The Etymology of the Term Metaverse – Metaverseplanet.net

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A possible motive for Stephenson’s use of the “meta” prefix might stem from its twin connotations: a longtime which means from historic occasions and a extra lately rooted significance inside pc science tradition.

In Historic Greek, the prefix “meta” conveys “after” and “past.” As an illustration, “metaphysics” suggests ideas past the bodily sciences. The “metatarsal” bones in your foot denote the bones between the toes (phalanges) and the higher portion of your foot composed of tarsal bones. “Metamorphosis” refers back to the transformation past the present kind into one thing new.

Launched by David Hilbert in 1920, “metamathematics” focuses on the research of arithmetic utilizing mathematical instruments. The technological connotation of “meta” first emerged with the appearance of “Lisp programming.”

Lisp, outlined in 1958 and second oldest to Fortran, is taken into account an appropriate language for synthetic intelligence programming partly on account of its capabilities for “metaprogramming,” corresponding to a program’s skill to change itself throughout execution. Subsequently, pc keyboards designed for Lisp programmers started to incorporate a “meta key,” additional embedding the time period inside the technological area.

A decade after the invention of Lisp, John Lilly utilized the idea of metaprogramming to people in his guide “Programming and Metaprogramming within the Human Biocomputer,” an idea as soon as dubbed by the psychedelic icon of the Sixties, Timothy Leary, as “one of many three most vital concepts of the twentieth century.” The core thesis of this guide is predicated on the notion that the environment constantly “packages” us, supported by Lilly’s LSD experiments which he believed might permit us to change our personal programming.

In 1979, Douglas Hofstadter printed “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Everlasting Golden Braid,” taking part in a big position in perpetuating using the meta prefix inside geek tradition. On this guide, the meta prefix denotes self-reference. For instance, a meta-wish is a want about needs (corresponding to wishing for 100 extra needs). This has change into the caught which means in standard tradition: once we speak about one thing being meta, it’s as a result of it’s self-referentially speaking about itself.

Meta-game (a sport concerning the sport)

Meta-learning (studying about studying)

Meta-cognition (eager about pondering)

Meta-data (knowledge about knowledge)

Meta tags in HTML code of internet pages (details about the knowledge content material of the online web page)

Thus, the metaverse will also be thought of as a “universe about (digital) universe.”

Stephenson should have conceptualized the metaverse as a mixture of issues: certainly, his metaverse was about having a universe past ours. It’s doubtless that Stephenson was influenced by the entrenched place of “meta” inside geek tradition (constructing upon its self-referential facet) with out essentially specializing in it. Nevertheless, since Stephenson first used the time period metaverse within the early ’90s, the literal which means of metaverse has advanced. The metaverse now embodies each facets of its which means; self-reference (meta) and possessing one other aircraft of actuality.

In brief, the metaverse is a mixture of the prefix “meta,” which means past, and “universe.” On this context, the time period interprets to “past universe” or “universe past” in English. Though it doesn’t convey the very same which means, “digital universe” might be used interchangeably with metaverse.