deepfaking reality with Kat and Ross

 

No, you can’t have your cake and eat it.

 

? Er... what are you on about – I merely observed that the video was partially AI, and that some of those sensational scenes were fake or edited.

 

And what?

 

Well, don’t you think veracity matters?

 

Of course it does, Kat. It’s enormously important.

 

Then what’s the problem?

 

No problem whatsoever.

 

Then why did you comment that I can’t have my cake and eat it?

 

Because you’re always checking things.

 

?

 

And sooner or later your life will be over and there’ll be nothing else to check.

 

No, you lost me there.

 

Don’t you see?

 

Evidently not.

 

Well, veracity is great when you’re writing a history or trying to establish who killed Miss Scarlet.

 

But?

 

But we’re not machines, are we?

 

What’s that got to do with the price of lemons?

 

Life is made up of two components.

 

It is? Like truth and lies?

 

No.

 

Then what?

 

Circles and squares.

 

What!? Pull the other one Stan!

 

Listen Katya

 

No Stan, I refuse to listen to this nonsense. The video was photoshopped, period. It was sensational, yes, but misleading.

 

Yes, I know, but you’re not perfect, yourself, are you?

 

What’s that got to do with anything?

 

Everything.

 

Explain.

 

Because ultimately we’re all interacting with a field.

 

A field?

 

Correct.

 

And what exactly is that supposed to mean?

 

Well, interacting with the field we are more than what can be verified or proven.

 

And? Does that mean we have to throw up our arms in despair and just believe every fake video we encounter?

 

No.

 

Then why can’t we have our cake and eat it. Veracity as opposed to fake videos, while at the same time interacting with this field of yours, if that’s important?

 

Good question, Kat. How reasonable you are, but sadly the two seem to be, generally speaking, mutually exclusive.

 

Well as I have no idea what this field you’re referring to entails and why it’s so important I have nothing further to add.

 

Ah, my fault for failing to explain. The field is where the 3D reality of things meets the...

 

Well? Three dots is all you’re going to say?

 

Oh no, Kat! Three dots was just the prologue.

 

Oh really! This is getting absurd.

 

But wait, Kate, did you not wonder how you saw the three dots... I never spoke them, did i?

 

Er... I

 

You see, you saw more than you’re physically able to see.

 

Tommyrot!

 

Isn’t it just, but you can verify my claim. Everything is recorded, everything is observed.

 

Ok, I’ll accept that I did kind of see three dots, but that could easily be explained by your pregnant pause, combined with a very particular facial expression which somehow conveyed 3 dots.

 

As you will, Kate, as you will, but suffice it to say that my explanation is rather more scientific.

 

Yes? And what’s your explanation?

 

That I spoke to you by way of the so-called quantum field.

 

Oh, pull the other one Stan. Now it’s the "quantum field", is it?

 

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet."

 

It’s not the name I object to, Stan, so much as you trying to gentrify your tommyrot with pseudo-scientific terminology. The last I heard, correct me if I’m wrong, the quantum field you presume to lay claim to, relates to sub-atomic particles such as photons or electrons. So now I’m supposed to believe that you’re able to operate at the sub-atomic scale? Why not, Stan? Surely you’d never run the gauntlet of verification, would you, as that would be hopelessly 3D, or maybe square?

 

Ah Kattykins, what a wonderfully sharp and observant mind you have! It’s a pleasure to see it in action. A real delight.

 

Well, I’m glad to see you’re able to lose so graciously, Stan, though I’m disappointed it comes to this sorry state of affairs – you should know better than to use such primitive tactics.

 

Ah, indeed, dear Katya, and it’s always a pleasure to lose to such a worthy adversary, but I find myself in the awkward position of having to remind you that life is not a mechanical process.

 

Do you now? As if I didn’t know.

 

There’s more going on.

 

Indeed? Are you going to surprise me?

 

For example, physically yes, I’d have problems accessing the quantum field.

 

Problems?! That’s taking understatement to seven standard deviations.

 

But neither the life force itself, nor the consciousness that seems to animate us is in any way limited by size.

 

Oh, so you’re able to access the quantum field of sub-atomic particles via consciousness? But that doesn’t explain how you’re able to transcend the limitations of 3D reality. What makes sub-atomic particles or the field they operate within better able to give you extraordinary powers than, for example, the galactic field, if such a thing exists, or the biosphere field of our planet? Perhaps, by your logic there be magical creatures – spirit beings which you’re able to connect with and harness in some way?

 

Now your talking, Kate! I knew you’d see the light!

 

Alas, I was being ironic, Stan.

 

As indeed you must.

 

I must?

 

Naturally! You’re still wedded to the 3D paradigm of material reality. Things matter greatly to your world view. You think you can understand the world by organising them and arranging them in the right order. Hell, you think that the world actually exists.

 

Er... like you don’t?

 

Well, of course it exists as an adjunct to my body.

 

An adjunct?! You actually mean to say that in your way of seeing things the entire world is but an adjunct to your body?

 

It’s not that I want to see it that way, or even that I like seeing it that way.

 

Then what?

 

Well, there’s this ticklish little thing called infinity.

 

And?

 

Well, infinity kyboshes any reliance on 3D reality.

 

Er...

 

Because relying on 3D reality – on things being determinable, verifiable and-or existing objectively, independently of me, or the consciousness I seem to be part of sadly ain’t possible unless infinity is removed from the equation, thereby rendering us bio-mechanical things, mere walking-talking mind administrators, as opposed to field workers hell-bent on normalising infinity.

 

Er – are you serious Stan?

 

Not particularly. The objective, verifiable truth is way too serious for my liking. I much prefer the merry-madness of the quantum field, which like Schrodinger’s cat, is by definition indeterminable.

 

OMG... You’re serious, aren’t you?

 

No, Kat, I can’t be serious if my world is peopled with fairies, angels, gnomiki and perhaps energy beings. Infinity, you see, doesn’t allow me to give too much weight to any particular system that attempts to describe reality or the physical world we’re living in.

 

So you’re some kind of material nihilist? Nothing is actually real, is it?

 

Not necessarily. Things are real up to a point, in the same way my body is, and so are you, but at the same time the reality of this particular paradigm cannot and doesn’t exclude others which are equally real, which appear to utterly contradict the basis of this reality.

 

Well it sounds very broad minded of you but in practice I don’t see what, if anything, it changes other than making you feel that you’re in some way superior because, as you would have it, you see and know more than the rest of us.

 

Indeed, that’s an excellent critique. Like I said, the proof is in the pudding.

 

You did? I thought you said you can't have your cake and eat it?

 

My bad, Kate. I mixed things up. But still, allow me to repeat – the proof is in the pudding. Unless I’m able to access infinity and thus maintain a greater or deeper equilibrium, then I'm all talk and no walk. If, on the other hand I’m able to somehow embrace or embody the quantum field, whatever that might be, then you’ll find that our interactions will either drive you to distraction or enable you to experience something outside the square boundaries of 3D reality.

 

Er... and that’s a good thing, you’re maintaining?

 

I’ve no idea.

 

I thought so.

 

It’s my thing. It feels right to me.

 

Does it? I wonder why?

 

Yes, me too! Perhaps it’s just that infinity is baked into the cake of my conscious-awareness, and therefore I have no choice. I’m compelled to honour it by sticking my snout in the ground and looking for truffles.

 

Truffles?

 

Well yes. The quantum field, whatever that might be, is or can be bounteous as material or physical limitations do not apply.

 

Huh?

 

It’s an open as opposed to a closed system so the usual conservation of energy formulation does not apply.

 

Oh.

 

It can be accessed and engaged in a practical manner but never really understood or explained, unless by doing so we recognise the fact that we’re...

 

Er... what?

 

Didn’t you see?

 

Of course I did, Stanley, three dots again, like a nose bleed déjà vu, but it doesn’t mean anything or doesn’t help my understanding.

 

True, but this nosebleed déjà vu as you so accurately describe it is the basis for growing aware of the perimeter of the 3D reservation.

 

Like we’re living in a controlled space?

 

Precisely. And naturally you don’t like to see or experience this, do you?

 

...

 

It feels uncomfortable, doesn’t it?

 

...

 

Disquieting?

 

Well yes, but that’s because I like to understand what the hell is going on...

 

Do you?

 

Or what the hell we’re talking about.

 

Hell, is it?

 

Hell’s just a word.

 

With certain connotations or associations, yes Kate, yes indeed.

 

Stop being so goddamn smug Stan, like you know it all.

 

Huh?

 

All you’re good for is taking me to a place I’d rather not be.

 

Oh. That’s because I’m not good at stories.

 

What?

 

The real geniuses are the ones who tell fantastic stories, the kind of stories which transport you to another world, and enable you to feel things which you're unable to feel in this 3D realm of limitations. They are the geniuses.

 

But those are just stories.

 

Are they? Are you willing to bet your life on that?

 

Why would I bet my life on something so far removed from anything that really matters? A story is but a story – a form of entertainment which may at the same time be instructive or intellectually stimulating, or else emotionally beneficial, a kind of passive form of therapy in which you are able to live and experience things vicariously which might otherwise trouble us in normal reality, in person.

 

There, you see – you're a genius Katya.

 

I am?

 

You nailed it!

 

I did?

 

Yes. That’s exactly what stories can do, and that’s exactly why they're so much better than a bore like me trying to explain things using the pseudo-scientific terminology of the quantum field. Doing so I utterly fail to engage the flight of fancy, the imagination, the mind's waking dream state. On the contrary, I annoy my audience by talking as if I know more than them, as if one can think one’s way out of a closed box, as if, worst of all, the simple truth can be described directly, without needing to rely on parables, on allegory, on narrative, which of course it can’t.

 

It can’t? Whyever not?

 

Because of Schrödinger's cat. Because the quantum field can’t observe itself without collapsing the wave function, whatever that is.

 

Er...

 

Because reality is really rather fragile – something we set up, a kind of experiment, a kind of game which is meant to be experienced unconsciously, until...unless you’re ready to remember your origins.

 

My origins?

 

Well yes.

 

What do you mean?

 

Oh, I don’t know, Kate of Kate hall.

 

Wait a second, Stan, haven’t I heard that some where before?

 

I couldn’t say, but if you have then what of it? All of us are using words which we ourselves did not invent, and are constantly quoting songs, books, poems or spells which are woven into the fabric of our reality. But besides these words and ideas there’s something else

 

There is?

 

Which cannot be squared, no matter how hard we try.

 

And?

 

And nothing, except that sooner or later the quantum field grows tired of our intransigence and flips reality, like an iceberg, on its head, leaving us utterly gobsmacked, utterly confused for a millennium or thereabouts.

 

A millennium? There must be some mistake.

 

Consciousness collapses in on itself and for a thousand years or more we rest from the lunacy of interminably thinking things, meditating in the silence of neither-here-nor-therity while coyly infinity licks its paws.

 

Neither-here-nor-verity?

 

Yes, I suppose that may be right, but honestly, who am i to say, words and things being what they are?

 

So you think the quantum field is able to manifest through AI or deepfake videos?

 

I don’t see why not. Reality isn't hermetically sealed – not from the quantum field. How could you exclude infinity? She’s equally able to manifest through science theories such as General Relativity, or Big Bang, or Darwin’s theory of evolution, none of which really stand up to careful scrutiny, or dare I say it...

 

Don’t you dare!

 

Don’t dare what?

 

I know what you were going to say.

 

You do?

 

Yes, your three dots were anything but subtle.

 

You mean to say

 

I mean to say that climate change is not one of your deepfake theories. It’s the result of irrefutable empirical measurements spanning several thousand years of ice core data, not to mention...

 

– circles and squares. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

 

Crash!

 

Oh dear, there goes the Ross Ice shelf. Aaaaargh! The end...

 

The end is nigh!

 

 

0=1

and all that