We call it the internet of things [McKinsey Quarterly Article or according to IBM, a Smarter Planet ], but rather its about the creation of a virtual image of the planet as we know it. This isn't virtual worlds, or mirror worlds, but rather its Simulation and Simulacra, Baudrillard style.
In the beginning, there was Atoms, and then humans invented bits. These was only one basic thing which everything was made from, the Atom. But humans invented the mathematical notation of the bit, which we found a brilliant new way to store information. Humans always relied on some abstract symbols to communicate. Like language and the meaning that comes from strange squiggly strokes like the ones you're reading now. We realized we could digitize that, and soon enough, the internet appeared.
Today we have digitized 2 main things: (1) almost everything that can be represented symbolically, that's all the 'media' that we know today. Media in the traditional sense, symbollic languge, 2D images and video, 3D objects. (2) our relationships. we try to store information about customer relationships, and in real life digitize our communication through mobile phones and email.
we are trying to apply that approach to the real world, putting sensors in rivers...etc.
The real world of atoms now has a mirror in digital data. This mirror doesn't reflect everything, it simply reflects what humans and their organizations feel is useful.
A bottom line: There is a world of atoms, and a world of bits, they mirror each other, but through the lens of utility value.
More and more of what we base our world and our time on is the world of bits. I know i live in a world surrounded by virtual worlds and augmented reality technologies, and i shouldn't watch so much ghost in the shell and other Japanese animae that dwell on the line between real and unreal and the ambiguity in between.
I'm not losing my sense of reality (yet) but i have a strong sense that the idea of reality in the next 30 years is going to be vastly different from the past.
Imagine what a statement this is: "Our Idea of Reality is Changing"
Its actually a testable hypothesis.
(a) The objects that make our day to day existence more real
(b) The people that make our day to day existence more real
(c) The events that make our day to day existence more real
Track the changes over time and through age groups.
The question is of course: What is reality?
That which i can see and touch? Or that which reacts back to my presence and assures me that I exist. Or that which i can remember and know who i am and how i have existed.
We have always had the physical and the metaphysical. Now we add the digital.
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