What is Presence?
Heidegger on the Metaverse
Whatever you think of the metaverse, it’s coming. Mark Zuckerberg says “It’s the technology that delivers the clearest form of presence.” In the plain sense, I know what Zuckerberg means; but in the Heideggerian sense, it’s foolhardy to think that technology can “deliver presence.” On the contrary, technology offers a simulacrum of presence. It may make things more proximate to the senses, but it does not make us any wiser.
Heidegger writes, “All distances in time and space are shrinking. ... Yet the frantic abolition of all distances brings no nearness; for nearness does not consist in shortness of distance. What is least remote from us in point of distance, by virtue of its picture on film or its sound on radio, can remain far from us.”
This is not to say that technology or modern technology is bad. It’s not to say that we should remain in small villages and only travel by foot. It’s simply to say that the most important gaps—the existential ones—can’t be traversed by better tools. To the extent that we think of ourselves as more connected by virtue of tech, we are, in fact, less so.
Heideggerian skepticism at tech is not about saying tech leads to dystopia or that it needs to be regulated, or that, for example, we should budget “screen time.” All these conversations are what Heidegger would call “ontic”—they don’t grasp the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is our hubris in thinking we know what presence is; our hubris in thinking that we could generate more presence through greater innovation rather than through contemplation or “letting things be.”
Now, if you liked the above, please join my room in the metaverse, where we can discuss it further…:)
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