Metaverse, Virtuality and Self-Image: Ethical Reflections on the Individual in the Virtual Society

A reflection on the projections of individuals on their virtual platforms, considering virtual reality, artificial intelligence, social networks, virtual worlds and the metaverse. Pondering the distortions of being and its multiple representations and personifications in the face of these, as well as a reflection on the truth value of these projections of people. Assessing their correlations with the person’s being itself, its distortions and how much these distortions affect the individual’s conception of themselves. In an ethical questioning of these environments and their implications for real life, in order to enter into a philosophical dilemma already observed since Plato’s cave, but reissued and updated today in the concept of the metaverse and its effective actions in people’s lives. Evaluating liquid modernity, which ironically solidifies itself as an even stronger reality every day, where people live more virtual lives than their real existences, creating an update of the paradigm of existence, of being in its concept and its representation virtual.

Keywords: Metaverse, Self-image, Ethics.