Digital Virtuality and Autopoiesis: the transformation from world elements of literature and arts to metaverse

Abstract

ABSTRACT Currently, the metaverse points to the human “world” in the context of a “multiverse.” Historically, large-scale multiplayer online games, the iteratively developed internet, and virtual reality have constructed the metaverse from different dimensions, but none of them alone can be equated with the metaverse. Based on the arguments of predecessors, this paper proposes the “four worlds” paradigm, which implies a synchronic structure and diachronic development for the metaverse. One of the four elements of literature and art proposed by theorists such as M. H. Abrams (1912–2015) and James J. Y. Liu (1926–1986) is the universe; after encountering the metaverse, this universal element has been rewritten, forming the “metaversal elements” of literature and art. Digital space enables the virtual potential of the “metaversal elements” to be fully released in the form of information, and potential information about reality is extracted to constitute a self-sustaining digital system.