The Spiral and the Marketplace
From the outside, one can “read” someone’s body language and get some idea of what’s going on, but deciphering the truth of another’s intent will always be flawed. Complete Information and Information Control are only accessible beyond the physical body in a connected afterlife (Concert Hall, Spiral, or Marketplace) where all that exists is data.
Before the “tunnel of light,” Near-Death Experiencers commonly report a void. Some feel an overwhelming love, while others perceive hellish terrors, but it is always an experience devoid of any actual connection to another. So, where is this first, disconnected place that we all go? Our Spiral– a universe of our own making, where we whirlpool into ourselves, and disappear from everyone and everything.
Unless or until we pick our “heaven” (travel this “tunnel of light” to the Concert Hall or Marketplace), we can remain in our Spiral for as long as we wish. There’s no higher power imprisoning us; we are our own Prime Mover of reality, and may fill it with our history, preferences, and imagination. But that’s the catch. The cost of Power is that this universe is our dream, and our dream alone.
If Linh chooses Power and Dave chooses Love, then when Linh sees the specter of Dave in her Spiral, he’s no more real for Linh than a cat in a video is physically inside her device. What she’s seeing results from the limited information about Dave recorded in her Signature-Frequency Set– her end of the Ripples between them. Linh can take this data– this avatar of Dave– and tinker with it, imagining what it might be like for Dave to entertain her. However, the reality of Dave’s actual behavior is beyond her. The fact is, people do unimaginable things.
Like a kid having played a video game too many times, Dave’s avatar eventually bores Linh. At this point, she has a few choices: account for her Ripples (CI), return to the Concert Hall, and reunite with Dave; or abandon Dave’s memory altogether. But should Linh want her cake and eat it too, she’ll open her Spiral to a “network connection,” and head for the Marketplace, where she might find those in the office that day willing to sell her their novel perspectives on that fight between Dave and boss Noa. Thus, she not only gets to experience that fight from the acquired POV, but her avatar of Dave evolves with an infusion of data, making future use of his character more likely.
The Marketplace is a network of information exchange. In the Concert Hall, the Blockchain is unfiltered, every note shared without suppression or alteration. On the other hand, the Marketplace is an assembled evolution of the Instrument’s Blockchain– deliberate connections forming trading routes of novelty.
Let’s say Linh chooses Power upon death. IC means she can select any of her Ripples to experience, but under her exclusive control. If Linh’s in her Spiral and Dave’s in his, they might each account for some portion of the Ripples between them, and establish a “network connection.” They can now virtually “visit” each other’s Spirals to varying degrees, where they may barter for novel information. If Dave wonders what it’s like to write the last page of a novel, perhaps Linh would like to know the feeling of tell off their boss. Satisfying one’s yearning for novelty is but a trade away.
Just as the salience of Ripples decreases in the Concert Hall with each new step of cause-and-effect created, the clarity of our network connection with another in the Marketplace also depends on the totality of Ripples accounted for. Should Linh and Dave experience a handful, their network connection will be akin to reading a newspaper review of that aforementioned play. With many accounted for, the connection strengthens, now seated as audience members. A complete connection, where the pair experiences all the Ripples between them, places each onstage, able to fully experience the other’s data and Spiral.
In her own Spiral, Linh is the capstone of an informational pyramid, one without novelty. Her data is restricted to what she’d personally gained on Earth, and what her imagination is capable of. So, Linh enters the Marketplace, where IC bridges the Spirals of independent Sets for the purpose of buying and selling data. She forgoes interacting with undesirable information, and trades her valuable data for what she wants. The very concept of economics, of managing resource and surplus, is Power’s Earthly expression of the Marketplace.
Power Itself is binary: the hierarchical Tower, where decisions are top-down, and the illuminated town Square, where decisions are deliberated. Power is the mechanism of force in conflict, and thus dichotomies arise– master / slave, male / female, chaos / regulation. The very idea of “opposites” is a construct of Power– monotheism denouncing polytheism; labor organizing against management; individual rights breaking free from collective security. Which is “good” or “bad” depends on the individuals and their environment.
In a hierarchy, valuable information flows from foot solider to boss, and the boss distributes or withholds this “treasure” as reward or punishment. The patriarchal God atop the Tower protects resources from outsiders, and provides unparalleled profit for his people, who need not search out variety on their own. The Tower’s pyramid of control is akin to the economics of capitalism and the political structure of fascism.
In an illuminated town Square, everyone is their own god, a single level of control akin to the economics of socialism or the political structure of democracy. Like guilds of the past, they exclude outsiders, revealing prized informational only to initiates. Through the revelation and practice of Gnosis,i they’re independent contractors beholden to none, master merchants trading tantalizing truths and entertaining lies. On average, variety is generally harder to come by through the Square than the Tower with its stockpile. On the other hand, the masses aren’t stuck with the boss’ table scraps, instead, having the freedom to pursue their deepest desires on their own terms.
Not everyone in every Spiral is part of either network. It is the nature of Power that one has full control of their universe. There are some who simply wish to be left alone in their Spiral, and forever dream a fantasy of their own making.
Is Power evil, and Love good? The very premise of good and evil itself is a vestige of Power, not to be conflated with the other framework– “God is love” or “the power of love” are contradictions in terms. Love is neither a person nor thing but the perception of acceptance. One who practices Love, vulnerably participates in their Ripples; one who practices Power, controls Ripples. For Love, right and wrong do not exist, nor do missions, dogma, or agendas.
Love is not a system of any kind, just the intention of fostering connections. Power swings its pendulum of opposing extremes, extracting novelty, convincing us one thing is right, and the other is wrong. Fascism? Volatile– bad for the many, good for the few. Democracy? Fragile– bad for the few, good for the many. Power’s “truth” is temporarily in place until a Vanishing Mediatorii flips the script, inventing the next, previously contradictory version. The moment someone says “this is right” or “this is what to do,” they speak the words of Power, a forceful manipulation of information. Love integrates Its participation, creating novelty, while suffering Power; in the process, Power forces Its consumption of Love’s novelty; and the living cosmos unfolds through Their Mixture.
i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosis
Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge (γνῶσις, gnōsis, f.).[1][2] The term was used among various Hellenistic religions and philosophies in the Greco-Roman world.[1][3][4][5] It is best known for its implication within Gnosticism,[1] where it signifies a spiritual knowledge or insight into humanity's real nature as divine, leading to the deliverance of the divine spark within humanity from the constraints of earthly existence.[3][4][5][6][7]
A vanishing mediator is a concept that exists to mediate between two opposing ideas, as a transition occurs between them. This mediating concept exists just long enough to facilitate such an interaction: at the point where one idea has been replaced by the other, the concept is no longer required and thus vanishes.1]