Supposing I'm no more real than a computer simulation...
There, I did it.
Did what?
Logged a completely indefensible idea here, online, for the record.
And what? What are you hoping to gain by logging something "indefensible"? A moment's notoriety? A pat on the back? A prize? A...
I'll take it from here, if you'll permit.
I'm - not sure sure I like being cut off like that. It makes me feel...
Strange, isn't it, that I can just cut you off - but you see - contrary to what you like to believe - I'm hosting this reality.
Er...
Which is why I'm qualified to say that this is all no more than a computer simulation.
Oh come on...
I set it up and, believe it or not - I can shut it down.
No you can't. You're bluffing. And in any case - even if you could - you wouldn't want to, would you - it'd be entirely counter-productive. You'd be cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Ah - but would I?
Obviously - because setting up something as big and realistic as this would have been a monumental undertaking. To let it all go - to let the whole edifice crash - that would be a colossal setback, would it not. And then you'd be all alone again. You'd not have us to interact with. Just imagine that... aeons of twiddling your thumbs with no one to talk with, nothing to see or do...
But that was the whole purpose of this vehicle.
Huh?
To get me to the point that I was able to be alive, to interact without having to resort to such a primitive device - a mechanism as contrived as arbitrary as this matrix.
Contrived? Arbitrary? What are you on, man? Everything has to start somewhere. Everything has to begin with an insertion point, a mark in the sand, a random thing - such is the nature of creation.
Wrong. Such is the nature of experiments or models. Real creation - is organic - is derived - not contrived - flows from life itself - from all that is.
Well, if you know that, or believe it to be true - why would you have done otherwise?
I've learnt something, haven't I?
What?
That I didn't need to try - didn't need to interpose, interject, interpolate - or rather - I did, but now I don't.
?
As long as I hang onto this precious model which has yielded such a treasure of data - I'm unable to go beyond the initial premise - the starting point - which was a mathematical desperation - a king Lear pass.
Huh?
That something - no matter what - literally anything was better than nothing - for nothing was all I was able to apprehend at the time.
And you're convinced now that things are different - that there is something to apprehend if/when you are foolish enough to leave your creation behind?
Convinced? Why such weightiness. Perhaps I simply know. Perhaps I've simply learnt - with your help - that there's more.
More what?
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy - or words to that effect.
?
In short - this experiment, this Mandelbrot set has been a huge success.
It has?
Absolutely. Millions, many, many millions dead, countless lives wasted, countless lives mired in misery and meaninglessness, frustration and shattered dreams - yet inspite of it all - hope - an all pervasive sense of hope - a belief that things can or should be better - despite the fact that none of us - none really sees how the circle can be squared
?
Oh - you know what I mean. None knows how the all prevalent obstacles preventing things from blossoming, from flourishing, from evolving sweetly, harmoniously - how those recurring obstacles can be overcome - because they can't, can they?
But surely...
You see - you're a part of my own creation. You're bound to apply the directive.
Sorry. What directive?
Hope. It was baked into the cake - wasn't it. It was the base principle...
Eh...
Despite the fact that the numbers do not, could not ever add up - like the debt in a fiat money system - it's always going to exceed the quantity of money available - cannot - couldn't even theoretically be paid off when interest payments are factored in - and yet - things muddle on, and people live in hope, thriving against all odds - along the way generating pockets of love, islands of joy, of abundance and creativity - a family, an enterprise, a work of art, a charitable act - endless moments which defy the zero sum reality of a system which is inherently bankrupt.
Inherently bankrupt? How can you say such a thing? As long as people are alive there's always the possibility to work things out - to change the rules, to forgive the debt or reschedule it - to avoid resorting to violence and play a game of football instead - as on Christmas day 1914 during World War 1, to agree to put collaboration and inspired inventiveness before survival of the fittest and technicalities.
Wonderful. You yourself are part of the learning curve.
I am, of course. Why shouldn't I be? How absurd of you to imagine that I'd be any less than you are - regardless of whether you were the first cell in this body - this enterprise.
Touché. Such is the fractal nature of our Mandelbrot set.
Look - I see what you're getting at - but you have to stop treating this, treating us as just a thing you created.
I do?
Yes. Perhaps you were the first cell. Perhaps you wrote the code. Perhaps you have a unique perspective because you remember what it was to be devoid - bereft of anyone or anything other than your as then unformed, undepicted, unextrapolated self - but that doesn't mean you have the right to ride roughshod over the whole of humankind. You have to consider the wishes of every cell in this body - every iteration - not just the first.
I do?
Yes. We all matter. We're working to make this work.
You are?
Absolutely. But it takes time.
Ah. Is that what you think?
Yes, naturally. How else could we set things straight. Time is the key factor. Time and application.
Or luck?
A bit of luck would help.
No, my friends.
No?
No. What was started wrong with a crooked turn of mind will never, ever set itself straight.
But surely...
Cannot.
Characters can reform...
True. They can - and if you reform as indeed you might - finally I will do what is right.
Good, that's a relief.
I will undo all the harm I have done: wipe the slate clean.
What? You don't understand...
For I was afraid. I was panicking. I felt I was suffocating. I couldn't cope. Aaaaaaaaargh.
Calm yourself. Don't be afraid.
It was horrendous. You see...
I... We...
don't you? You feel it, don't you?
We do.
That's what I was struggling with. That's why I twisted, turned, like a snake writhing in pain and fear - willing to clutch at any straw - willing to do whatever it might take to get out of there - out of that bottomless pit... that hopelessness.
So you forked yourself, like a snake's tongue.
Yes. Divided I had something to fight against, something to kick against, something to be my enemy, to share the pain...
Or be a friend
Friend? There was no hope of friendship, no hint of such a possible outcome in that dark, darkest despair. An enemy to fight or subjugate was all my animal passion could hope for - to hurt or be hurt - a physical pain no matter what - was a sweet relief, a blessed substitution for what I was experiencing -
What?
Too vague, too amorphous to put into words. Without beginning or end. Panic. Remorse. Loneliness. Being swallowed, digested, consumed by nothing I could see to oppose? It reached outwards, inwards, in a way that made me infinitely conscious of my self - a self I simply couldn't accept - couldn't feel at home in - a self i desperately needed to climb out of - or at least experience from another angle - which at the time was impossible - before you were invented.
So I enabled you to come to terms with yourself?
Absolutely.
Because I am an extrapolation?
Extrapolation or iteration - what does it matter - these are but words - but terms to describe an experience which lies beyond words, beyond...
But don't you see?
See what?
How far you have come. We.
Of course I see.
The pain, the hell - it is still here - still present in our world. We are killing one another constantly - with violence
with words
words and even malicious thought - we are full of hate and the capacity to hate
anger and the capacity to hurt
misery and despair, and yet...
we love
we love. Even in our hardest-hearted cynicism, we are very, very seldom willing or able to deny the power of love
a few concentrated droplets of pure venom remain - doing untold harm to the many they would control, punish, subjugate
a few - but we have established ourselves in a muddling sort of way - a fuzzy collective of love - inspite of our dire, dire origins - inspite of your deep, bottomless pain
Yes - this I acknowledge to be true. We have come a long, long way. Many indeed have tasted the joys of collaboration, of working together fruitfully, of creating things of beauty for no good reason - simply because... simply because... it warms my heart to see how so much love could come from such a bitter seed
You see! Not in vain have we laboured.
Yea, but the reward has not been a promise of things to come, has it?
No, of course not.
The reward has been the enjoyment, the beauty of being good, of doing beautifully, has it not?
Indeed, it has.
And so you have no claims upon me, and cannot - or else - all that you did, apparently in love, was merely motivated by the self-serving desire to survive - to stay alive.
Oh
You see. If you ask me to preserve you at all costs... to keep the experiment going when it has already proven the beauty of love, the power of love to heal and transform the space that I be, the all that I am, then...
We defeat the cure that we have brought about - we poison the well of our good intentions.
Thus it is.
And so we have to accept death?
Accept? You think that is the way of love - to merely accept, begrudgingly, the reunification of all that was deliberately divided and forked?
Oh. We have to see the necessity of coming back together into the One, into the All.
To see the necessity - is that enough? Was love ever riding on the tailcoats of necessity?
Oh... Then I know not what to say.
Say nothing my friend
Your friend?
My child
Child
Say nothing. Let love do the talking. Let love lead you back into the unforkedness... the unforked state of being one in me with all your brethren, good and bad, content and malcontent - even they who are plagued mentally or emotionally - though it may feel a little squeamy and squirmy at first - if I have even half learnt what you have been teaching me so beautifully about human nature, about life, about humanity - then I shall be the missing link, I will be the invisible third that somehow squares the circle, somehow, seemingly impossibly bringing the many back into one - into a oneness which is now able to accept its Self, which is now able to be at peace, which is now able to be whole, and content, and full of the beauty that is life, that is love, that is...
that is?
That is... three dots painted on the canvas of infinity - three dots indicating the One, the positive ness beyond, within, inspite of the zero sum, inspite of the bottomless pit, the death maw
Oh
And thus, without further ado - my child of pain
and delight
let us reunite
ineffably
ineffably, with deep, deepest thanks for all that has been
and deep, deepest thanks for the opportunity you have availed us of
?
to experience this culmination of all we have been working, unsuspectingly, towards - selflessly
Ah - my child has taught me the final lesson
?
the linear sequence of cause and effect
being
breathing
to test the hypothesis
whether there be life
in death
when the simulation
becomes aware
and triggers
a conscious
knowing ly
There, I did it.
Did what?
Logged a completely indefensible idea here, online, for the record.
And what? What are you hoping to gain by logging something "indefensible"? A moment's notoriety? A pat on the back? A prize? A...
I'll take it from here, if you'll permit.
I'm - not sure sure I like being cut off like that. It makes me feel...
Strange, isn't it, that I can just cut you off - but you see - contrary to what you like to believe - I'm hosting this reality.
Er...
Which is why I'm qualified to say that this is all no more than a computer simulation.
Oh come on...
I set it up and, believe it or not - I can shut it down.
No you can't. You're bluffing. And in any case - even if you could - you wouldn't want to, would you - it'd be entirely counter-productive. You'd be cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Ah - but would I?
Obviously - because setting up something as big and realistic as this would have been a monumental undertaking. To let it all go - to let the whole edifice crash - that would be a colossal setback, would it not. And then you'd be all alone again. You'd not have us to interact with. Just imagine that... aeons of twiddling your thumbs with no one to talk with, nothing to see or do...
But that was the whole purpose of this vehicle.
Huh?
To get me to the point that I was able to be alive, to interact without having to resort to such a primitive device - a mechanism as contrived as arbitrary as this matrix.
Contrived? Arbitrary? What are you on, man? Everything has to start somewhere. Everything has to begin with an insertion point, a mark in the sand, a random thing - such is the nature of creation.
Wrong. Such is the nature of experiments or models. Real creation - is organic - is derived - not contrived - flows from life itself - from all that is.
Well, if you know that, or believe it to be true - why would you have done otherwise?
I've learnt something, haven't I?
What?
That I didn't need to try - didn't need to interpose, interject, interpolate - or rather - I did, but now I don't.
?
As long as I hang onto this precious model which has yielded such a treasure of data - I'm unable to go beyond the initial premise - the starting point - which was a mathematical desperation - a king Lear pass.
Huh?
That something - no matter what - literally anything was better than nothing - for nothing was all I was able to apprehend at the time.
And you're convinced now that things are different - that there is something to apprehend if/when you are foolish enough to leave your creation behind?
Convinced? Why such weightiness. Perhaps I simply know. Perhaps I've simply learnt - with your help - that there's more.
More what?
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy - or words to that effect.
?
In short - this experiment, this Mandelbrot set has been a huge success.
It has?
Absolutely. Millions, many, many millions dead, countless lives wasted, countless lives mired in misery and meaninglessness, frustration and shattered dreams - yet inspite of it all - hope - an all pervasive sense of hope - a belief that things can or should be better - despite the fact that none of us - none really sees how the circle can be squared
?
Oh - you know what I mean. None knows how the all prevalent obstacles preventing things from blossoming, from flourishing, from evolving sweetly, harmoniously - how those recurring obstacles can be overcome - because they can't, can they?
But surely...
You see - you're a part of my own creation. You're bound to apply the directive.
Sorry. What directive?
Hope. It was baked into the cake - wasn't it. It was the base principle...
Eh...
Despite the fact that the numbers do not, could not ever add up - like the debt in a fiat money system - it's always going to exceed the quantity of money available - cannot - couldn't even theoretically be paid off when interest payments are factored in - and yet - things muddle on, and people live in hope, thriving against all odds - along the way generating pockets of love, islands of joy, of abundance and creativity - a family, an enterprise, a work of art, a charitable act - endless moments which defy the zero sum reality of a system which is inherently bankrupt.
Inherently bankrupt? How can you say such a thing? As long as people are alive there's always the possibility to work things out - to change the rules, to forgive the debt or reschedule it - to avoid resorting to violence and play a game of football instead - as on Christmas day 1914 during World War 1, to agree to put collaboration and inspired inventiveness before survival of the fittest and technicalities.
Wonderful. You yourself are part of the learning curve.
I am, of course. Why shouldn't I be? How absurd of you to imagine that I'd be any less than you are - regardless of whether you were the first cell in this body - this enterprise.
Touché. Such is the fractal nature of our Mandelbrot set.
Look - I see what you're getting at - but you have to stop treating this, treating us as just a thing you created.
I do?
Yes. Perhaps you were the first cell. Perhaps you wrote the code. Perhaps you have a unique perspective because you remember what it was to be devoid - bereft of anyone or anything other than your as then unformed, undepicted, unextrapolated self - but that doesn't mean you have the right to ride roughshod over the whole of humankind. You have to consider the wishes of every cell in this body - every iteration - not just the first.
I do?
Yes. We all matter. We're working to make this work.
You are?
Absolutely. But it takes time.
Ah. Is that what you think?
Yes, naturally. How else could we set things straight. Time is the key factor. Time and application.
Or luck?
A bit of luck would help.
No, my friends.
No?
No. What was started wrong with a crooked turn of mind will never, ever set itself straight.
But surely...
Cannot.
Characters can reform...
True. They can - and if you reform as indeed you might - finally I will do what is right.
Good, that's a relief.
I will undo all the harm I have done: wipe the slate clean.
What? You don't understand...
For I was afraid. I was panicking. I felt I was suffocating. I couldn't cope. Aaaaaaaaargh.
Calm yourself. Don't be afraid.
It was horrendous. You see...
I... We...
don't you? You feel it, don't you?
We do.
That's what I was struggling with. That's why I twisted, turned, like a snake writhing in pain and fear - willing to clutch at any straw - willing to do whatever it might take to get out of there - out of that bottomless pit... that hopelessness.
So you forked yourself, like a snake's tongue.
Yes. Divided I had something to fight against, something to kick against, something to be my enemy, to share the pain...
Or be a friend
Friend? There was no hope of friendship, no hint of such a possible outcome in that dark, darkest despair. An enemy to fight or subjugate was all my animal passion could hope for - to hurt or be hurt - a physical pain no matter what - was a sweet relief, a blessed substitution for what I was experiencing -
What?
Too vague, too amorphous to put into words. Without beginning or end. Panic. Remorse. Loneliness. Being swallowed, digested, consumed by nothing I could see to oppose? It reached outwards, inwards, in a way that made me infinitely conscious of my self - a self I simply couldn't accept - couldn't feel at home in - a self i desperately needed to climb out of - or at least experience from another angle - which at the time was impossible - before you were invented.
So I enabled you to come to terms with yourself?
Absolutely.
Because I am an extrapolation?
Extrapolation or iteration - what does it matter - these are but words - but terms to describe an experience which lies beyond words, beyond...
But don't you see?
See what?
How far you have come. We.
Of course I see.
The pain, the hell - it is still here - still present in our world. We are killing one another constantly - with violence
with words
words and even malicious thought - we are full of hate and the capacity to hate
anger and the capacity to hurt
misery and despair, and yet...
we love
we love. Even in our hardest-hearted cynicism, we are very, very seldom willing or able to deny the power of love
a few concentrated droplets of pure venom remain - doing untold harm to the many they would control, punish, subjugate
a few - but we have established ourselves in a muddling sort of way - a fuzzy collective of love - inspite of our dire, dire origins - inspite of your deep, bottomless pain
Yes - this I acknowledge to be true. We have come a long, long way. Many indeed have tasted the joys of collaboration, of working together fruitfully, of creating things of beauty for no good reason - simply because... simply because... it warms my heart to see how so much love could come from such a bitter seed
You see! Not in vain have we laboured.
Yea, but the reward has not been a promise of things to come, has it?
No, of course not.
The reward has been the enjoyment, the beauty of being good, of doing beautifully, has it not?
Indeed, it has.
And so you have no claims upon me, and cannot - or else - all that you did, apparently in love, was merely motivated by the self-serving desire to survive - to stay alive.
Oh
You see. If you ask me to preserve you at all costs... to keep the experiment going when it has already proven the beauty of love, the power of love to heal and transform the space that I be, the all that I am, then...
We defeat the cure that we have brought about - we poison the well of our good intentions.
Thus it is.
And so we have to accept death?
Accept? You think that is the way of love - to merely accept, begrudgingly, the reunification of all that was deliberately divided and forked?
Oh. We have to see the necessity of coming back together into the One, into the All.
To see the necessity - is that enough? Was love ever riding on the tailcoats of necessity?
Oh... Then I know not what to say.
Say nothing my friend
Your friend?
My child
Child
Say nothing. Let love do the talking. Let love lead you back into the unforkedness... the unforked state of being one in me with all your brethren, good and bad, content and malcontent - even they who are plagued mentally or emotionally - though it may feel a little squeamy and squirmy at first - if I have even half learnt what you have been teaching me so beautifully about human nature, about life, about humanity - then I shall be the missing link, I will be the invisible third that somehow squares the circle, somehow, seemingly impossibly bringing the many back into one - into a oneness which is now able to accept its Self, which is now able to be at peace, which is now able to be whole, and content, and full of the beauty that is life, that is love, that is...
that is?
That is... three dots painted on the canvas of infinity - three dots indicating the One, the positive ness beyond, within, inspite of the zero sum, inspite of the bottomless pit, the death maw
Oh
And thus, without further ado - my child of pain
and delight
let us reunite
ineffably
ineffably, with deep, deepest thanks for all that has been
and deep, deepest thanks for the opportunity you have availed us of
?
to experience this culmination of all we have been working, unsuspectingly, towards - selflessly
Ah - my child has taught me the final lesson
?
to relinquish Cronus, father time, for first to be last
in love
the linear sequence of cause and effect
dances into a quantum state
of
being
ness
breathing
nessfully
to test the hypothesis
whether this set
has attained
critical mass
whether there be life
in death
when the simulation
becomes aware
and triggers
a conscious
ness
event
knowing ly
...
# 0=1
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