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 in the Concert Hall, Linh will know everything that relates to their relationship, and subsequently, any shared Ripples with those others affected by the pair’s interactions.
Love (Complete Information) is not all possible information– that would be the Instrument. Love is the experience of what is real, the truth– one’s unabridged exposure to all their co-created Ripples in the Concert Hall. Power, on the other hand, is not concerned with what is true, but with what is preferred, both their co-created Blocks of the Blockchain, but also, any information, any desirable Block from anywhere– the Marketplace. The Marketplace isn’t just fiction and fantasy, it’s filled with stark truths, tantalizing lies, and beautiful BS. [i] The opposite of truth, of Love, is not strictly a lie, but manipulation– Power.
In life, fiction can be effortless; without barriers, its construction is free to explore whatever one might imagine it to be. Truth, on the other hand, is concrete, often difficult and painful; [ii] with many barriers, its reality is defined by what it is and is not– there are no alternative facts, only reality’s truth. Truth / Love is not merely data, but the precision of information– a scope of data that might never be fully known in a Novel Universe. Instead, our experience of truth is obscured by physics, biology, and ego– the messy flesh-suit that is the human body, active within its environment. Here, understanding another’s experience of us will never be completely accurate, but Love does Its best, while Power, often, could not care less. For Power, what makes a thing desirable is not a thing’s objective truth, but the subjective value of its qualia.
How far does the experience of truth extend in the Hall? With each of Linh’s actions, Ripples proliferate throughout her 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? Yes and no. In the Hall, it eventually becomes a question of interest, intent, and agency.
The potential exercise of freewill alters the initial salience of subsequent Ripples with each individual involved. For instance, early morning one day, Linh gets a text from Felix, her coworker, that he’d heard their mutual friend, Dave, lied about her sexual orientation to her romantic interest, Dave’s boss, Noa. She races over to Dave’s house, bolts through the front door, and without preamble, punches him square in the face, before screaming incoherently and storming off in tears. Whether Dave lied or not, Linh’s experience in the Hall (or Spiral) will be the most salient possible, or relived at the highest level of fidelity. It would be similar to the Corsican Brothers, [iii] 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 nose and knuckles, spark of adrenaline, and thoughts of bewilderment rattling in Dave’s brain.
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, Dave, still feeling angry and betrayed, slaps his brother Sid for ruining breakfast– Sid forgot to put the milk in the fridge the night before. Sid, furious with the unjustified violence, tells his best friend and roommate, Felix, of the incident, but the moment Felix gently reminds him that Dave loves his cereal, and this isn’t the first gallon of milk Sid has spoiled this month, Sid shoves Felix and demands the “traitor” move out immediately.
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 fear over Sid’s obvious overreaction.
With each cause leading to a new effect, the portion of Linh’s ownership for those second, third, forth (and so on) sets of Ripples equally lessens, as each newly involved person has the freewill to either seek justice or forgiveness– 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 exponentially increases, but on the other hand, the salience decreases, eventually becoming mere data, like a massive set of reference material.
Consider these Ripples, passing from one level of contact in a 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 shoving 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? Whatever has nothing to do with her. Complete Information is not all possible data, but instead, all related data. 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, or if the fight involved her in some way. 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 part of that same office, or Dave had told her the story later, Linh would never know of Noa and Dave’s disturbing exchange, as it had nothing to do with her.
What is the function of Power, of silencing Ripples Linh has no desire for? If Complete Information is the truth, is Information Control a lie? Information Control is more than that, it’s manipulation, curation. 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 confusion– 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 simultaneously suffer the experience. Although in the Hall her understanding of others is comprehensive, 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, experimenting with our options, and slowly coming to understand 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 framework’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, this mortal frame of our impending doom, born from a spiritual amnesia of our true nature, 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 formation.
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 of Jasper’s dunk would be more like a virtual reality game with those relevant sense memories included– those similar, sport-based models of movement from her years playing volleyball, like leaping into the air, twisting for better position, and driving her hand towards its goal. 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 and satisfaction 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. The 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 provides additional value, not 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– we build an afterlife on a foundation of kinship, where novelty explodes. It is only through suffering that we might know those poignant moments of forgiveness, reunion, healing, and so much more. It is also in the sharing of our common sufferings that we discover deeper connections with those who know our pain in ways no other can.
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 elsewhere. But there’s a “cost.” To enter the Concert Hall, we first will suffer and rejoice in Complete Information– the true justice and reward of all the Ripples our actions and reactions created on Earth.
What’s the benefit of the framework of Power? Through Information Control, we don’t have to be exposed to anything we don’t want. In this “heaven” there’s no permanent line of communication, and we’re all alone– absolute freedom. But Power is more than just controlling Ripples, It’s forceful consumption 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.