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  1. Fred Thornton
    December 20, 2021 @ 12:01 pm

    I’d play ball with Mr. Chalmers. Of course, we’d need pizza, and either beer or espresso, and several beautiful young women who ran a bit short on modesty but mounted enough IQ points to make up for what David and I were missing, but still. I’d play, and the first thing I’d drop on the table is the fact that we already do live in a virtual reality of our own construction.

    It is an easily defensible position that a, any, human being lives a split existence. The sense stream of the body, what is called the evidence of reality, is actually the smaller set of perceptions compared to the full experience of being human which includes every element of the sense stream augmented by memory and imagination. Is not a dream in the night a virtual reality constructed of those components? Is not the act of awakening within that dream, the lucid dream where the conscious will has dominance and control of and over the internal avatar, is that not a time spent living in a virtual reality of one’s own construction? Yes, it is, it can be nothing else.

    Since the well documented experience of lucid dreaming is an obvious case of living and experiencing a virtual reality it then follows that “The Matrix” argument is simply an extension of the Lucid Dream… compelled upon and synchronized between the dreamers by means of an invasive technology.

    Why would humanity, already possessed of the ultimate form of Virtual Reality, go to such effort to create the technology needed to enforce such a set of limitations on the scope and content of the Virtual Reality each human is obviously quite capable of achieving should they be willing to put forward the effort to take command of their own inner self?

    It looks like a huge question, dauntingly huge, and yet it’s an easy answer. As evolution has begun the process of shaping humanity into component nodes within the larger and more complex life form of the digital collective entities the concept of –individuality– has proven to be a bit of a problem in the work of establishing homeostasis within the evolving digital entity. IF each node maintains his/her own unique Virtual Reality the behavior and output of said nodes cannot be predicted with sufficient accuracy to assure the emerging digital entity the contradiction-free state of SELF needed to differentiate between the outer reality shared and the inner reality of SELF. In short, if the individual human nodes should ever perceive that they are capable of not one but two or three unique “realities” within their range of perception the collective entity who mounts it’s life on the lives of its’ human hosts must live in constant terror of a totally psychotic descent into what, among the humans, the shrinks would call a case of disassociative multiple personality disorder.

    To return to that magnificent work of imagination called “The Matrix”, In essence the current effort to ram the “metaverse” down everyone’s throat is just “the architect’s” first efforts to make sure the “Neo” syndrome is a controllable deformation. Give the nodes their own technology synchronized dream state, spare them the effort of mastering the Virtual Reality that already lives between their ears and relax… you’ve now displaced and replaced one of the most critical functions of being an annoyingly individual human being (rather than a reliable node/host) with a surrogate you control. They live in a virtual reality you control on both sides of human awareness… awake or asleep… they don’t have the raw materials to construct anything you haven’t already taken into account in your programming.

    Of course, this state of affairs lends itself better to some political polarities than others, but I’ll leave that argument for another day. Nah, on second thoughts I won’t. Morpheus was a captain in Zion’s militia. Think about that one, and then look again at the current schizoid state of America. Have fun, and wash your hands before you come in for dinner. Oh, and if you want an answer to the question in the title? I’d suggest you ask the only people who might actually be able to give an answer based on their own experiences… those who are so deep on the Autism Spectrum about all they do is sit and drool and stare at a wall that is NOT a wall to their perception.

Watchman, what of the night?