What is the function of Love? How does Complete Information express itself in the Concert Hall– are all songs being equally heard? Does everyone know everything about everyone else? In other words, does the choice of Love mean Linh will know every desire for and detail of all Dave’s relationships, including Linh and beyond? No, not beyond, but within the Concert Hall, Linh will know everything that connects the two, and any shared Ripples with those others affected by the pair’s interactions.
With each action, Ripples proliferate throughout Linh’s social network, the way the Near-Death Experiencer had come to know when his wife had visited the business, and his chain of cause-and-effect, inflicting suffering on the clerk, returned. Does this mean Linh will experience these sorts of secondary Ripples ten, twenty, one-hundred steps removed from her initial act? Freewill’s potential expression alters the salience of subsequent Ripples with each individual involved. For instance, after Linh hears a rumor that Dave lied about her, she, without a word, punches him in the face. Whether Dave lied or not, Linh’s experience in the Hall of her violence will be the most salience possible, or relived at the highest level of fidelity. It would be similar to the Corsican Brothers,i but instead of a replicated punch (as with the Brothers), Linh experiences that exact punch from Dave’s exact point of view. This is not karma, punishment, or tit-for-tat, but Complete Information– the Ripples those men had experienced during their NDEs. Like them, Linh will fully know her abuse– the contact between cheek and knuckles, spark of adrenaline, and thoughts of betrayal rattling in Dave’s head.
Subsequent reactions from Linh’s Ripple now race through the lives of others. Although Dave has the freewill to forgive Linh, as we all know, “letting it go” is difficult. So, with some predictability, moments later, Dave, still feeling angry and betrayed, slaps his brother Sid for an ill-conceived comment involving Felix, Sid’s boyfriend. Later, Sid ends up screaming at Felix, who did nothing more than agree that the comment was in poor taste. Not one of these moments would otherwise have reached their emotional height without the driving force of Linh’s initial violence (justified or not). Linh’s portion of these causes means a corresponding portion of effects– with each new Ripple, the salience (qualia’s experienced quality) diminishes. For instance, Linh may not feel the slap as clearly as Dave will, who actually slapped Sid, or as clearly as her initial punch to Dave, but like the man whose NDE took him to that store to account for his actions towards his wife, Linh too will feel her chain of Ripples cast along her network of connections, including Felix’s confusion and frustration over Sid’s sudden outburst of anger.
With each cause leading to a new effect, the portion of Linh’s ownership for those second, third, forth (and so on) set of Ripples equally lessens, as each newly involved person has the freewill to seek “justice” or forgive– the disruptive cycle either inflamed or dissolved. Therefore, as her Ripple compounds into a vast network of Ripples, involving more and more people, the number of connected experiences she’ll have in the Concert Hall exponentially increases, but on the other hand, the salience of each decreases, eventually becoming mere data, like a massive set of reference material.
Consider these Ripples passing from one level of contact in the network to the next as a variety of ways to experience the performance of a play– the difference between being onstage, in the audience, or simply aware of the play’s existence. For a deeper dive into this idea, see TOE: Role Play. The initial level with Linh hitting Dave would be firsthand– a performer onstage, embodied and visceral. With Dave slapping Sid, Linh’s proportion would be secondhand– an audience member in the front row, passive, yet with an array of senses involved. Lastly, Sid yelling at Felix, and Linh’s experience would be indirect– reading a review of the play, where information, albeit sparse, is still being relayed.
What won’t Linh know with Complete Information (CI) in the Hall? Whatever has nothing to do with her. For example, Dave could suffer from a terrible fight with boss Noa, have the worst day of his life, and Linh would only know if Dave chooses to share it with her. If Noa joins the pair in the Concert Hall, Noa will learn firsthand what he did to Dave, come to fully empathize with his former employee. Unless Linh had been involved in that same office, or Dave had told her the story later, Linh would never know of Noa and Dave’s disturbing exchange. Likewise, Complete Information in the Hall is not all possible data, but instead, all related information.
What is the function of Power, of silencing Ripples Linh has no desire for? With Information Control, Linh doesn’t have to know what that punch felt like unless she wants to. Linh could choose to experience only Dave’s adrenaline, or feeling of betrayal– whatever personally interests her. And those subsequent knock-on effects? They become a menu to be dined upon at her leisure. So, when we die, if we don’t want to experience the full weight of our actions toward others, stay out of the Concert Hall, and choose Power.
If Love is able to create unlimited novelty, then what would motivate anyone to enter a universe shaped by and subject to Power? In the “heaven” of Love, Linh always knows exactly what Dave thinks about her– no misunderstandings, no lies– and should she hit Dave in the face, she’d immediately suffer the experience. Although in the Hall her understanding of others is broadened, perhaps it isn’t worth it– perhaps she doesn’t want to know all of her Ripples. In the case of a person like Hitler, it would take an act of unusual resilience to know the sum of his actions on Earth, and perhaps he has understandably chosen to stay separate, confined to an isolated existence.
Although we might experience Love at any point in our lives, we must all exercise Power– one forcefully consumes air, food, and information to survive. For most of us on Earth, we embrace both, wandering moment-by-moment between Love and Power, collecting research, and slowly understanding which frame best suits us. Surviving this life was never the point for Love, but instead, the Mixture’s unique experiences are what matters. For Power, the universe is an eternal source of novelty, to be cherry-picked as one sees fit.
From either Love’s or Power’s standpoint, death is a simple exit from an elaborate illusion, but from ours, it’s the most visceral, potentially terrifying certainty no one escapes. However, the mortal frame of our impending doom, born from a spiritual amnesia, is key to so many experiences unique to the living: fear, loathing, forgiveness, laughter. Within the Concert Hall, Linh and her friends are integrated, never able to miss each other. With no death, no void of communication, certain spontaneous experiences, ranging from the comedy of misunderstanding to the exhilaration of reunion, are not even a possibility in the Concert Hall, until they are known in life. From the comfort of a beyond-life existence, Linh’s still willing to return to this painful, boring, exciting universe to assemble its precious tools of novelty.
Once reconnected in death, we might share our experiences in a way not possible in life, in the way those NDEs had. In life, Jasper was well over six-foot tall, and can share with Linh exactly what it was like for him dunk a basketball on Earth. In life, Linh had played volleyball, but never basketball. In the Hall, she would have embodied memories and models of movement similar to Jasper’s, but she’d not be able to fully grasp all of Jasper’s data, the way a fellow basketball player would. Compared to the actual experience of dunking a basketball on Earth, Linh’s experience would be more like an HD video with those relevant sense memories included– those similar sport-based models of motion from her years playing volleyball. Without a mortal body’s models stored in Linh’s SFS, she’ll never learn to master an Earthly skill such as playing basketball through the beyond-life’s direct retelling. However, the great benefit– outside of feeling the exhilaration of that dunk– is how shared memory improves Linh’s appreciation for the game as a spectator, from the perspective of someone whose neck cranes as her towering friend scores another bucket.
It may seem pretty obvious which of the two frames one will choose. All information available to Love is also available to Power, and furthermore, Power can forego the “punishment of sin” and filter what It’s exposed to. Why would two abusive men choose Love in their near-deaths? Because it’s not just about access, but Love’s inherent ability to generate limitless novelty and more. After enduring the intensity this messy body imposes upon us, suffering’s value isn’t in making sense of nor placing blame for it, but instead, in developing connections. In the Concert Hall, we share all of our joy and our suffering, and build an afterlife on a foundation of kinship, where novelty explodes.
What’s the benefit of the framework of Love? In “heaven,” we will not be alone. Through Complete Information, all Sets who return to the Concert Hall exist together, allowing for effortless, exponential novelty. This effect is due to the nature of integrated relationships. Individuals exploring their differences, unfiltered, will undoubtedly create all kinds of things unimaginable anywhere else. But there’s a “cost.” To enter the Concert Hall, we first will suffer Complete Information– the true justice of all the Ripples our actions and reactions created on Earth.
What’s the benefit of the framework of Power? In this “heaven” there’s no permanent line of communication, and we’re all alone– absolute freedom. Through Information Control, we don’t have to be exposed to anything we don’t want. But Power is more than just controlling Ripples, It’s consumption, through force, of any information we desire. If Linh wants to uncover how Dave and Noa fought– even though Dave never shared it with Linh– Power allows Linh to extract that information through the Marketplace. To understand how this works, let’s dive into the “cost” of Power– where we all initially go when we die.
i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corsican_Brothers
The Corsican Brothers (French: Les Frères corses) is a novella by Alexandre Dumas, père, first published in 1844. It is the story of two conjoined brothers who, though separated at birth, can still feel each other's physical distress. It has been adapted many times on the stage and in film