Zhu Jiaming | Big Transformation, Big Design, Big Experiment: The Metaverse from the Perspective of Big History
This article is an excerpt from the recently published book “The Metaverse and the Digital Economy”, by Zhu Jiaming.
We make history through our own observations, not history.
—Steven Hawking
Since the 20th century, the concept of “era” has been prominent, and it has spanned far beyond: “Time” magazine, Times Square, “Keynes B-era”, “nuclear age”, and “Cold War era” until the advent of the “IT era” and “Internet age,” humans began a transformation from the industrial age to the information age and digital age, which meant the beginning of a brand new era. The information age and digital age have changed human ideological paradigms, scientific and technological models, and economic, political, and social lifestyles.
Unlike the transformation from one era to another that has occurred many times in history, humans can only be in a passive state, such as from the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age, or from the farming age to the industrial age. Now, from the transformation from the industrial age to the digital information age, humans already have the ability to participate, influence, and change. This transformation, which is currently underway, is the introduction of major designs and experiments by humans in order to achieve a more magnificent transformation.
“Metaverse and Digital Economy”
Author: Zhu Jia Ming
Published: June 2022
Publisher: Chinese Translation Press
The Great Transition: Characteristics, Causes, and Solutions
The Hungarian economist Karl Polanyi (1886—1964) was the proponent of the concept of “big transformation.” Polanyi published a book, “The Great Transformation,” in 1944. The subtitle of the book is “The Origins of the Politics and Economy of Our Time.” The core content of the book is to explain in the context of macroeconomic history how self-regulating markets disintegrate society and spontaneous social opposition movements, and ultimately lead to a market society. Today, nearly 80 years have passed, and humans need to think about the political and economic origins of the current era, and the structural and institutional reasons for this social transformation.
First, the basic characteristics of the Great Transformation. Major transformations are not a normal part of human society. If the characteristics of the Great Transformation are summarized, at least the following points are included: (1) The reason for the occurrence of the Great Transformation is not a single or simple one, but the result of a combination of multiple historical reasons. (2) The cycle of major transformation is a long cycle, spanning generations; in each long cycle, there are also short cycles guided by major historical events. For example, China in the 20th century experienced the Qing Empire and the Republic of China, the War of Resistance against Japan and the Liberation War, and a period of planned economy and reform and opening up after the founding of the People's Republic of China. (3) Major transformation processes include physical resonance and resonance, chemical synthesis, decomposition, and replacement reactions, and iterative processes. (4) Major transformations transcend geospatial limitations, and their transcendence has led to inevitable global impacts and changes. (5) The results of the major transformation are disruptive and are based on systematic restructuring on top of deconstruction.
If the above characteristics of major transformations are established, especially based on disruption, resonance, and restructuring as standards, there have been the following three major transformations in human history.
The first was the major transformation of the Axis Era c. The time is around the 5th century BC. The regions are ancient Greece, the ancient Jewish region, ancient India, and ancient China distributed at 30 degrees north latitude. This is a transformation of human civilization from static to dynamic, changing internal dynamics, laying the foundation for the future of human ideology and showing the broadest institutional arrangement for future society. The second was the Renaissance era's major transformation. The Renaissance occurred in the 14th to 17th century, peaked in the 16th century, and originated in Florence, Italy. The Renaissance ended the Middle Ages and pioneered modern society. The third was the major transformation of the industrial age that began with the Industrial Revolution. The period begins from the 18th century to the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. The Industrial Revolution began in England, completed in North America, and then spread to the rest of the world.
If you re-examine the major historical transformations that have already occurred, you will find that every new major transformation does not presuppose that the effects of the previous major transformation have disappeared; on the contrary, it includes the factors and influences of previous social patterns.
Second, the basic reason for the Great Transformation. (1) Sudden changes in climate and natural environment. For example, the cause of the worldwide “17th century crisis” was the advent of the Little Ice Age, the glorious revolution of England in the West, and the fall of China's Ming dynasty in the East. The current greenhouse effect has caused the disappearance of glaciers, rising sea levels, the northward shift of the climate zone, and climatic anomalies, which have had a profound impact on human society. Sudden changes in climate and nature are the most important drivers of the Great Transition. (2) Thought movement. Examples include the 18th century Enlightenment centered around England and France, followed by a furious movement in Germany. (3) The scale of innovation. Creative disruption, as described by Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950), breaks through the traditional economic and social framework will lead to a drastic evolution of economic activity and social organization. (4) Various social crises accumulate and accumulate over a long period of time, leading to fission and loss of control.
Third, the basic means for humans to handle major transformations. (1) Conceptual revolution. The conceptual revolution has always been the forerunner of the history of human transformation. Relativity and quantum mechanics born in the early 20th century began a revolution in scientific ideas and influenced the direction of scientific development throughout the 20th century. (2) Technological revolution. For example, the power revolution of electric motors replacing internal combustion engines, and the energy revolution represented by the development of nuclear power. (3) Social revolution. Examples include the French Revolution in the 18th century, Robert Owen (1771-1858)'s “New Harmonious Commune”, the Paris Commune, and various communist practices. Among them, social experiments based on “cybernetics” led by Chilean President Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (1908-1973) in the 1970s were of profound significance. (4) War. War is one of the quickest and most violent means of dealing with it. Examples include the two World Wars and the Cold War in the 20th century.
History has proven that past transformations were often accompanied by huge social shocks, conflicts, crises, and even wars, and human society paid the cost of life, wealth, and civilizational progress. The first sentence in Carl Polanyi's “The Great Transformation” is “Civilization in the 19th century has collapsed,” an assertion by a European born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire after experiencing two world wars and economic depression; another writer, Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), who was also born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, lamented the fall of European civilization in constant exile and described it as “yesterday's world.”
21st Century: Super Transformation Humans are entering the 21st century's supertransformation. The scale involves 8 billion people, is of unprecedented complexity, and there is a risk of triggering a total human crisis. As Ray Kurzweil (Ray Kurzweil) said, “Our future is not about experiencing evolution anymore, but about experiencing explosions.”
First, the specific context of the 21st century's supertransformation. (1) Changes in the ecological environment. The biggest threat comes from the greenhouse effect. This is not a false proposition; it is not alarmist. Glaciers around the world are melting at an accelerated pace. In March 2022, abnormal warming occurred at the North and South Poles. e The Earth's climate change problem is probably serious enough to support how long humans will survive on this planet. (2) Population expansion. During a period of great transformation in history, the entire human race was only a few tens of millions, hundreds of millions, 2 billion to more than 3 billion people. Now it has reached 8 billion people, and 10 billion in the future. The Earth probably won't be able to bear the weight of 10 billion people. (3) The global economy is huge. Earth's resources are insufficient to support the current medium- to high-speed growth of the world economy. (4) Omnidirectional division. These include economic and social divisions, from ideology to the division of various civilizations, and the deepening gap between rich and poor. If you use geological language to describe it, the various plates that support the operation of contemporary society present severe collisions, or even fractures and fractures. (5) Changes in people themselves. The genetic revolution, the reality and potential effects of gene editing. Also, the impact of COVID-19 on humans this time has not been fully revealed, and more evidence is yet to be provided by samples and time.
Second, the characteristics of the 21st century's super transformation. It has its roots in the 20th century and has the following manifestations. (1) Scientific leadership. Scientific breakthroughs preceded other parts of the Great Transformation, such as the advent of information theory, cybernetics, and systems theory. (2) Technology leadership. Beginning with the invention of the “Turing Machine” in 1936, the superposition effects of the computer revolution and the Internet revolution formed the core driving force for major transformation, beginning an irreversible digital transformation. (3) Globality. It affects, affects, and transforms all fields of human society, from ideology and culture to the economy, politics, and international relations. (4) Globalization. It has taken almost every country and region of the world at different levels of development by storm. (5) Starization. Humans have gone into interplanetary exploration, from the launch of the first satellite in 1957, the first human landing on the moon in 1969, the first space shuttle in 1981, to the James Webb Space Telescope launched in 2021. f The interstellar revolution and interstellarization became the most notable variables in this transformation. Elon Musk (1971—) is an advocate and practitioner of interstellarism.
Third, the 21st century's mega-transformation and the normalization of crises are highly overlapping. Major transformations in history have all been set in the context and influencing factors of various crises. It can even be said that the crisis is a key variable in the Great Transformation. However, the world has never been the same — major transformations and crises have coincided so much. Crises are now normalized and becoming more frequent. The concept of “crisis” is already indispensable in people's conversation; otherwise, it is not enough to express awareness and understanding of things, such as the energy crisis, financial crisis, unemployment crisis, virus crisis, and geopolitical crisis. From the IT and NASDAQ crises in 2000, the “9/11” terrorist crisis in 2001, to the 2008 global financial crisis, and refugee crises caused by turmoil and wars in different regions, the scale of the crisis is getting bigger and more complicated, and it is getting closer to everyone's life.
Fourth, face the difficult choice of the 21st century's super transformation. The current huge transformation and complex crisis is no longer a simple Newtonian mechanical state, but a dynamic multi-dimensional state. The coordinate system during the Great Transformation process is constantly changing, and people don't even know where the real coordinate system is in this world. More seriously, technology is rapidly approaching the “point of singularity.” It is already very difficult to just describe such a supertransformation; how to quantify and model it will challenge human intelligence and technical means. Therefore, it is necessary to break through traditional ideas, theories, and models. For example, the complexity of information structures, the rise of online games, and the widespread application of machine learning have made the idea and approach of “game theory” obsolete.
Fifth, two selection models for a super big transformation. The massive transformation, on the one hand, is accelerating the formation of increasingly integrated technology and an increasingly quantified society; on the other hand, all-round crises are still accumulating. If left unchecked, humanity will face disorder, division, and collapse. As a result, humans developed two models of choice. The first is Musk's interplanetary immigration model, or “interstellar capitalism model.” The core idea of this model is based on the irreversibility of the intensification of the Earth and human crises to enable the migration of a small number of humans to extraterrestrial planets. It relies on a combination of capital, technology, and companies. The second type is the metaverse (metaverse) model, that is, constructing a virtual reality world through decentralized, self-organizing and distributed cooperation, realizing various experiments to save the human crisis and the Earth, and ultimately reconstructing a new world where reality and virtual complement each other.
The metaverse is a vehicle for big designs and big experiments
The huge transformation we are facing now is a system engineering that brings together ideas, technology, and wealth that has never been seen before in human history. It is like building a pyramid for the 21st century.
First, a huge transformation requires big design. Stephen Hawking (1942—2018), in his book “The Big Design” after “A Brief History of Time,” quotes a quote from Albert Einstein (1879—1955) in the introduction to chapter 5, which is very philosophical: “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is understandable.” Humans need to understand this huge transformation and start the big design that Hawking mentioned. This big design requires a combination of human wisdom in mathematics, physics, technology, and engineering, as well as achievements in all fields of art. Thinking about supertransformation now, and thinking about the metaverse, requires the ability to think in multi-dimensional universes and spaces. Topology theory and M-theory are extremely inspiring. Among g, M theory “is the only candidate for the complete theory of the universe” and “is the unified theory that Einstein wanted to find.”
Second, big designs require big experiments. Up to now, all kinds of transformative experiments by humans have used humans themselves as test subjects and Earth as test sites. Today, this model is no longer sustainable. Because humans can no longer bear the costs and consequences of trial and error, the Earth has never been as vulnerable as it is today. Problems that cannot be solved by humans in the real world need to be tested in a new world. The metaverse is a place, carrier, and platform for this kind of super testing. In other words, the metaverse is a laboratory of super transformation and big design, which can be achieved with mature technical support: (1) Combining metaphysical, metaphysical, and supergenerational experiments. (2) Tests on the macro world and the microworld where all existing scientific and technological equipment is insufficient, as well as tests of historical and physical world hypotheses. (3) Cosmogenic gene-editing tests and silicon-based life tests, as well as tests on traditional carbon-based human coexistence models with various digital and virtual humans. In the future “population structure” of the metaverse, the number of people in the form of virtual reality will have a significant advantage. (4) Tests simulating various destructive disasters on Earth. (5) A test of Noah's Ark in the future to the interstellar world. In short, humans have never had such opportunities and possibilities before, and can use virtual reality in the metaverse to complete necessary and urgent tests that humans can imagine.
Third, the social significance of the metaverse experiment. Based on metaverse-based experiments, the combination of Internet 3.0, blockchain 3.0, artificial intelligence 3.0, and industry 4.0 can not only give humans an opportunity to think, observe, and reap new experiences, but also promote interaction and transplantation between the real world and the virtual reality world. The advent of an era of digital liberation, digital freedom, and digital justice has given everyone, including those known as the “useless class of the digital age,” access to opportunity and dignity. Furthermore, metaverse experiments will also establish a common ethical and value system for humans and artificial intelligence organisms. Humans will eventually surpass current anthropocentrism and accelerate the historical process of post-human society.
epilogue
Hawking said, “But maybe the real miracle is that logical abstraction has led to a single theory that predicts and describes the vast universe we see in all its amazing forms. If this theory were confirmed by observations, it would be the successful end of an intellectual quest over the past 3,000 years. We can say we found that big design.”
Humanity is at this great moment: big transformation, big design, big experiments. The metaverse appeared just in time (just in time), and the function of the metaverse is to include everything (all in) and create a new model of sustainable growth. These are all the charms of the metaverse. “Yuan Henry Zhen” in “I Ching” touches on the true meaning of the metaverse. It can summarize spring, summer, autumn, and winter, southeast, northwest, up, down, left, and right, and the cycle of back and forth in the universe, which is endless. In the metaverse's “true origin” moment, we must call not only rationalism, science, and humanism, but also passion and romance that seems to have been around for a long time. Because science requires not only reason, but also romance and passion. The metaverse will inject new life into technological utopianism.
Zhu Jiaming in Beijing
April 2, 2022
“Metaverse and Digital Economy”
Author: Zhu Jia Ming
Published: June 2022
Publisher: Chinese Translation Press
Description of the content:
Humans are undergoing a major transformation in the 21st century. This is a system engineering that brings together ideas, technology, and wealth that has never been seen before in human history. Facing a huge transformation, humans need to break through traditional ideas, theories, and models to launch big designs and big experiments. The metaverse has sprung up from time to time to become the place, carrier, and platform for this large-scale historical experiment.
The metaverse-based big experiment will combine Web 3.0, blockchain 3.0, artificial intelligence 3.0, and Industry 4.0, give people opportunities to think, observe, and experience new types of experiences, promote interaction between the real world and the virtual reality world, accelerate the advent of the era of digital liberation, digital freedom, and digital justice, and give everyone a chance to show their potential.
This book covers the background of the birth of the metaverse, the technological support and economic logic of the metaverse, the interaction between the metaverse and the digital economy, and future industrial development prospects of the metaverse, such as the application of the metaverse to the education industry, the industrial industry, the robotics industry, and the fashion art industry. Furthermore, the author put forward a unique view on the institution-building of the metaverse, avoided new forms of monopoly and possible gaps between rich and poor, and put forward policy suggestions and risk tips on data security. The book also makes scientific predictions about the future of humanity and post-human society in the form of the metaverse.
Author profile:
Chu Ka Ming
Economist, currently Chairman of the Academic and Technical Committee of the Hengqin Digital Chain Digital Finance Research Institute. In the 1980s, he obtained a master's degree and doctorate degree in economics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management in 1995. He worked as an industrial development official at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and taught at universities such as the University of Vienna in Austria. Representative works include “A Brief Theory of the Structure of the National Economy”, “On Unbalanced Growth”, “From Freedom to Monopoly: Two Thousand Years of Chinese Currency”, and “The Future Determines the Present”.
