"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." ―Franklin D. Roosevelt


I had been thinking about Wade Watts in Ready Player One and how he approached the OASIS metaverse as a rogue or singular player. Watts was adamant in the beginning of his journey for Halliday's Easter Egg in saying he did not "clan," meaning he played alone and followed his own path. It wasn't until Watts encountered IOI's pervasive control that he realized the strength of multiple minds and joined with friends in their united quest.
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In Ready Player Two, author Ernest Cline takes this theme a bit further with the character of Samantha who will not use the first operational ONI (OASIS Neural Interface) headset to access the metaverse, partially due to the possibility of death by Synoptic Overload Syndrome when the device is used for more than 12 hours at a time. Samantha's stance is so strongly felt, that the romantic relationship between her and Watts (who embraced the ONI) is severed.
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​“The Universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine.”
-James Jeans

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​Is the Universe mental or physical? Let’s rephrase the question for ease of argumentation: Is reality informational or mechanistical? Science often makes strides by contradicting what we take for granted, and the biggest thing everyone takes as a given is our physical world. Traditionally, scientific endeavor assumed that matter is all that exists, however, it’s not a scientific fact, it’s just a basic assumption, it should not be regarded as more than a philosophical starting point. Our senses wrap themselves around tangible objects so naturally that it’s hard to believe that our sensory apparatus may be misleading us completely. 

​“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”  ―Erwin Schrödinger

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WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? Consciousness remains scientifically elusive because it constitutes layers upon layers of non-material emergence: Reverse-engineering our thinking should be done in terms of networks, modules, algorithms and second-order emergence – meta-algorithms, or groups of modules. Neuronal circuits correlate to “immaterial” cognitive modules, and these cognitive algorithms, when activated, produce meta-algorithmic conscious awareness and phenomenal experience, all in all at least two layers of emergence on top of “physical” neurons. Furthermore, consciousness represents certain transcendent aspects of projective ontology, according to the now widely accepted Holographic Principle.