The Spatial Web

by Gabriel René

  But what exactly do we mean by the word “reality”?

  The Evolution of Reality

  What if Humans are not Homo sapiens aka the “wise man,” a term first coined by the father of modern taxonomy Carl Linnaeus in 1758? What if our “wisdom” or “smarts” is a means, not an end? Although we are intrinsically connected to our biological ancestry including Homo erectus (“upright man”) and Homo habilis (“handy man” or “tool user”) as extensions of our bodies, we are not defined by our past alone. It is the result of what we and our tools make that truly defines our species in the modern era . Perhaps it would be more accurate to describe humanity as Homo realitas —“the species that makes and remakes its own Reality.”

  That is the real purpose and function of our tools and technologies. To extend our bodies, senses, brains, and imaginations into the world. To make our ideas shareable in order to work together to improve them so that we can make our reality and hence our lives, easier, more useful, safer, and more enjoyable.

  “We shape our tools and thereafter, our tools shape us.”

  J.M. Culkin, on Marshall McLuhan, Saturday Review, 1967

  Consider that ALL technologies are extended technologies. They are designed to transform reality, and in the process, they transform us as well. It is no wonder that many today refer to the combination of our “reality” technologies—Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual Reality—as “XR” or extended reality. In evolutionary science, this relationship of animal-tool-environment is referred to as phenotypic expression. It is a co-evolutionary process. We humans create tools to extend our private reality to become a part of a public reality.

  The human mind has an utterly amazing skill not found in any other species on earth. We refer to it as the “mind’s eye.” We can use it to run advanced and complex 3D spatial simulations in our mind. Unfortunately, we have not developed telepathy and cannot share these simulations with each other... yet. We must instead translate these multi-dimensional internal models of the world into simpler mediums and protocols such as spoken language, text, or drawings in order to share them. Consider that most of what we want to share together is lost in translation.

  Let’s describe this unique skill of creating 3D models and simulations in our mind’s eye as our ability to create a “personal virtual reality” or Personal VR. In order to share with others what we are experiencing inside ourselves, we have developed a series of protocols to communicate it. But in order to share, we must reduce and degrade our native spatial understanding of the world. In the process of sharing, our Personal VR loses fidelity, nuance, and context that simply cannot be captured effectively in other mediums.

  Language was the first major protocol used for communicating our Personal VR to others. Caves and wall art served as our first ceremonial Public AR theatre, doubling nicely as long-term public data storage for the memories of the whole tribe.

  In each Age since, we’ve used our Personal VR simulators to dream up new and better ways to improve our lives and the lives of others—we’ve made our reality easier, more useful, safer, and more enjoyable. We’ve used our tools to alter or augment our reality. Everything that we’ve ever designed, built, and invented—architecture, products, machines, music, art—is really just Public AR. Our creations translate our Personal VR into a Public AR which becomes a feedback loop that triggers new Private VR simulations that once adapted become new Public AR creations. And this feedback loop becomes an engine of personal and cultural evolution.

  “Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.”

  Joseph Campbell

  Our various languages and mediums, whether grounded in atoms or flowing through bits, have evolved to increasingly improve our ability to communicate our internal Private VR and convert it to shareable Public AR. What began with sounds and gestures and cave paintings will advance to sounds and gestures and generative immersive digital experiences (modern cave paintings).

  The Spatial Web, with the help of advanced Artificial Intelligence, may one day lead to the emergence of a universal 3D digital language. This new visual and sensorimotor language would not be bound to verbal or written words or 2D symbols and shapes. It would emerge as the ideal global, cross-cultural language to better resolve together, our inner and outer worlds. Like telepathy, it could allow us to share more immediately and effectively what we are feeling inside and seeing in our mind’s eye. Then we can finally say, “I see what you mean,” and it will be accurate, fulfilling one of our deepest desires, which is to communicate and share ourselves with each other, without the fear of miscommunication, in the most intuitive and natural way. This powerful, evolutionary shift in language and understanding could also enable us to explore new territory beyond mere communication—into realms of real-time co-creation of realities that we can play in and inhabit together.

  Humanity is a Reality Engine

  The tools and technologies that we invented in the Agricultural, Industrial, and Information Ages extended our hands and feet, then other muscles, then our senses, and finally our brains. The key technologies in the Spatial Web stack represent a continuation of the theme of extension of our embodied abilities into the world, just as it has always been.

  XR = Input/Output Senses

  IoT = Body/Muscles/Cells/ Senses

  AI = Brain/Mind

  Blockchain/Edge = Memory Storage/Sensory Neurons

  Each of these exponential technologies is powerful in its own right. Each alone is capable of transforming our world and our reality in unprecedented ways. But the applications and implications of the convergence of these exponential technologies over the next few decades—especially with the inclusion of Biotech, Nano, and Quantum technologies—presents an opportunity far too important for our global society to ignore. Although we have used our tools to create an amazing world, filled with global communication, commerce, and content sharing, if we are being honest, we know that we have also used them to drive ourselves and the inhabitants of this planet to the very brink of survival.

  But there is hope because we are the species that makes and remakes its own reality, with the most powerful tools in the history of our species. These tools can make reality easier, more useful, safer, and more enjoyable, not just for a small tribe, city-state, or nation, but for the world. With these tools, we can build a Smart World. If we can imagine it in our Private VR, we can create it as a shared Public AR.

  The Spatial Web gives us the ultimate medium we need today to project the best ideas that we can envision in our Private VR using our tools (AI and Machines) to collectively share, revise, and manage globally our collective Public AR aka the World. It turns out this is what we do best—Humanity is a Reality Engine . The question before us now is this…

  With all of the immense power of the convergence of exponential technologies, what kind of Reality will we choose to create?

  “We shall not cease from exploration,

  and the end of all our exploring

  will be to arrive where we started

  and know the place for the first time.”

  T. S. Eliot

  THE END