metaverse

 This is one of those rare words which, having been coined once, is then coined again with a different meaning.  The first time round (in the 1970s) meta-verse meant ‘a network of universes’. The prefix had the sense of ‘beyond’ or ‘above’, the idea being that beyond this universe that we inhabit there are many universes. The meta-verse is the collection of all such universes.

 The second time metaverse was coined was in 1992 by a science fiction writer, Neal Stephensen, in a book called Snow Crash.  His Metaverse is the successor to the internet, a virtual reality world shared by all and inhabited by user-cotrolled avatars.  The most successful avatars are the ones that are the most sophisticated and that are given access to exclusive Metaverse clubs.

 This has been generalised to mean a world where reality is increasingly permeated by virtual reality, creating an environment where humans react  seamlessly in real and virtual ways, our real selves and our avatars walking side by side.