1.  Introduction

As children, many of us imagined what it would be like to fly—not in an airplane, but in sneakers that could burst into flames and lift us into the sky. That fantasy is no longer confined to dreams or comic books: Nike recently unveiled concept footwear that visually simulates jet propulsion through augmented reality, turning childlike imagination into an interactive experience. This everyday scenario, once science fiction, is now becoming reality through the metaverse – an immersive digital environment combining social media, virtual/augmented reality, and pervasive computing. Tech visionaries hail the metaverse as a new world where physical distance, economic scarcity, and even the usual constraints on identity and creativity fall away. Users could work, socialize, create, and even live out alternative lives in a boundless virtual space. Enthusiasts suggest that life in the metaverse might liberate us from certain limitations inherent in the physical world and its technologies. Some have even speculated that the metaverse could free us from the mode of existence that modern technology imposes on humanity. In philosophical terms, might the metaverse be a portal beyond what Martin Heidegger termed Ge-stell, or enframing – the technological worldview that treats everything (including humans) as a resource to be optimized and controlled? This question guides the present study: Does the metaverse genuinely transcend Heideggerian enframing, or does it instead reproduce (or even intensify) that enframing under a new guise?

On the surface, the metaverse might even seem to fulfill Heidegger's hopeful adage that "where danger is, grows the saving power also." If enframing is the great danger that reduces both nature and humanity to resources, the metaverse's promise of user-created worlds and self-determined identities could appear as a saving power – a new way of revealing that liberates rather than limits [1]. Perhaps this digital frontier offers a more poetic or free relationship with technology, one where people are creators rather than resources. However, closer scrutiny raises doubts. Heidegger warned that technology's essence lies not in particular gadgets but in how it unveils the world and ourselves. The worry is that the metaverse, for all its novelty, might rest on the same foundations of data-driven control and commodification as current digital platforms. If so, it would carry forward the enframing tendency in another form. We ask whether the metaverse represents a break from this enframing mode of revealing – perhaps allowing a more authentic poiesis (bringing-forth) of a world – or whether it simply continues enframing by relocating the standing-reserve into virtual space.

To address this problem, we adopt Heidegger’s philosophy of technology as our analytic lens and supplement it with focused interdisciplinary evidence. We begin by clarifying enframing and how modern technology reshapes Dasein’s way of being [2]. A central section then asks directly: Is the metaverse the very kind of technology Heidegger critiques? We pursue this by comparing the metaverse’s architecture to paradigmatic cases (hammer vs. airplane) and by testing whether virtual environments can sustain worldhood and ready-to-hand tool use. Findings from VR studies and identity effects are marshalled only insofar as they bear on that question, and a brief psychoanalytic analysis illuminates why subjects may prefer a metaversal existence even when it reinforces enframing. Next, we consider targeted results from VR research—on presence and avatar-driven behavior change—to test whether subjectivity and worldhood can be preserved in virtual settings. This evidence is not an independent detour; it functions as a criterion for deciding whether the metaverse can instantiate ready-to-hand engagement and a lived web of concern, which in turn bears directly on whether it escapes, or merely re-packages, the kind of technology Heidegger criticizes. We introduce a brief psychoanalytic perspective to explain a key practical hinge in the argument: even if the metaverse structurally extends enframing, why do subjects prefer and remain within it? By analyzing desire as inherently unfulfilled and easily captured by engineered gratifications, psychoanalysis clarifies how intentionality can be redirected toward curated ends, thereby connecting subjective allure to the technological ordering at stake.

2.  Heidegger on technology and the alteration of Dasein's being

To ground the discussion, we must first understand why, for Heidegger, technology is not just a set of neutral tools but something that transforms the very mode of human existence. In "The Question Concerning Technology" (1954), Heidegger argues that each epoch has an underlying way in which truth (unconcealment) happens-a "mode of revealing"-and modern technology's essence is one such mode [1]. He terms this essence Ge-stell, usually translated as enframing. Enframing is not a particular machine or device; it is the orientation to the world implicit in our technological age. Specifically, enframing challenges reality: "The revealing that rules in modern technology is a challenging (Herausfordern), which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored" [1]. In other words, modern technology reveals things only insofar as they are useful, "challenging-forth" natural entities into a condition of standing-reserve- a stockpile of resources on call for any purpose.

Heidegger contrasts this with pre-modern techne or craft, which he says had a more gentle bringing-forth that let things appear in their own being (as in a hand-crafted chalice coming into presence) . Modern technology by contrast reduces beings to what they can do for us. A famous illustration is Heidegger's discussion of the Rhine River: in poetry (e.g. Hölderlin's) the Rhine could appear as a cultural treasure or sacred element, but once a hydroelectric plant is built, "the meaning of the river changes: it becomes an energy resource" [1]. The dam enframes the Rhine as a calculable flow of megawatts. Likewise, Heidegger mentions modern mechanized agriculture turning the land into a monitored yield, and even tourism turning landscapes into a sightseeing commodity. Crucially, nothing is exempt: "Modern technology's instrumental orientation to the world transforms the world into standing-reserve. We might say that for technology, nothing in the world is good in itself, but only 'good for' something" [1]. Even objects like an airplane lose any independent meaning-"The airplane, for example, has no meaning or value in and of itself; it is merely a means of transportation, and its value to humanity is completely tied to its being at humanity's disposal" . This totalizing utility-orientation is the hallmark of enframing.

Importantly, Heidegger extends this critique to humans themselves. If all things are viewed through the lens of utility, then humans too get treated as resources ("human resources" in telling modern jargon). As Heidegger observes, technology can "transform humanity itself into standing-reserve". He gives the example of a forester whose role and even self-conception are dictated by the lumber industry's demand for paper, which in turn is driven by the print industry, etc., until readers of newspapers are also integrated as a resource for the industry. In enframing, humans are not autonomous Dasein dwelling poetically; they are caught in a system that orders their lives. The ultimate danger, says Heidegger, is not the obvious physical risks of machines, but that this mode of revealing "challeng[es] forth" all beings (including humans) might foreclose other ways of existence. He writes: "The rule of Enframing threatens man with the possibility that it could be denied to him to enter into a more original revealing… The essence of technology, as a destining of revealing, is the danger” [1]. Put simply, if everything, including our own selves, is interpreted within a technical framework of efficiency and utility, we risk losing sight of other values and other ways of being - we risk losing what Heidegger calls a more primordial relationship with Being.

Thus, for Heidegger, technology deeply affects Dasein because Dasein (the being that we ourselves are) is essentially the one who relates to the world and discloses meaning [2]. When the clearing or world in which Dasein operates becomes dominated by enframing, Dasein's orientation - its "understanding of Being" - is skewed toward seeing the world (and itself) as a bundle of resources [2]. In Heidegger's phenomenology, Dasein is always being-in-the-world, engaged in projects and understanding things as something (as tools, as objects of concern, etc.) [2]. Modern technology, by imposing the enframing pattern, "reorders" the structure of this engagement. Our care and projects become framed in terms of optimization, control, and consumption. In a sense, technology rewrites the practices and significances that constitute our world. This is why technology is not just an external additive to life; it "changes the way Dasein exists" by changing the holistic context (world) in which Dasein makes meaning.

Heidegger is not a simplistic pessimist about technology, however. He suggests that the very extremity of enframing could provoke a shift – hence quoting the poet Hölderlin: "But where danger is, grows the saving power also" [3]. The "saving power" would be a new way of revealing that frees us from the grip of enframing. In The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger hints that authentic artistic creation or a return to poiesis might offer such an alternative mode of disclosure, allowing us to "bring forth" truths instead of only challenging-forth. This philosophical backdrop raises the stakes for evaluating the metaverse: if the metaverse is truly novel, perhaps it could be that "saving power"- a space where humans bring forth their own worlds, escaping the enframing of physical, economic, and even epistemic limitations. On the other hand, if the metaverse simply continues the enframing logic in digital form, it might represent the height of the danger Heidegger described (the point at which even imagination and sociality become standing-reserves). With this Heideggerian lens, we now turn to analyze what the metaverse is and whether it aligns with enframing or breaks away from it.

3.  The metaverse as a "world of tools"

Is the metaverse a technology of the sort Heidegger would critique, or does it represent something fundamentally different? We can approach this question by comparing the metaverse's use of tools and resources to Heidegger's examples. Consider first a simple tool like a hammer. In Heidegger's analysis, a craftsman's hammer is typically ready-to-hand: when skillfully used, it becomes an almost transparent extension of the user's intention (for instance, pounding a nail) rather than an object of conscious attention [2]. Now contrast this with a modern machine like an airplane. An airplane, as Heidegger noted, exemplifies how modern technology turns things into a standing-reserve. The airplane is essentially a resource for rapid transportation from any point to any other; its meaning lies not in any one specific journey but in its ongoing availability for arbitrary travel needs. It requires a vast infrastructure of fuel, engineering, and logistics – a prime case of challenging nature to yield energy and imposing human will on space. The hammer and the airplane thus illustrate two modes of encountering technology: the ready-to-hand engagement with a tool serving a particular task, versus the enframing of an apparatus that stores generic capacities (speed, power) for flexible use.

Where does the metaverse fall on this spectrum? The metaverse, by design, integrates countless tools and functions within a single digital environment. In a sense, it is a "tool of tools" – or even an entire world of tools – available to the user. For example, consider the act of traveling from one location to another. In the physical world, one might use an airplane for long distances, thereby participating in the whole standing-reserve system of fuel, airports, and air traffic control. But in a virtual world, a user can often teleport instantly from point A to point B. This teleportation is not a literal defiance of physics but a designed feature of the virtual environment. Crucially, it accomplishes the traveler's goal (arriving at a new place) without the trappings of physical transportation. In the metaverse, such an action can be as simple and immediate as walking through a doorway. In virtuality, what physical reality accomplishes through standing-reserve apparatuses can be re-engineered as directly ready-to-hand functions [4]. Teleportation is exemplary: instead of mobilizing the vast infrastructure that makes an airplane available "from anywhere to anywhere," the metaverse produces a transit tool whose operation is immediate, task-facing, and experientially transparent. The point is not that the interface "feels like part of the world," but that the metaverse generates tools in a ready-to-hand mode rather than presenting them as stockpiled capacities of a standing-reserve.

In other words, the metaverse has the potential to make many instruments immediately ready-to-hand. Whether one needs to build a structure, obtain an object, or communicate across distance, the functions needed to do so can be provided by the system at the click of a button or the wave of a virtual hand.

Thus, the metaverse radically differs from singular technologies like the airplane. The airplane extends human mobility but as we saw, it does so by collecting and mobilizing resources on a massive scale, thereby exemplifying enframing. The metaverse, by contrast, can simulate the outcomes of many different tools without the user ever confronting the underlying resource machinery. It presents itself as a malleable environment in which virtually any tool's function – flying, hammering, painting, publishing, and so on – can be realized through code. This apparent all-in-one flexibility means that within the virtual world, according to Heidegger, the ready-to-hand is a pre-reflective state of coping in which the subject uses a tool without thematizing it [2]. The metaverse can deliberately synthesize such states: teleport, "snap-build" constructors, or auto-scripting assistants recede during use and leave the user absorbed in the project—arriving, building, composing—rather than in the means. Because many such functions are composable, the metaverse operates as a tool-of-tools: a generative layer where higher-order instruments are assembled from lower-level primitives, yet each can be rendered phenomenologically invisible at the moment of action. This engineered invisibility explains the metaverse’s specialness: it centralizes tool-production while maintaining the user’s task-directed absorption [4]. In principle, the metaverse can restore something like the simplicity of pre-modern tool use on a vastly expanded scale. A builder can raise a structure by "snapping" beams into place without sourcing materials or coordinating supply chains; a musician can orchestrate a full ensemble by gesturing through a virtual studio that routes scores, timing, and effects without manual setup; a teacher can rearrange an entire classroom’s layout and artifacts mid-lesson without logistical overhead. In each case, the why—the project—remains foregrounded while the how—the instrumental background—recedes. Unlike the airplane, which exemplifies standing-reserve through stored, general-purpose capacity, these metaversal instruments are delivered as immediate, situation-bound readiness. The philosophical upshot is two-sided: experientially, such design can re-enable poietic bringing-forth; structurally, it risks concealing a deeper layer of enframing that powers this apparent ease.

However, before we conclude that the metaverse escapes Heidegger's critique, we must acknowledge an important caveat. What enables this effortless virtual experience is an extensive hidden infrastructure. The metaverse runs on servers, algorithms, networks, and energy sources that are very much products of modern technology's enframing. The instant teleportation or object creation in a virtual world is backed by computational processes that treat digital information as a resource to be processed and delivered on demand. In effect, the metaverse may conceal enframing behind a user-friendly façade: it gives the user the feeling of unencumbered, ready-to-hand engagement, precisely because behind the scenes it has converted every element of the experience into calculable data and modular functions. This means that at a structural level, the metaverse could be seen as the ultimate fulfillment of enframing – everything in it is designed, ordered, and on standby for use – even as it offers, at the experiential level, a potentially less "enframed" feel. To resolve whether the metaverse truly transcends enframing, therefore, we must look beyond just the availability of tools. We need to examine how human existence (Dasein) might inhabit this virtual realm. Can entering a digitally constituted world preserve the full range of Dasein's ways of being, or does it subtly channel us into a new, possibly more insidious, mode of standing-reserve? We turn now to the question of subjectivity and worldhood in the metaverse.

4.  Subjectivity and worldhood in the metaverse

Even if the metaverse lacks physical substance, it may still manifest worldhood – a structured context of meaning – if people engage with it as they do the real world. A world, in Heidegger’s sense, is not a pile of objects but a referential nexus of assignments and roles—a practical web in which entities show up as something for something within ongoing projects [2]. "Significance" here does not mean private sentiment; it names this shared, action-oriented structure of relevance. On this understanding, virtual tables, doors, and streets can genuinely participate in worldhood when they function within such a nexus of use, guidance, and concern [4].

Consider a digital table in a virtual conference room: from an external view it is merely an array of pixels or code (present-at-hand), but for immersed users it serves as a table (ready-to-hand), anchoring their meeting as they gather around it and place virtual documents on it. In that moment, the table's "being" is defined by its role in the participants' project, not by its physical makeup. This illustrates how virtual objects can become genuinely meaningful. Philosophers like David Chalmers even argue that a virtual cat or chair is a real cat or chair of a digital kind [5]. Heidegger would add that as long as such an entity figures in our understanding and use – for example, a virtual chair marking a place to sit in a virtual classroom – it is part of a referential totality and thus part of a world. To be sure, a virtual chair has a different mode of being than a wooden chair (it won't rot or weigh anything), and its network of relations is defined by software rules. Yet it can still "count" as a chair within a practice. In short, the metaverse can host a viable world of significance: not a random illusion, but an environment where things show up as meaningful in relation to human purposes (albeit under different ontological conditions than in physical reality).

Modern virtual reality research indicates that humans can project themselves convincingly into virtual environments, experiencing a strong sense of presence. A well-designed VR scenario often gives users the feeling of "being there" in the digital space, to the point that they may react to virtual events as if they were real (ducking when a virtual object flies at them, for example). Moreover, people invest their identity into their avatars. Studies have found that characteristics of one's avatar can influence one's behavior – a phenomenon known as the Proteus effect [6]. For instance, someone controlling an avatar that looks confident and tall may act more assertively, reflecting an unconscious adaptation to the avatar's persona. This suggests that individuals extend their Dasein into their virtual counterpart: they care about what happens to their avatar, form genuine social relationships online, and pursue goals in virtual settings much as they do in the physical world. In Heideggerian terms, the avatar becomes the standpoint of a new being-in-the-world [2]. The projects and concerns that define a person's existence can be carried into the metaverse. This continuity of intentionality – the fact that one's aims and cares persist in virtual form – implies that subjectivity is indeed transferable to a virtual realm.

However, living in the metaverse effectively means living in two worlds, and this dual existence can shift a person's priorities. One might initially balance virtual life and real life, much as people juggle different roles in the physical world, but if one realm proves far more gratifying, it can eclipse the other. The metaverse is engineered to be malleable and appealing in ways reality is not: your avatar can have an ideal appearance, environments can be tailored to your taste, and even natural laws (like gravity or movement) can be bent or broken at will. Such allure may lead individuals to prioritize their virtual existence. The stubborn limits of real life – an aging body, physical distance, daily inconveniences – begin to pale beside the adventures and conveniences of the digital realm. In time, a person may find that their care (in Heidegger's sense of concerned being) is more heavily invested in the avatar's world than in the tangible one, as the virtual self offers possibilities that the real self cannot easily attain.

The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan offers insight into why even an omnipotent virtual life might not satisfy [7]. In Lacan's theory, human desire is driven by an insatiable lack. When people have the freedom to create endless embellishments and fantasies, they often do so – yet no matter how extravagant the creation, it never quells the sense of incompleteness. The metaverse provides a perfect stage for this dynamic. One can craft an ideal avatar and live amid virtual luxuries, but this very freedom can lead to an unending pursuit of novel pleasures, since true fulfillment remains out of reach. The result is a cycle of jouissance – a kind of addictive enjoyment that never fully satisfies, prompting the user to seek ever more intense experiences [7]. In this light, the metaverse could become not a realm of contentment but a magnifier of restless desire, binding users more strongly to its endless offerings.

The metaphor of the Baroque wonderfully captures this situation of overwhelming, proliferating stimuli. Philosopher Gilles Deleuze, in The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, describes the Baroque aesthetic as one of "endlessly creating folds…fold upon fold, fold after fold…to infinity". In a Baroque painting or cathedral, every space is crammed with ornate detail, curving in on itself without resolution – a "suffocating infinity" of form. Likewise, in the digital arena, desire is engulfed by an endless folding of content. Social media timelines and YouTube rabbit-holes exhibit this baroque structure: there is always more, always another layer of detail or complexity to descend into, such that one can never see a clear end. Deleuze's remark that "the characteristic of the Baroque is the fold that goes on to infinity" resonates strongly with the infinite scroll of today's apps. Users describe feeling "drowned" in content, a paradoxical feeling of both fascination and suffocation – an "overload of desire" in a self-enclosed digital labyrinth. The environment itself becomes a closed loop of stimulation, much like a Baroque room with mirrors reflecting endlessly. This infinite enfolding of stimuli keeps desire in a state of permanent arousal without closure.

History suggests that people will embrace the metaverse's benefits even if it comes with significant risks. Social media provides an instructive precedent: despite revelations that platforms like Facebook misused personal data or manipulated users' news feeds, most users did not abandon those platforms, because the convenience and connection they offered were too valuable [8]. Similarly, if the metaverse delivers unprecedented immersion, social interaction, or entertainment, users will likely flock to it despite potential erosion of privacy or autonomy. Immediate rewards tend to outweigh abstract concerns. In short, from the standpoint of human behavior, the metaverse can successfully capture Dasein's engagement – people will willingly dwell in this virtual world and pour their subjectivity into it. The remaining question is what kind of revealing this world will offer: will it enable a more authentic mode of being, or will it merely subject its inhabitants to a new, subtler form of technological control? To explore this, we must examine how the metaverse is being constructed and governed by its architects.

5.  Enframing in the corporate metaverse: identity, data, and control

The foregoing analysis suggests that while the metaverse can provide a novel arena for human engagement, we must scrutinize the conditions under which that arena is being built. In practice, the leading vision of the metaverse today comes from large technology corporations – most prominently Meta (formerly Facebook) – whose business models rely on data collection and monetization. This raises a critical concern: does the corporate metaverse liberate us from enframing, or does it extend enframing into even more intimate corners of our lives? The evidence points to the latter. Consider how identity is formulated in Meta's metaverse concept. Rather than allowing users to be completely anonymous or to invent whimsical personae unlinked to reality, the push is toward integrated digital identities. A user's avatar is likely to be generated or authenticated via existing profiles (for instance, one's Facebook account, complete with its trove of personal information and social connections) and augmented with biometric data (perhaps through scanning the user's face, body movements, or even physiological responses via VR equipment). The rationale is to produce a lifelike, continuous identity that seamlessly bridges the physical and virtual worlds. But this also means that the user enters the metaverse already enveloped in a cloud of data about who they "are," as defined by the platform. The avatar, in this model, is not a free creation ex nihilo – it is a construct based on the aggregation of one's past online behaviors, consumer preferences, and biometric traits, all of which are transparent to the platform's algorithms.

This has profound implications. It means the platform can algorithmically shape a user's experience in advance, using predictive models to determine what that user will see and do. If Heidegger warned that technology frames our view of reality in terms of utility, here that framing becomes literal: the metaverse presents a custom-tailored world calibrated to maximize the system's goals (such as engagement and profit). The intentionality of the subject – the direction of their attention and desire – is subtly steered by design. For instance, the system might detect a user's interest in a particular virtual product and deliberately present a special offer or advertisement for it at the next opportunity. It might nudge the user toward certain locations or activities that benefit the platform's agenda. In a data-driven metaverse, every interaction becomes feedback for further manipulation, ensuring that what the user encounters is what the system finds most useful for its purposes. The result is that the user's field of possible actions – the very world that appears – is managed to a significant degree by an external algorithmic agenda, rather than emerging freely from the user's own engagements.

For the user, this means effectively becoming part of the standing reserve of the system. In enframing, nature is stockpiled as a resource; in the metaverse, the user's data and even behavior are likewise collected and utilized. The platform treats the user both as a consumer (whose attention and purchases fuel the profit model) and as a producer (contributing content and information that enriches the platform's offerings). The danger Heidegger foresaw – of humanity being assimilated into a technical order – is manifest here. The outward experience in the metaverse might feel like freedom and play, but behind the scenes, it is deliberately orchestrated. An analogy with current social media is instructive: a platform like Facebook doesn't just display posts chronologically; it curates and prioritizes content to keep each user engaged, thereby subtly shaping the user's perception of the world. In the metaverse, such curation would be even more immersive. A person might think they are freely exploring a virtual city, yet the platform's algorithms could guide their path – highlighting certain attractions, conversations, or offers designed to influence behavior. Over time, the user's own preferences and patterns may be molded by this feedback loop, much as prolonged social media use can shape one's opinions and desires. Heidegger's fear that enframing could "deny us a more original revealing" looms large: the metaverse's version of a world might crowd out any unmediated truth or authentic discovery. What appears in this virtual clearing is largely what the system permits or promotes, aligning with its commercial and strategic interests.

It bears noting that this dystopian scenario is not the only possible future. A metaverse built on different principles – say, decentralized governance, open algorithms, and respect for user autonomy – could diverge from enframing's logic. In practice, however, the mainstream development of the metaverse is firmly in the hands of profit-driven entities, making it likely that the standing-reserve pattern will continue unabated. This brings us back to Heidegger's warning: we may become enthralled by a shiny new technology while failing to see the subtle domination it exerts.

6.  Conclusion

Our initial question was whether the metaverse truly transcends the Heideggerian condition of enframing or merely reproduces it in digital form. Having explored the issue from both a phenomenological and practical standpoint, we can conclude that the metaverse, at least as currently envisioned by its major developers, does not represent a clean break from enframing. Instead, it carries forward the same essential pattern – though in a novel guise. On one hand, the metaverse offers a remarkable new stage for human life: it enables worldhood in virtual spaces and allows Dasein to project itself into those spaces with creative freedom. In principle, within a virtual world, one can experience tools as ready-to-hand, build meaningful relationships, and even expand the range of one's identity and agency. These qualities hint at the kind of "saving power" Heidegger dared to imagine: a scenario in which technology becomes a medium for authentic revealing rather than a mere resource trap. However, on the other hand, the actual social and technical infrastructure of the metaverse is deeply rooted in the enframing logic of modern technology. By converting human identities and interactions into data and by channeling user behavior through algorithmic frameworks, the metaverse in its mainstream incarnation amplifies the trend of seeing beings (including persons) as manipulable resources.

In simple terms, the metaverse does not abolish the standing reserve; it extends its reach. The physical constraints of distance and scarcity may be bypassed, but only by subjecting experience to a new layer of technological mediation and control. The user gains a feeling of omnipotence in a boundless virtual playground, yet behind the scenes, that playground is designed and optimized with the same calculative mindset that Heidegger warned about. What is at stake is nothing less than our way of being. Will we use the metaverse as a chance to reclaim a more poetic relationship with technology – to become true creators of new meaning? Or will we slide further into the role of "human resources" managed by an ever more sophisticated technological system? The current trajectory, driven by corporate interests, suggests the latter outcome, but recognizing this tendency is the first step toward resisting it.