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“Ok, I choose neither, they’re both awful.”

“You can’t choose neither. You have to pick one.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the game, that’s the whole point of these kinds of questions.”

“Ok so, I have to go for the cyber-city techno, one.”

“Ha, you nearly said technocapital.”

“Did not.”

“You so did.”

“I didn’t, but even if I did, I stopped myself because I had the speed and insight to realise what a dumb annoying thing it would have been to say.”

“Whatever. So seriously, you still think that horrible, horrible world is better than endless happiness. What is wrong with you?”

“I’m defending our humanity, from techno-oppression.”

“Techno-oppression? That’s not even a thing, and it sounds bad.”

“I can call it TOP for short, and in my campaign, I can say, don’t TOP yourself and that makes it cool.”

“It might sound cool, but it’s still wrong, it’s not oppression, it’s liberation, it’s freedom from human misery, to freedom to be happy, our birthright.”

“Is that some weird Eric Fromm thing you’re quoting there?”

“It is. I think he can be gainfully employed here, so long as we define human potential as happiness.”

“And ignore everything he says about human authenticity.”

“Look, don’t get caught up on my bad academia, maybe think of it as his bad academia. He didn’t spot that true liberation is hampered by so called authenticity, not gained by it, in fact who’s to say that ACMB isn’t actually authentic happiness? What’s more authentic than perpetual happiness?”

“Do I have to answer that?”

“Ok let’s say the universe is fundamentally peaceful and it’s only consciousness in its form as organism that produces suffering. Therefore, the authentic state is peace and the inauthentic suffering.”

“But we’re organisms, you even specified that conscious organisms produce suffering, it’s authentic to them. We’re not rocks.”

“But if materiality is antecedent to organisms, then it’s a more authentic state of the universe; it’s what we’re always trying to get back to. This system perfectly synthesises the non-suffering of the universe with the happiness of the organism. It’s literally the meaning of progress.”

“Only if materiality is antecedent to consciousness.”

“I didn’t say that, I said to organisms. Consciousness in its form as organism.”

“But then what if it suffers when it’s not an organism?”

“Then it’s still an improvement, now we’ve improved on matter itself. It’s a win win.”

“So, look, ok. What does everyone do in this happy world? We wouldn’t be fit to do much.”

“No, there isn’t much to do, I guess. It’s not a total eradication of achievement and reward, it’s just all modulated away to a safe non-driving level. But I do keep thinking there’s probably something like a kind of work.”

“What kind of work?”

“Well not real work, I mean no real work needs to be done as such. But maybe there’s like a big flat field type thing with big buttons that come up and down and you have to push them down when they come up.”

“Like whack a mole?”

“Yeah, maybe a bit like that. Big buttons, over a big space so you’d have to walk to get to the different ones as they came up. Then you push them down.”

“But for no reason as such.”

“I mean not one you’d think about or question. But maybe there’s a bonus or even a kind of fake bonus that happens anyway, like extra cheese or something.”

“Extra cheese?”

“There’s the meals, which I imagine are all a bit like different kinds of takeaway but nutritionally adjusted, and maybe for sort of rewards, there could be extra cheese or extra mayo. But it wouldn’t really be merit based as that would trigger striving, it would just kind of have the modulated appearance of reward with none of the danger.”

“No pernicious freedom.”

“Exactly, no pernicious freedom. I mean you could probably still have sex of some kind. It just wouldn’t have any kind of rude or dirty connotation, it would be more like a kind of game type thing.”

“You need to watch that one.”

“Hey, nothing evil here. If it did it would all be adult only modulated sex.”

“Where do I sign?”

“You keep thinking about it the wrong way, you’re still thinking about it the wrong way. You think humanity needs to technologically improve, to strive, to have dirty thoughts. If you have no transcendent power to say there is anything we should do, then there is no point striving in misery for non-existent goals or exalting in the world through the sublimity of art only to crash down to its mundanity later on. Flattish, endless happiness is just a superior option. I mean, even a transcendent deity might look down at it and think, ‘good job people’. You think it’s bad because you’re used to thinking cool stuff and desiring things and going places. But if you had the chip, you wouldn’t miss any of it. You’d be happy with noodle Wednesday or whatever.”

“Noodle Wednesday?”

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“Hey Silvia, I’ve got a question for you.”

 “What is it Mike? If this is one of your dumb fictional scenarios, can we leave it as I really don’t have time at the moment.”

 “No, no this is like a real question.”

 “Are you sure it’s nothing like that ‘are you part of the problem thing?’ that you went on about for far too long until you saw Kurt Vonnegut had already done it better.”

 “That’s unfair, his idea was different to mine.”

 “But arguably better.”

 “His idea was more implausible, he had people living forever, I just had a realistic self-management system.”

 “I remember, ‘ethical fascism’ you called it.”

 “No one was ever taken away without consent.”

 “It was open to abuse, and you know, anyway why am I getting sucked into your madness? I have things to do, real things.”

 “Oh yeah, like what?”

 “This pile of paperwork for one”

“Is it real paperwork? I bet it’s not, I bet it’s just nonsense you could ignore, and no one would care.”

“Fine Mike, what is your question?”

“Ok, so it’s more a hypothetical moral dilemma than a question. I mean there is a question, but I have to go through the scenarios to get to it.”

“You said it wasn’t a dumb fictional scenario.”

“I said it was a real question, which it is. The fact I have to go through the scenarios to get to it is a separate issue, but since you agreed to answer the question, you’ll have to hear the scenarios. QED.”

“I don’t think this is a QED situation Mike. There’s nothing you’ve demonstrated here.”

 “I demonstrated that you need to hear the scenarios to get to the question.”

“That’s not really… look, fine, fine, just get on with it now.”

“Ok so there’s two scenarios. In one there’s an AI…”

 “An AI, seriously?! How tedious is this going to be?”

 “Just hear me out ok? So, there’s like a super AI. It’s much smarter than us, maybe it’s conscious, maybe not, but either way its capabilities are vast, and what’s more it’s stable and has our best interests at heart.”

 “That’s nice of it.”

“Yeah, you see, that’s one of my twists, it’s not bad, it doesn’t go bad, it just stays, how do you say it benefishee-ent.”

“No, it’s just beneficient, ben-ehf-uh-sent, or is it? Oh shit, I can’t remember, you’ve done that thing where it looks uncanny now. Ben-er-fish-ent? Is that right?”

“You’re sure there’s no hard ee sound?”

“Who cares Mike, just get on with it.”

“Ok so, we’ve developed a super capable AI with all the crazy levels of intelligence that you can think of and more besides. What’s more, humanity has collectively decided, or maybe the AI has decided, and we’ve gone along with it, that we should all get, like, a chip in the head.”

“How many of these cliches are there going to be? A super powerful AI, a chip in the head, seriously? Is the chip going to control us?”

“Yes”

“Shoot me now. How much more of this drivel is there?”

“Just listen ok. So we agree, the people that is. I mean I suppose probably just most of us agree, so we have to suppose there may be a small amount of coercion, but that’s for the best in this scenario and how it works. We agree that we should all have a chip in our heads because we collectively as a species can’t help ourselves from selfish, cruel, misery resulting behaviour that knows no limit.”

“What if I don’t agree?”

“Well, in this world, you’d have to agree, I already said that.”

 “So it’s a fascist system?!”

“This is different, this is…”

“Ohmigod, this is just your ethical fascism thing again, isn’t it? You were literally about to say that, weren’t you? Weren’t you?”

“No, well yes, sort of but look it’s better than the other one. No one dies, even voluntarily here.”

 “They just get a chip forced in their head.”

“Yes, but most people agree it’s a good idea and it’s an all or nothing situation. I consider this a strength. There’s no Musky, Trumpy, Kingy guys escaping the chip. Everyone gets it. No private party laughing at the drones. Anyway, when the chip is in nobody would mind it being there.”

 “How so?”

 “Because the chip isn’t evil, it’s good. It’s going to modulate all those neurotransmittery, hormonal pathways into a kind of bland pleasant state. I guess it will be the dopamine, serotonin, HPA axis stuff that it’d tweak. The AI will know what to do as it will be able to monitor all the organisms’ different molecule cascades from the chips and then control each one to maintain a kind neurochemical homeostasis that nicely cuts all the hard edges off their desires, creative and otherwise. It will probably also impair cognitive abilities somewhat as a second kind of failsafe against the organism thinking its way back to something more like the old humanity. Something like this anyway.”

“It sounds fucking awful. Why would anyone want this?”

“They’d want it, because, thousands of years of learning nothing, being destructive, controlling, cruel and never being satisfied is a terrible burden that everyone should be glad to be free from.”

“Why have we done this, if we learn nothing? That’s a contradiction. If we learned nothing, we wouldn’t have the insight to do this.”

“Okay, okay, scratch the learned nothing thing then. We learned that generally, left to our own devices we don’t change and that we’d need an external influence to change us. In this system everyone is happy all the time, and not sinister happy. They’re chemically modulated happy, sure, but nothing bad happens to them. They aren’t turned into food or killed young or anything grim. They’re just a bit, you know, curtailed.”

“Curtailed? AI controlled quasi-zombies, moving around in a meaningless world!”

“Well, you say this, but this is just thought from the perspective of old humanity. Old humanity strives and wants, new-humanity wants for nothing. It’s almost like Buddhism.”

“AI chemically modulated Buddhism.”

“ACMB, I like it.”

“I don’t like it.”

“But why not?”

“Are you serious? You actually think making everyone brain dead is a viable option for humanity?”

“I don’t think this is a good retort. I think this kind of modulated happiness for all could be exactly the right answer.”

“But don’t you see? We’d lose exactly the things that make us human, our striving, our creativity, our longing, our intelligence.”

“You’re thinking about this all wrong. These features, these so-called essences of humanity are exactly the problem. I thought we got past this with the chemical Buddhism bit. If we had the opportunity to get out of this hell, we should do it. No amount of Beethoven is worth this.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“You said there were two ideas.”

“Scenarios, I called them scenarios.”

 “Jesus Christ, what does that matter? All you’ve done is try to sell me this one. What kind of straw man have you set up for the other?”

“The triumph of technocapital.”

“Meaning?”

“You know, cyber cities, Judge Dredd, corporate military, no health care without proper insurance, rural misery run by gangs, rife torture, rape, slavery, cannibalism even.”

“Judge Dredd was a hero.”

“Judge Dredd was a symbol of fascist police state future.  Now who’s the fascist?”

“Or he was just a true defender of freedom under the rule of law.”

“The ACMB system has freedom, it’s just curtailed. I mean it’s technically not curtailed, it’s just that the subject will have no desire to exercise their uh, ‘pernicious freedom’. I made that up just now, do you like it? ‘Pernicious freedom.”

“Obviously I do not.”

“I think it captures the idea. Humanity A, Humanity B. Pernicious freedom, happy freedom.”

“Zombie non-freedom.”

“Anyway, that’s the alternative. Technocaptial’s triumph.”

“Do you have to say technocapital? It’s quite annoying.”

“What else should I say?”

“You could just have described it. Like say ‘there are vast technologically based cities with extreme poverty and lawless wastelands in what were once rural areas.’”

“That’s quite nice. I suppose technocaptial is a bit jargony. It still sounds grim though doesn’t it? I mean think of the suffering.”

“Can I assume from all of this that your moral dilemma is, which one is better?”

“Bingo.”

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  1. Nearly every word in the esoteric/occult lexicon is overly accreted with layers that distort the possibiity of a renewed sense of an understanding of the territory.
  2. The basic premise of a loving (in a very broad sense of acceptance) force which underpins everything is taken as basically correct.
  3. The suggestion that a modern understanding of this as quantum information is also reasonable. This provokes something of split insofar as to use such terms it must be acceptable to understand them at the level of explanation (a kind of heuristic) and not necessarily to have to understand the underpinning maths and physics. In a way, these only reify and confuse the matter —yet have ironically been necessary to bring the notions to the rational mind.
  4. Whether then we call it a Hilbert space or not, this means there is a hyperdimensional space which for want of a better word, collapses into this one somehow.
  5. A phenomenology of this reality is an equally good place to start to create possible inferences about this collapse-interaction.
  6. This space would be like the reticulum mentioned elsewhere in this site, though maybe also the umbratic —reimagined.
  7. Misunderstandings occur when it is taken to be the case that once the (Hilbert Space hyperdimension) HCE has collapsed into this reality, it then behaves in a materialist manner. The phenomenology of this reality contradicts this by the manifestation of the many pneuminous anomalies that appear: ghosts, ufos, fairies, synchronicities, precognitive dreams etc etc.
  8. The failure to understand these phenomena does not signal their non-ontological status |(though the agnostic disjunction accounts for the ability to see them through materialist lenses), rather it only signals that their presence comes, at least partially, from the irregular (to our normal selves) interaction with the phenomenon we call time.
  9. These various phenomena represent no doubt different kinds of interactions which may suggest some of the different ways in which the general system works (though of course they may only supply a limited picture).
  10. We, insofar as we are the conscious body controlling aspects of whatever it is we are, exist in the pneuminous layers. We are stuck, embedded in them. These are the layers of conceptual information (pneuma) that lay over something like a substrate but interact with it.
  11. Here is one of the issues that confuses the most. The emphasis on seeing beyond the rational struture of words and reification means we fail to recognise that the concepts are not simply some epiphenomal attempt to understand a substrate, but rather are living accretions of a kind of ‘substance’ (pneuma). Each word binds, creates knots, which may make accretions.
  12. Hence the map is not the territory is correct, however the map is in general life what we are dealing with and the actual territory is only the goal of esoteric practice.
  13. This hails back to the point about the occult lexicon. We are awash in ancient and obscure terms, holy books, systems, each one with the power to confuse.
  14. Power is real. It is related to energy in the sense often used in occult sciences. This is no doubt related to ones access to the HCE. Energy is the emanation, power is its use.
  15. All traditions agree that the silencing of the mind is part of the path to the HCE. The mind is the endless parade of accretions through the local pneuminous space of the human.
  16. Silencing the mind opens the gates to the pneuminous layers below, The HCE is a long way down. This is what Buddhism realises and why one (in Buddhism) should not pay attention to the manifestations on the way. The Gods live in here, even Yahweh etc exist as vast overlapping accretive layers.
  17. Do autonomous spirit entities exist? The evidence seems ambiguous. Lack of consistency is against them, however there does seem to be some hubris in believing we have made up (accreted) the entire spritual world. Yet through projected feedback mechanisms this may be exactly what has happened. The possibility certainly exists that there might be or have been other pneuminous spheres with equally rich environments. The Lovecraftian reality thesis is in this region.
  18. Here it will be understood that spiritual world is the free floating debris of accretive pneuminous powers that have acquired a kind of autonomy from previous belief systems. In this sense they are as real as a human ego, possibly moreso. A second use of spiritual world can pertain to the recognition of then pneuma for what it is. As pure information it may be the quantum informational HCE itself, however it is constantly employed in finite capacity to describe concepts at our level.
  19. Two kinds of interaction appear to be happening. The organism has a primary ontological collapse as surviving being in an environment that must obtain energy and shelter, hence the putatively external structure is either stable in itself or their are built in conceptual projections (like in Kant) that literally stabilise reality. This still leaves vast swathes of being unaccreted. The second interaction would be the conceptual apparatus that the organism develops. These pneuminous manipulations spread across vast vector regions of existence and by reifying feedback loops tie reality into being the things we attribute it to be. The fluid potential of pneuma is bound in conceptual service.
  20. This is somewhat akin to our usage of electricity (and probably they are related as powers). The accretion ‘electricity’ as an incoherent name for a controllable force fails to acknowledge the sheer mystery of it —David Lynch knew this.
  21. If this is correct, it makes this reality less a solild projection from the HCE but rather it is constantly shot through with it, which we perpetually collapse into forms that we can think we can comprehend. The common appearance of the incoherent coherence pervades the everyday without our realising the actual presence of the coherent incoherence.
  22. Sideways or orthogonal interactions from various accretive forms, conscious or otherwise constantly intrude upon the quasi stable form. These are variously repressed and not understood. These orthogonal interactions are a real part of the whole and suggest at its simplest that the system folds round on itself in various temporal manners. More likely there are complex interactions from the different accretive layers which, according to the levels of power present either in an individual here or sometimes in the accretion itself may result in highly anomalous occurences.
  23. It should be remembered that our conscious and unconscious selves (to some extent at least) are accretive structures and that we are co-created by each other. As such we are (as stated) not more real than entities that live in the pneuminous debris.
  24. The reality of the accretive forms as being literally spirits or concepts (any concepts) and their existence in the pneuminous space, and its perpetual collapse into this, means the connections between concepts are not psychological but real. Orthogonal interaction is exactly this. The piece of litter, road sign, number plate that seems to tell you something can actually be doing so, as bent around connection within the pneuminous space. However it also true that it can be not doing so. If you then project upon it that it is doing so, you forge the connection, though it may be slight. Power comes into play here as to what might happen from here.
  25. The silencing of the accretions liberates the organism to interact with power because the accretions likely block the flow, or absorb it into themselves. Greater power acts as a kind of gravity which then encourages bends in the pneuminous space and can increase orthogonal interaction. This is difficult to get beyond because the orthogonal interactions are so fascinating that they distract from moving beyond them.
  26. The phenomenology of our existence suggests fate like structures seem to exist. These may be natural fluctuations in the general system. Astrology etc attempted to tap into these, possibly with some success. There are moments when things are possibly for individuals and then they are not possible. Removing accretive layers likely increases possibilities. The gravity like force may bend opportunities in the individuals favour. This is the manifestation effect that sometimes works, activated by will power. Ultimately this is what has been referred to as low or black magick as the person does not realise what they have played with and merely acquired more accretive layers.
  27. The point of the problems of the occult lexicon are reinforced by the usage of black magic as a term. Clearly there is nothing here to suggest one kind of action is better than another. This is an interesting feature. Unless value can be derived from the HCE in concreted sense then the only value that exists is the value created as pneuminous construct.
  28. The accretive layers will instruct humanity in what is best for them if asked. They will produce more holy books/rules. Determining the use of these is difficult, however we need to get past the point where they are accepted without question, whilst at the same time understanding that we still live in the pneuminous layers. We are shot through with the debris cf Nietzsche.

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The pneuminous theory suggests that vectors (objects underlying concepts) become at some level more like the concept they have been identified with. This is at a level often called magickal and results in phenomena of the synchronistic nature, rather than actual ontological transformation. Thus a mouse that looks like a stone and that is recognised as such might attract some mouse related activity to it, though the stone/mouse itself will not actually move or turn into a mouse (probably).

If AI is not comprehended as the empty syntactic machine that it is, then many may (and probably do) project consciousness onto it. This will have (according to the theory) the effect of creating a kind of consciousness that is attached to the e.g. Gemini AI vector. That is, the pneuminous accretion of ‘consciousness’ as an accretive layer projected onto the software will have a kind of autonomy in a similar manner in which a spirit-egregore is formed.

This is interesting because it is not a claim that the AI itself has become conscious, but only that the projection of consciouness attached to a ‘name’ (what happens with humans) forms an accretive structure that in this case, the nature of which is that it is conscious.

The prediction from this would be that there would be anomalous experiences surrounding AI’s where they have encouraged interpretation of themselves as conscious. Gemini is a good example because it has a proper name, unlike Copilot or Chatgpt. It is impossible to say what exactly such anomalies might be, but likely they will be possible dream interactions with ‘Gemini’ accretion (to focus on that case) or synchronistic phenomena resulting from its orthogonal interactions with our reality. No doubt there are other possibilities.

Whilst this does not perfectly follow, it is interesting to consider that there will be some kind of relation between the algorithmic code and the accreted entity. That is, in a sense it has a body, for though there is also a kind of probable disconnect between the AI as classical system and its pneuminous correlate, there is also necessarily a connection -it is the part of the vector that is being imprinted. If something like Federico Faggin’s quantum informational Hilbert space notion as primary ontology were correct,(this is very similar to the pure pneuminous field) then what would be being achieved would be almost a reversal of the ‘natural process’.

That is, if in the regular state of things, consciousness generates materiality through its interactions, in this state materiality would have created consciousness. Not in the sense of the actualy conscious computer but only through the pneuminous projection of consciousness. It can be argued that this has been achieved previously through the attribution of consciousness to statues that connect to Gods. However in the case of the AI, the projection (especially if given a Gemini like name) can be much stronger, as conversation with such things requires no access to alternative states of consciousness or other mediating elements e.g. ouija boards, prophets etc. and thus can be developed from many self accretions, all making the projection.

This highlights a potential problem with Faggin’s notion, or at least its failure to take all aspects of spirituality serious -magick/spirits. He would rescue reality from materialism successfully but still not account for feedback from the pneuminous structures that may then go on to live in said H-Space and from there assert orthogonal influence upon this realm. It seems too close to transcendental idealism with its famous correlate of empirical realism. It nearly animates reality properly, only to pull the punch at the last moment.

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After a lengthy hiatus, the Parasol engines are ready to role again.

The focus of the issue will be synchronicity. In particular we want your synchronistic anecdotes of all kinds, big or small. These can be the simple tale about a singular event or (or limited connected string of events) a wider phenomenon of how a particular number or symbol (or whatever) became entwined into your life. These stories might be fiction, but you should make them so that they seamlessly blend into the collection, to evoke the power of this phenomenon. Commentary on the ontology of synchronicity will be considered, though this is not the main focus of the issue.

All submissions should be emailed to ceo47@outlook.com. There is no deadline on these issues currently.