The infinite dream machine
The infinite dream machine
Navigating the infinite
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Navigating the infinite

Diving into the abyss

As a species, we gained enormous power in an extremely short period of time. We moved from being vulnerable to the elements and predators to creating tools and shaping our environments to fit our needs.

Entire species and ecosystems died out due to the changes we’d made; others adapted and became dependent on us for their survival.

We mostly didn’t understand the repercussions of our actions; the world is a complicated place, carefully calibrated over billions of years. What did we think would happen if we just started twisting nobs without a proper understanding of what each of them did?

Even when we understood the harms we were causing, we had these maligned power structures that incentivised everyone to act in their self-interest. Many people just wanted to win at this intersubjective game that we’d created out of logical constructs compounding on top of one another.

We prioritised the now over the futures we were leaving for ourselves and the generations that would come after us.

It got so bad that the planet became unstable; The resources we needed for our survival became scarce, and the weather conditions were erratic.

We’d used up the majority of our resources building technology that the planet was nothing more than a shell of what it once was.

It was time for us to leave…

Artificial Earth

We scrambled to build an artificial earth, an ark for humanity, a haven to protect us from its unsafe conditions.

There wasn’t enough time or resources to bring everyone; mainly, the people who survived had accumulated enough wealth to be granted passage, or they’d contributed to the advancement of society in some monumental way.

It was the largest massacre in human history - our population dwindled to a fragment of what it once was; many people were separated from their families.

Over time we expanded; we sucked the life force out of surrounding asteroids and planets; we had come to an age of abundance.

This wasn’t without problems; however, people have a tendency to enforce artificial scarcity to maintain power over others. We had an abundance of resources, although there were still many people going without.

Our financial systems & intersubjective beliefs were limiting us as a society and reducing the wellbeing of our population in favour of the few.

The infinite ghost town

We spent a great deal of time and resources exploring the cosmos and building faceless monuments to humanity. The more time we spent exploring, the more alone we felt; it seemed like an infinite ghost town.

We began to realise that there wasn’t much point in continuing to waste our resources exploring physical space. We created portals to a realm made of pure logic. It began as mild forms of interaction but eventually led to the deconstruction of our physical identities and the reconstruction of the self in the logical realm.

Not everyone decided to go through with it - we didn’t fully understand where consciousness arose from; we didn’t know the cost of this process. Were we creating true copies of ourselves? Were the recreations conscious? Did it feel the same to be that version of ourselves as our physical selves?

There was considerable pressure to digitise yourself; if you didn’t, you were isolated from the rest of society. We set up communications channels between the physical realm and the digital, but it became increasingly difficult to relate to one another in the different realms; Our experiences were too different.

Splintered reality

The physical realm had a sense of power over the digital realm; the events that occurred in the physical had a way to propagate themselves into the digital. The laws of physics sometimes caused data to mutate or errors to occur.

The processing speed of the realms dictated how fast time was experienced for those living in it. If more iterations occurred at a faster rate, people would experience time quicker; if a space were shut down for a day, people wouldn’t even realise it.

People had an enormous amount of control of their environments within the logical realm.

We created all manners of reality; alternate versions of physics, altered identities, cloned identities, time travel, infinite parallel versions of ourselves experiencing every possible mutation of reality.

People often experienced reality for a while and then when they were bored of it they’d move somewhere else; they’d invent entirely new universes at a whim like changing the channel on a television set.

I can’t recall how many countless realities I’ve experienced; I don’t know if it really matters either, but I’m beginning to feel a sense of boredom.

I’d like to start a new life; one without the memories of all the lives I’ve encountered before; without all the loss; without all the freedoms.

As I ready myself to shed aspects of my identity and dive deeper into realities infinite pool - I ponder how many iterations have occurred before me?

What stacked layers of abstraction are the foundations of my reality?

Were all of the hardships and suffering throughout history merely knock-on effects of realities we conjured? Were they intentional decisions?

In which ways can this reality reach into the heavens and change its foundations?

What infinite layers of abstraction lay ahead of us?

The infinite dream machine
The infinite dream machine
I build social platforms and analysis tools with a focus on fostering healthy relationships and communities.
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Silicon Jungle