It Occurred to me...

A Conspiracy of Firewalls

I smell a Conspiracy—A Conspiracy of Firewalls. (an excerpt from Book II)

I have Questions.

Elon Musk provocatively once suggested that humanity might merely be a "bootloader" for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

So, what if humans are just someone else’s biological wet-tech? Our organic essence, a crude scale of consciousness, a replicant “Form” (Plato) facilitating a progression through the ages…Bronze, Iron, Enlightenment, Atomic, Digital, and so on.

I have Questions.

Might such a concept reveal an insidious conspiracy of firewalls, filters, and veils? A glass darkly, deliberately placed to obscure our comprehensions and perceptions—whether imposed by our own societal, cultural, biological constructs or by higher Non-Human Intelligences (NHI), or as Whitley Strieber refers to them as…well, THEM.

I have Questions. 

Consider then… might we be unwitting subjects in someone’s grand experiment? Much like rats in a maze who have no awareness of the higher-dimensional reasons for their challenges, we too, are largely oblivious to the ultimate intentions of our creator(s). Our limited consciousness won’t let us fathom the full scope of the ultimate ends of this grand simulation because we are confined to its parameters—our senses and perceptions limited, deliberately shaped to fit the needs of the experiment.

Or perhaps, like the robots in Hod Libson’s Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University, we are also “born” in “Babble Mode” and, through simulations, become aware of our surroundings and capabilities as our consciousness grows.

A thought that might lead us to some unsettling possibilities. (see video below)

Hod Libson's robots born in "Babble Mode"

I have Questions.

Might our lives and even the very scaffolding of what we call “Our Universe” be nothing more than an elaborate simulation within a grand design whose purposes are unfathomable given our current level of perception? Orchestrated by entities possessing a much higher level of—not just intelligence—but consciousness.

I have Questions.

Back in 2014, Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom, in his book "Superintelligence," presented a trilemma that considers the likelihood that our existence may be nothing more than a grand simulation. Bostrom's argument suggests the profound notion that one of these positions must most likely be true. I hope he and my readers will forgive my extensive paraphrasing here:

First Scenario: At no point since the beginning of time has any civilization ever evolved into an advanced "posthuman" stage—where it had reached the technological capability to create ultra-high fidelity realistic simulations of its ancestral past. For example, these beings would have had to develop a technology so advanced as to be able to recreate perfectly, precisely down to the particle, historical events and experiences, as if they have traveled back through time and were re-enacting them again fresh and new. This is so extremely unlikely as to be nonexistent. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Second Scenario: Next, at least one civilization did reach this extraordinary level of advanced capability, but the likelihood that they would choose to simulate any of their history or epoch events for any reason, scientific, entertainment, or otherwise, is so extremely unlikely, as to be nonexistent. In this example, this civilization is so advanced that simulating the past is as unappealing to them as watching paint dry. Been there. Done that. Got the tee shirt. Thank you, no. Ba-bye. 

Third Scenario: At least one advanced civilization did reach a posthuman stage capable of creating these extreme ultra-high-fidelity ancestor simulations, replicating even atomic particles to the exact desired referenced place and time. Creating and running these simulations for them is easily within their capabilities and ongoing. In fact, they find it positively useful and appealing for more reasons than our small minds can contemplate. In this scenario consequently, it's highly probable that most beings—us—as well as any other non-human intelligences, are living in a super-ultra simulation rather than in any original baseline reality. It’s like discovering you are actually Jim Carry in The Truman Show, and you are Truman. But tragically, so is everyone else. Think video game NPCs, Matrix Agents, Angels, Demons, etc.—you get the point. 

I have Questions.

This philosophical contemplation might parallel the next evolutionary phase of our current technology as we teeter on the brink of developing our very own AGI and then in the blink of an eye, move to Super AGI Intelligence. Perhaps the fears we have about "runaway" AGI mirror the concerns of whatever NHIs have regarding us, their clamoring creations? Could it be that these NHIs have intentionally placed both physical and cognitive obstructions (mind, body, physics… Nexus-6 of Blade Runner) to curtail our capacity to perceive the true nature of the greater reality? Besides the famous film tropes of The Matrix and Blade Runner, this premise also draws another fictional parallel to the advanced species, the Trisolarans in Liu Cixin’s book "The Three-Body Problem," who send Sophons to Earth. In the book and follow-up TV service, these conscious subatomic particles disrupt and confound all scientific progress (“Physics is broken”) in an attempt to mire all of humanity into total technological stagnation.

I have Questions.

Might we be mere components in a grand simulation, approaching ‘their' Singularity? If so, then the paths before us are laden with profound, disquieting implications and monumental choices—well, hopefully choices… as a best-case scenario. Can we ever surmount the technological and cognitive barriers and firewalls that may have been meticulously placed—engineered into our bodies and minds meant solely to constrain us? Might this revelation radically redefine our understanding of our identity and purpose? So, are we standing at a crossroads?

I have Questions.

Plato’s Allegory of The Cave comes to mind. So, who is it that holds the shadow puppets in front of the flames that reflect our only misunderstanding of the real world around us and our existence in it? The Gnostic would attribute it to the Archons and Demiurge; the ancient Greeks, to Zeus and his Pantheon; the followers of Abrahamic religions, to God and His Angels; and in Hinduism, to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Beyond this, it gets a bit more complicated. 

A possibility might exist that discovering our existence as mere simulations could unify theological traditions in that ancient texts and beliefs might need to be reinterpreted in light of a newly accepted 'simulated' reality… Ah, yeah, probably, no. I don’t think so, either. 

So, if not via any of the above and their elaborate mechanism for salvation and reconciliation—might we ever peaceably integrate or share with what might be these “other” advanced simulator-making intelligences? Like Truman in The Truman Show or Blade Runner’s Nexus-6 Roy Batty, will we ever boldly confront our maker and possibly liberate ourselves from their control? Or might they just pull the plug—as we’ve suggested we might do with AGI, should it surpass our ability to control it? If this is beginning to sound like it’s weaving itself all back around like a nest of ouroboros, then you see why… 

I have Questions.

Could a new foundational understanding of who we are and where we came from catalyze a philosophical and spiritual renaissance—or create a profound existential crisis and despair, having discovered we are simply artificial constructs of higher intelligence(s) and not the gods of our fathers? Might this not leave us questioning the significance and authenticity of our existence? How would we reconcile the idea that our lives and all of our choices are nothing more valuable than the direction a rat takes in a maze? Free will be damned? 

I have Questions.

Is our search for meaning just an intellectual emergence deliberately built into the wet-ware source code? Or might it be an evolutionary awakening of consciousness—a quest for understanding of the very essence of our being and our purpose within an orchestrated cosmos? Is this a bridge too far for our makers—or an invitation long waiting to be fulfilled?

As we contemplate our role in this cosmic schema, the existential queries surrounding free will, consciousness, and predestination move to the forefront. Do we have a role to play in a larger cosmic function? Or are we rats in a maze awaiting our next great filter for the purpose of the experimenter's tests? Puppets or playthings enacting a story written by higher powers, the likes of which are the gods of The Iliad and The Odyssey. 

I have Questions.

This notion of a "Conspiracy of Firewalls" depicts the systemic imposition of barriers that regulate what we can perceive and how we are able to understand our world. Each layer, from tribal to societal constructs or metaphysical barriers, acts as a filter, a gatekeeper of knowledge and unique-perspective comprehension. Like the old philosophical allegory, "It’s turtles all the way down," we find ourselves questioning the foundations upon which our perceived realities are constructed—each answer leading to further questions, each revelation uncovering deeper mysteries. Nonetheless, turtles. 

As we extricate these layers, we become engaged in a loftier dialogue, not just about the nature of our reality but also about the potential of understanding our limitations—perhaps intentionally and carefully managed.

This journey is not solely about discovering what lies beyond the next collider impact but also about discovering what lies beneath the purpose of the plan. 

I have Questions.