lives.
cemetery in the sky
For Mariana Cabugueira, chief architect and urban planner of Wiami, Wilder World’s first digital city, this “new dimension of reality” creates new ways to preserve heritage sites. .
Take, for example, the concept of a cemetery. In her view, the Metaverse Cemetery will feel less like a cemetery and more like a designated memorial space with capsules of memories and souls, created by owners to rest in digital space.
“These digital capsules show how we want to be remembered and celebrated, telling our stories and conveying the warmth of our souls.”
While our avatar doesn’t age, the memory behind it can replace the digital persona, and it’s worth ending and celebrating, Cabgueira said, noting that the “shell graveyard” memory package will be the place that ends life, ends our character — we’ve left existence—or a life in which we no longer exist. “
Memorial Stones for Remember, an ecosystem that allows users to mint mementos of important life events. Source: Remember.
In Wild World, Kabuguera envisions how these spaces will take shape. The memorial spaces will be tall “cathedral-like”, with symbols related to the sky and light, she said.
“Remembrance is no longer just about burial, but about celebrating the growth of life,” she said.
The Ethics of Digital Life After Death
Digital graveyards are only part of what will happen after digital death. A more pressing question is: what will happen to our data and digital assets?
According to Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, we are still in the early stages of discussions. He shared that people thinking about these things are more concerned with “how to transfer custody of assets to heirs than managing metaverse identities”. Xiao said:
“In the Metaverse, your digital personality can still have influence and influence even if it is no longer under your control. In fact, a digital personality can become more influential and valuable after its physical death.”
Marja Konttinen, director of marketing at the Decentraland Foundation, the founding organization of the Decentraland metaverse, said virtual worlds are often seen as “things of the future”; however, they can also be a powerful tool, like a window into the past.
Konttinen emphasized that digital twins that survive the user’s physical death could raise ethical questions similar to those surrounding artificial intelligence or deepfakes.
“This certainly opens up the possibility of creating a permanent virtual mausoleum of our memories and experiences, possibly in the form of NPCs (non-player characters) that look and talk like us and live forever in the metaverse.”
“Sarno Technology” and “Relic”
Death in a digital reality has melded emerging technology with older research fields surrounding death and grief.
Cole Imperi was an anatomist—an expert in death, departure, grief and loss, derived from the Greek word for death, “thanatos”—and founder of the American Seminary. She told reporters that there is a subfield in neurology called “thano technology” that focuses on the intersection of her field and technology.
Digital spaces, she says, can offer more ways to “seamlessly connect the dead with the living” in a way that physical spaces can’t:
“The digital afterlife presents more opportunities to keep in touch with our departed loved ones and, I believe, the best opportunity to make progress in the way we honor and remember your loved ones.”
In 2009, Imperi even coined the term “remains,” referring to what remains of people after they die in the digital world. Imperi helps run ThanaLab, which tracks “patterns of online memorialization and developments related to user deaths.”
Digital death of users is becoming more common, she said, and it was only natural to bring this aspect of our real lives into the digital space.
Do we have an answer?
The Metaverse has been around for a long time. American science fiction writer Neal Stephenson first coined the term Metaverse in 1992, predating even any foundation we have today.
That said, even now, as we have more tangible ideas about the Metaverse and its possibilities, it’s still in its infancy. This means that concepts important to humans that have a place in the physical world, such as death, are still taking shape in digital form.
Digital architects like Mariana Cabugueira are now reimagining the future of digital graveyards, and researchers like Cole Imperi are tracking the digital remains of human life online.
Maybe we still don’t know what happens after death; however, in the Metaverse, we’re getting closer to the answer.
- Yuga Labs Metaverse Otherside Launches “Secondary Journey” March 25th
- Crypto subreddit launches new MOON token pool on SushiSwap
board take
As reported by Cointelegraph
