Are You In Your Own Little World? (On Subjectivism #1)

Do you live in your own personal metaverse?  The blockchain council describes the metaverse as “an expansive virtual world made up of persistent, 3D worlds rendered in real-time.”  

It’s a virtual space you can create to be almost whatever you want.  In late two thousand twenty-one, Facebook changed its name to Meta because it views the metaverse as the future of the internet where we’re empowered to create worlds that fit our personal desires.  This is the third iteration of the internet.  

Star Trek’s holodeck or some kind of Matrix is resolving into view everyday.

But we’ve always wanted to mold the world to fit our desires.  Don’t we try to everyday?  Eight Billion people with separate universes each with its own laws and demands.

C.S. Lewis wrote an essay called, “The Poison of Subjectivism.”  Subjectivism is the idea that knowledge, truth, or morality are based on subjective experience—on our inner life, inner impulses, desires, and ideas rather than on any objective facts or standards.

What is true or right—or even beautiful is a matter of personal opinion, based on how we feel—or whatever we happen to whimsically believe this afternoon.  Life is only and all about my subjective viewpoint.  There is no objective reality to which we have to conform.

Lewis calls this view—poison. 

It has to be.  If 8 billion people lived this out to its logical conclusion, it can’t end well.

Consider this:  If we all live in our own matrix and demand that anyone who crosses our path conform to the laws of each little world—laws based on our own subjective demands, won’t we all descend into chaos?  

I mean, we can’t keep everyone out—and our subjective demands aren’t going to magically align with each other.  How could they?  At best, we’ll always be quarreling over how we’re to comply with each persons subjective demands.  Or—God forbid— we’ll fall into a never ending cycle of blood-feuds.

Really.  It’s fair to ask, “Why does a Subjective Impulse in You, place an Objective Duty on Me?” 

We cannot all be little gods.  Right?

There must be a better way.