If you were walking in a park and picked up a rock, how would it feel in your hand? Perhaps it would be a little rough or gritty with dirt. What would it look like? Would it be grey and ordinary, or would it be colorful like those in the northern United States? What would you do with it? Toss it aside? Skip it across a pond before you continue on? “Now comes the million-dollar question,” says Tristan Bishop Pan. “What would you do if the rock in your hand wasn’t real but was instead something being projected to you by computers?”

That’s the metaverse, Tristan Bishop Pan explains, and the technology that our society is speeding towards is set to change everything about what we believe is real. “The metaverse is fundamentally about not being able to tell the difference between something that’s real and something that’s not there. Whatever it is – a rock, your dog, a pie – will look and feel like something that is there, but by our current definition, it will not be. However, by our new definition of what is real, it will be just as real as anything else.”

Much is being made of the way the metaverse will alter our perceptions of what is in front of us, but the changes will go deeper than that. “Yes, the metaverse will fundamentally change how each of us see reality,” Tristan Bishop Pan thinks, “but more importantly, it’s going to change relationships. It will be chaotic. It will hurt. It’s going to create so much pain and suffering, but out of that pain and suffering will come beauty. It will be a new iteration of mankind and of our understanding of each other.” 

Tristan Bishop Pan explains that the metaverse will cause suffering because anytime you create a new message of ideas and a new mixture of people, you’re going to have disagreements. 

“We’ve seen this happen plenty of times in the past. Look how well expansion across the world has gone. That’s always been done peacefully, right? Bull. There’s no reason to believe it will go any better with the metaverse. It’s going to create strife, and while that’s not okay, it is, in the end, evolution,” Tristan Bishop Pan believes. 

The metaverse, Tristan Bishop Pan continues, will be where the next wars will be fought. “I kid you not – we will have a digital war along the lines of the Matrix. That is going to be a thing. Mark my words, war is coming, but it will ultimately bring peace, progress, and evolution.” 

That’s down the line. For now, Tristan Bishop Pan wants people to understand that the metaverse is coming and that they should know everything they can about it. “The reason centers on the reality that everything is energy. Everything is data. That includes you, and the scariest thing about the metaverse is its ability to store data.”

Tristan Bishop Pan continues, “Remember that memory is data. You are basically a series of energy and data. Everything you’ve done, all the connections you’ve made – it’s all data, a node. Your synapses connect to each other and form pathways, which create memories.”

Tristan Bishop Pan poses this question: what if you could download your entire existence, everything that you’ve ever done from the day you were born until now? “What if all your memories could be downloaded by your choice? Then, when your body dies, will you cease to exist?” 

This, Tristan Bishop Pan says, is the metaverse. “It is infinite memory. There is no end to this idea because there is no end to data. It is just energy that will continue forever. Your learnings, your teachings – all of it can be stored on the metaverse for all time. You will never cease to exist, and other people will have access to your experiences and thoughts for eternity. Are you freaked out yet?”