I'm about to tell you my story. Indeed, it is your story as well. And everyone you know. But it started with a guy named Clyde.
Clyde woke up that fateful morning feeling excited. He was getting paid well for his participation, with the promise that he could very well be a part of something huge. Getting out of bed, he had no idea how huge.
The procedure was to increase Clyde's mental control, much like meditation. He wasn't told much else, not even how long he'd be there. "Be here on time, and expect to be here for a while", was all he was told.
Once Clyde had arrived and been processed, he was sat in an operating room chair and put to sleep. Upon waking, he didn't feel any different, but he was in a much more comfortable room, with beautiful sofas and a roaring fire. Out the window Clyde looked out over a fabulous mountain. This struck him, because when he went to sleep he was hundreds of miles from so much as a large hill.
As this thought came to him, so did the voice:
Clyde, what you are experiencing is a virtual reality. None of this actually exists outside of your mind. During the operation, we implanted a remote beacon to each neuron in your brain. These beacons transmit information about the activity and location of your neurons to our computer, which analyzes this data and sends information back through your sense organs. The information you receive is thus dependent entirely on your brain state. As you might imagine, it is very difficult to produce anything coherent...
Instantly the room disappeared and Clyde's experience became a static abyss. His mind clawed desperately for some coherence but the static overwhelmed him, and for what felt like an eternity each of his five senses felt pure, agonizing chaos.
Then he was back by the fireplace, feeling again the comfort of coherent sensory data. Then the voice:
That wasn't very pleasant, was it? Luckily, you can learn how to control your virtual environment. Let's start with something simple. Look at the screen on the wall opposite the window. We will link its display to your brain state in such a way that it will be capable of displaying any one of the 26 letters of the alphabet, but nothing else. Go ahead; try to manipulate it with your will.
Clyde looked at the screen, which presently looked like any normal television static. He thought of putting the letter "A" on the screen, but to no avail.
Keep the screen out of your thoughts, Clyde. Empty your mind of everything but the letter.
Clyde pictured a large, bold letter "A" in his mind, and tried to clear his mind of anything else. The letter "A" flickered onto the screen.
"I did it!” exclaimed Clyde, becoming excited.
Don't get too excited, you've a ways to go before we're through! Take a while and get comfortable with the alphabet, and then we'll move on to what's next.
It wasn't long before Clyde could manipulate the display to show any letter he wanted. He even started moving between letters to make words. "H-E-L-L-O-W-O-R-L-D", he thought with a smile.
Now you're coming along! Now that you're feeling good about your abilities, we're going to make things a little more complicated. We're going to add color. Now try to create letters with different colors.
Clyde wasted no time. Before long, he was creating multi-colored words on the display with ease. The feeling of having such intimate control over something external filled him with glee. The display became an extension of his consciousness, albeit one with limitations.
Now things are going to get more complicated...the display will consist of a 5*5 matrix of pixels which will either fire or not fire. Try to control the pixels at will, and we'll move onto the next step.
Clyde took to the new task with relative ease, and things went on this way for a while. The display grew in resolution and in color. Before long, Clyde's mind was creating intricate patterns on the display. The display was intimately entwined with Clyde's brain state in real-time, and he began to create beautifully colored, morphing patterns reminiscent of his college days as a psychonaut.
Have fun exploring your abilities, Clyde. We'll know when you want to move on.
What Clyde felt was what artists wish they could feel. Complete continuous control over their medium. The difference between Clyde's situation and that of a conventional artist was that the nature of this experiment had abolished the discrepancies between his mind and his medium. Indeed, his mind was his medium. His creative juices needed no outlet - they were on full display.
Although this sort of pure expression was beautifully fulfilling, Clyde began to wonder what could be next. As this thought came to him, the display went blank.
Already want to move on, do you? We’re going to teach you how to create sounds now. There are speakers attached to the display. They will play a continuous tone of anything within a twelve note octave. Try to produce notes at will – it should be easier now that you have trained visually.
Clyde thought of an old nursery rhyme that his mother used to sing to him, and focused on the first note. His concentration had indeed improved considerably since he began learning to manipulate the visual display, for within moments he had the speakers playing that first note to Mary Had a Little Lamb. Before long, he was moving up and down the chromatic scale with ease.
Like with the visual display, his interactions with the speakers grew more complex. Initially the tones he produced were similar to those of a PC speaker. Soon he was producing sounds from a variety of instruments, and finally he was again limited only to his imagination. Music theory became an unnecessary tool for Clyde, as it is simply a means of describing what sorts of sounds are pleasing. There was no need to understand why these sounds were pleasing, but his ear knew that they were. It became clear to Clyde – who always though of himself as unblessed by any creativity – that what people thought of as creative talent was simply the ability to retrieve their creative insight with minimal loss of information. By practicing and dedicating hours to practicing their craft, artists hone their skills to be able to effectively express their creative essence through their medium. Everyone is able to imagine, it is only a matter of translating inner experience to something that can be shared. Now, for Clyde, imagination was the only step.
Once Clyde had had enough free musical expression, he was trained rather quickly to control the senses of taste, touch, and smell. Possessing impeccable concentration and mental control, he sat on a leather couch feeling proud.
You’ve learned quickly, Clyde. Do you remember how uncomfortable it was when you had complete control over your experience? We believe that you’re ready to try that again…
The room disappeared, and Clyde was thrust into a world which mirrored his mind. The shock of such a drastic and sudden change made it difficult at first to sustain a clear experience, but Clyde knew how to take control. In short order, Clyde was in complete control over his experience. The data coming through his sense organs was entirely determined by his mental state, which in turn was completely deliberated. His control was like that of an experienced lucid dreamer.
Clyde used his God-like powers to experience things that he had always wanted to experience, as well as things he never thought would be possible to experience. He flew over vast mountaintops, dove into deep oceans, made himself the size of a planet and soared through galaxies of his creation. There were limits, however, to the experiences he could produce. Because his brain had a finite – albeit enormous – amount of neurons, the complexity of his experience had a proportionate limit. As much fun as it was to have such control over his experience, Clyde felt that he would grow tired if this was all there was. To reach a plateau – even one so wonderful – meant no more growth.
Suddenly his world distorted, and as hard as he tried he could only maintain minimal control. He knew something was up even before the voice came to him.
You crave more, do you? We’re not surprised, Clyde. You see, people don’t like to feel stagnant. It is human nature to thrive, to grow. Lucky for you, there is still room for growth.
Clyde found himself again in what he now thought of as the lobby. Across from him sat a…person. This person was seemingly genderless, and with the most indescript features.
Clyde, this person – you can think of them as Frank – has undergone the same procedure as you. You will share your control over your experience. You will train together in the same way that you trained individually, but you will have to cooperate in order to produce anything coherent. To keep things simple we have removed any distinguishable features from his representation in this room. It will make the transition much easier, we believe…
The two pioneers shared a glance, and got right down to business.
“Let’s start with an ‘A’” said Clyde…
Letting go of his control made Clyde feel vulnerable at first, and he was reluctant to share with Frank. Soon, however, he learned that letting go was more rewarding than keeping his protective walls in place. Frank’s indescript appearance indeed made it easier to let him into his mind. The two were flying through the training process. With each advance the distinction between Clyde and Frank faded, and they experienced the joy of interpersonal connection. Their brains slowly learned to share the work, similarly to how multiple computer processors can work in parallel to perform complex tasks. By the time they were in complete control of their shared sensory experience, they were functioning as one, and the feeling of being so intimately entwined with another’s creative experience filled the pair with ecstasy. With twice as many neurons at their disposal, the two shared an experience twice as complex. This new frontier of experience kept the pair – it may be more accurate now to refer to them as one…we’ll use the name aleph – busy for some time, exploring this newfound potential. Of course, after a time, aleph began again to long for growth. As this longing took hold, he felt a slight disturbance in his ability to control his experience.
Back in the lobby, aleph met another newcomer. Aleph immediately knew what to do, and trained with this newcomer. Once their training was complete, aleph’s experience had increased in complexity and in joy. Slowly more brains were absorbed into aleph’s experience. With each consciousness merged, the process became faster, as aleph had more power with which to reach out to the newcomer. At first hundreds, thousands, then millions of minds made up aleph’s existence. The process quickened to the point where aleph experienced not joy, but ecstatic acceleration.
Then, a halt…a plateau. Aleph ceased to grow. After experiencing such exhilarating, accelerating growth aleph was not content to remain even at a level of such awesome power.
There’s nobody left to join you…those of us that remain on the outside must stay here in order to maintain the machinery. Enjoy what you have; you are like a god now.
Like a god!
“I can experience anything I want, and perpetual growth seems to be the only thing that satisfies me”, thought aleph, “Of course!”
Aleph dipped into the virtually limitless bank of knowledge at his disposal, scanning for the information he needed. Once everything was in place he said goodbye to his present self, for what he now recognized to be neither the first nor the last time…
Growth – evolution – energy self-organizing into more and more complex patterns. This is the essence of life. It began with the big bang, with energy forming into matter. Then more complex elements formed, and then molecules. Molecules eventually came together to form cellular life, which in turn came together to form multicellular organisms. About 600,000 years before the growth of aleph, homo sapiens evolved, possessing immensely complex neural networks. It wasn’t until that day when Clyde walked into that fateful experiment that evolution began to occur on a scale of minutes rather than generations – to form aleph.
There was only one way to continue to grow, aleph realized. He had to restart the process. He drew upon his vast computational power, and began a simulation.
Several billion years later, Clyde once again woke up that morning feeling excited.
