The philosophy of the metaverse
Melvin Chen
Abstract
Abstract How might we philosophize about the metaverse? It is traditionally held that the four main branches of philosophy are metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, and logic. In this article, I shall demonstrate how virtual walt-fictionalism, a particular version of virtual irrealism, is able to offer a straightforward, internally consistent, and powerful response about the metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology (ethics) of the metaverse. I will first characterize the metaverse in terms of a reality-virtuality (RV) continuum and distinguish between virtual realism and virtual irrealism, before elaborating on the explanatory power and potential of virtual walt-fictionalism relative to the metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology (ethics) of the metaverse.