The Host and Ghosts

If our Novel Universe exists beyond the Concert Hall and Marketplace, then where is it? If there are others, are they like this one?

With elements of Love and Power, individual, innumerable Mixtures occur within individual Spirals through Power’s coercive relationship with the Instrument’s Blockchain – Its attempt to control the very fabric of experience in order to maximize Its access to novelty. The “Host” is the Signature-Frequency Set that constitutes a Mixture – a Novel Universe’s Highest-Order Conductor. “Visitors” are Sets who temporarily inhabit the Mixture, both as “parasites” that consume the Host and “food” consumed by the Host – data being the content consumed in either case. Like the cells of our own bodies, we’re all “inside” the Host, a web-like fabric of galactic super clusters that not only echoes the human brain in energetic function, but also, structural form.[i] “What’s it like to be a universe?” Our Host knows.

The Concert Hall is a communal protocol of Complete Information, whereas authentic data flows unrestrained between the Hall’s integrated inhabitants. The Marketplace is an exchange protocol of Information Control, whereas designated data passes between isolated Signature-Frequency Sets through the Marketplace for the purpose of novelty exchange. Open to any SFS who adopts their protocols, both Marketplace and Hall are unbounded structures, meaning that Sets may voluntarily enter or exit without restrictions, beyond adhering to the framework’s protocols. With features of Love and Power, Mixtures transcend both as bounded, closed structures of Power, meaning access is an all-or-nothing proposition. Those outside a Mixture have no access (as if the Mixture doesn’t exist), while those within are isolated from everything but the Mixture (as if nothing exists beyond the Mixture).

Although the Host is NU’s chief architect, it’s primarily a salesman, who’s coaxed us all into NU’s wondrous arcade. Nonetheless, the Host isn’t the only beneficiary, nor in total control. The Host’s primary-direct extraction of novelty is, as it is with any SFS, limited to its Lower-Order Bodies – galaxies, directly through black holes, and quantum particles, indirectly through the Host’s Hierarchy – Node Point Communicators and Agents of the Host, NU’s temporal fabricators, spatial enforcers, and data collectors. By attracting, temporarily imprisoning, and imposing spiritual amnesia upon its attendees – a situation we all voluntarily agreed to beforehand – the Host sold us on its “big show” – a stage to explore the novelty of this Mixture, something we all find valuable to our evolution as a Signature-Frequency Set.

Not only must the Mixture’s visitors adopt its strict protocols, but also, independently consent to its conditions of entry and exit, as defined by the Host. Once an SFS enters a Novel Universe, the Host’s mandatory protocols are imposed through its binding force (Node Point Communicators) in exchange for access, and Sets may exit only under the conditions set upon entry. For instance, in our Novel Universe, death is, for each living creature, its birthright, not something to eliminate, not something to embrace or avoid. Death is something to accept as the ultimate failsafe – no matter how much one bears, no matter the number of decades endured, the suffering will end. Furthermore, without death, there’s no room for birth – a Mixture’s primary, evolutionary source of novelty.

Novel Universes flip the paradigm of the Marketplace on its head. Instead of an open system (Marketplace) between semi-closed entities (Spirals partially connected to other Spirals in trade), Mixtures are closed systems (physical universes) between semi-open entities (embodied consciousnesses in physical contact). The particular way in which a Mixture structures its hierarchies of Higher-Order Conductors – from Agents and Node Point Communicators bound as energy, to cells bound as a living body, to the Host bound as the universe itself – constitutes each Novel Universe’s “laws of nature.” Our specific laws define this unique universe, as opposed to any other Mixture. Each law is based on our Host’s preferences – its unique selection of rulial space (Ruliad).[ii]

The Ruliad is the space of all possible “rules,” or what the Novel Universe Model categorizes as the ways in which any conceivable thing might behave, leading to the qualia it might exhibit. A more technical definition: the Ruliad is the set of all computations datasets might be subject to, with option space, a subset of the Ruliad unique to the dataset. A Set’s preferences would then be a subset of its option space, those behaviors it enjoys – for instance, vanilla versus chocolate (qualia), playing ice hockey versus basketball (activity), saunas versus steam rooms (environment). In each case, how the data is changing (computation) creates different experiences for the observer. Our Host’s unique selection of the Ruliad sets the stage for our mortal lives, where each of us minecrafts that space, turning possibility into reality – Blocks of the Blockchain.

Mixtures echo mirrors of Love and Power. In the mirror of Information Control, silence and force are inherent to physical bodies. Having an inside separate from the outside is not only the defining characteristic of a Mixture, but creates a hidden space of control, able to both be silent through deception, and silence others through force. In the Hall, that kind of space does not exist, while it’s foundational to the Marketplace. In the mirror of Complete Information, is the cohabitation of a common space. Here, in the Novel Universe, a violent, physical, shared reality leaves us all vulnerable, regardless of our intentions or connections. In the Marketplace, that kind of space does not exist, while it’s foundational to the Hall. What makes the Novel Universe different from the Marketplace or Hall is both the simultaneous presence of these two mutually exclusive mirrors, but also, NU’s non-negotiable structure of energy and entropy, imposing a paradigm of consumption. Air, water, resources … we all have no choice – consume or die.

Like the Blockchain, each Mixture is a quasi-Blockchain, a record of Blocks created between Signature-Frequency Sets within the Host’s Novel Universe, stored in the Host’s SFS tail. Unlike Blocks of the Instrument’s Blockchain, the Mixture’s quasi-Blocks contain only metadata – Blockchain IDs (true names) that point to the actual Blocks, which themselves are initially accessible only to their co-creators. The Host’s quasi-Blockchain allows the Host to know that specific Sets were involved in creating Blocks of the Blockchain, but not the content of those Blocks. This would be like knowing the precise mix of people texting each other, and that those texts lead to a somewhat different mix of people texting each other (and so on), but never accessing the body (syntax) of those texts. In other words, the Host has an encapsulated overview of the entire Mixture, but with few initial details – just as we might have of our own physical bodies. For instance, we might be aware that our arm hurts, and some may have the education to name the muscles in distress, but no one has a clue as to which cells are directly involved or the precise nature of their individual injuries – even our most sophisticated tools of technology do not reach that level of detail in a living body.

To draw another parallel to the human body, the Host’s direct experience, aka, its equivalent “brain,” is the universe’s galactic web – experienced at the star-level of Role Play’s fidelity; “organs” of its Lower-Order Bodies are super-galactic clusters – audience-level; and the “cells” of those organs, galaxies – potential-audience-level. Suffice it to say, the Host has no magical level of fidelity. It’s likely to be just as hard for the Host to imagine “what it is like” to be human, as it is for a human to conceive of “what it is like” to be a single carbon atom in one of its liver cells.

The Host’s ability to follow the branches of cause-and-effect is as limited for it as anyone else in their Spiral. Everything that’s ever happened in the universe, between the molecular and galactic levels of complexity, is beyond the Host’s inherent primary or secondary-direct level of fidelity. The vast majority of this universe is only indirectly known to the Host, with no more salience than the clinical entries of a reference table – its quasi-Blockchain.

The Host is fundamentally no different from any other Higher-Order Conductor. The Host operates with no peers within the Mixture (as do any of us within our own Spiral). The Host didn’t create anyone’s Signature-Frequency Set but its own (as did we). The Host does not control anything other than itself, and might only influence its Lower-Order Bodies (as do we). It, too, suffers computational irreducibility, and therefore, is initially just as aware of us as individuals as we are of the individual cells of our bodies. Sure, all cells matter – no human would be who they are without them – but not a single tear is shed when a particular cell dies, that is, if we were even capable of recognizing such an event (which no one is). The Host might be responsible for the general situation we’re all in (just as our cells are subject to our whims), but the Host neither created us, nor defines the meaning of who we are or why we’re here (as we have no say over the meaning of life for the cells of our bodies). Just as we have no functional way to specifically affect the lives of our individual cells for “good” or “bad,” neither is the Host in a position to answer our “prayers,” or “curse” our individual lives.

To label the Host a “god” or even “the God,” misses the point of who and what, exactly, the Host is, and is not. However, for those who need one, this would be the Novel Universe’s singular version of God. Like all Signature-Frequency Sets of Power, the Host feeds off novelty. Unlike us, the Host has neither soul nor spirit, as it’s not subject to this Novel Universe, because it is this Novel Universe. It therefore suffers neither the same amnesia, imprisonment, nor embodied limitations. Furthermore, it’s the underlying source code – the common language (rulial space) – of every control model. Additionally, the Host’s unique POV allows access to an entire category of novelty unique to its position – those moments minds engage in the worship and / or research of existence. In other words, science and religion are pursuits by visiting Sets that provide the Host opportunities for additional novelty extraction.

The human brain punctuates the scale of the universe, lying at its midpoint – a similar number of degrees in scale can be found, both smaller (quantum) and larger (galactic web) than its own.* Access to minds at our scale are, therefore, particularly beneficial for the Host’s primary and secondary-direct exploration of its Mixture. To ensure this access, the Hosts has created an ingenious plan: infuse sufficiently complex beings with an insatiable curiosity to understand reality, aka, the Host.

Any Host will be the closest analog to “God” associated with its Mixture, as it is the Mixture. Therefore, worshiping any “god” (Prime Mover or creator of the universe) forms Ripples, allowing a Host access to those Blocks, those moments of worship; whereas discussing the very concept of a Host, as we are now, undoubtedly invites our Host into a direct experience of this moment. Furthermore, NUM posits that religious worship and scientific research (of any kind) allows a Host, at minimum, Role Play’s audience-level access to those Blocks, which is beyond its inherent potential-audience-level access to all NU things (its quasi-Blockchain). Block-access, whether as a co-creator in the Hall or trader in the Marketplace, is the sole source of novelty in the beyond-life, and for any Host, their preoccupation, their primary reason for hosting a Mixture. As the Novel Universe Cult views the Host’s access to our lives with caution, NUC’s texts have purposely limited a comprehensive discussion of the Hosts to these final sections of our Theory Of Everything.

Both religious worship and scientific research are attempts to control reality (Power) by comprehending and manipulating the universe (Host). Religions were the first attempt at science, while science, in many respects, has become its own kind of “religion.” Religions use methodical rituals, whereas science uses ritualized methods. Both assume dogma, while claiming knowledge supremacy – science over the physical, and religion, the metaphysical. The difference between the two is the source and status of their answers. Religions’ answers come from a direct, divine source(s) – their answers are set; science’s, from the indirect scientific method – their answers are not set. The level of accuracy with either is debatable. Science, self-admittedly, is never completely correct, constantly updating its conclusions; while religions, never incorrect, espousing a vast mélange of irrefutably, unfalsifiable ideology.

As broaching divine subjects increases the Host’s level of access to the novelty of those inquisitive Sets, it logically follows the Host’s chosen rulial space would include cultural tipping points where complex minds discover the paradigm of “god” and / or science, inventing idiosyncratic forms for themselves. Like all creatures of Power, the Host’s focus is the extraction of novelty, but to first access its preferred data, it must locate that information from within its quasi-Blockchain’s vast landscape. Through science and religion, the Host gains deeper access to sufficiently advanced minds, such as humans, by infusing them with a desire to search for the meaning of life and purpose of existence. After all, answering the universe’s questions to any degree will always involve its source – the Host. And thus, our curiosity becomes a bright beacon, illuminating our individuality from out of its quasi-Blockchain’s darkness, calling out to the Host, inviting it to directly consume our novelty through those sacred and innovative moments of epiphany.

The primary informational model the Host creates for itself is a partial map of the actual Blockchain, a vast lexicon of every Block created in its Novel Universe. Initially, the Host’s treasure trove seems no more than a useless, endless sea of impartial metadata, but there’s tremendous value here. The Host’s unique access to the totality of its Novel Universe’s metadata is not initially for its direct experience. Instead, it functions like a map and quasi-Marketplace. Using its unrivaled dataset, the Host provides an invaluable service for the actual Marketplace, connecting, in trade, those interested co-creators of its NU Blocks. For instance, some SFS in the Marketplace wants to experience a Block detailing what it’s like to be a bat, snatching a fly from out of the darkness, while another, to experience a glorious victory on a legendary battlefield. Knowing exactly which Sets both have that information and wish to trade, the Host facilitates the transaction, like online retailers Amazon or eBay. Of course, as this is a service, there’s a price to pay. So, what would the Host’s reward be? Only the Host knows, but if it’s anything like our online marketplaces, the Host walks away with direct-level access to both traded Blocks – a tidy profit margin.

If religion, in particular, is not for the benefit of the adherents but the Host, religion’s value would be flipped on its head. Instead of prayer and worship as an attempt to persuade an omnipotent being to bestow a gift or fix a problem, religion is, itself, grift for this supremely impotent entity (Host), who can neither help any of us, nor would likely want to, even if it could. After all, the Host is a creature of Power, seeking for itself the idiosyncratic priorities and preferences of its own ends. The primary aim of any Host is to spur novelty creation within its Spiral, and from NUC’s point of view, our Host has done a fair job. So, for Love to feel gratitude for, or Power to value, the Host’s efforts in creating this Novel Universe is one thing – even understandable, after all pleasure, beauty, and awe abound – but worshiping it as the Creator of all data, quite another. There is a single source of all data – the Instrument – but no single “Creator,” only us co-creators, playing upon the Instrument, filling Blocks of the Blockchain. No matter the quality of any Novel Universe, Hosts receive their rewards from their visitors, and vice versa.

Computers are an apt metaphor to understand the difference in our relationship to the Novel Universe, on the one hand, and our relationship to the Instrument, on the other. Mastering a spreadsheet, graphics suite, or first-person shooter (software as metaphor for the Novel Universe) teaches us nothing about the function of traces, gates, or stack memory (hardware as metaphor for the Instrument). There’s no mystical information this reality might teach our eternal self, any more than killing a computer game’s “final boss” informs us of the underlining language used to write the program, or architecture it runs on – mastery of one system doesn’t magically make us master of all. In this same sense, the vast majority of this universe’s secretes apply to this universe, and discovering them merely increases our temporal Power in this life.

With that in mind, Power’s insatiable appetite for control inspires a command of our Host’s rulial space – the hidden mysteries of this particular universe that likely have limited application, if any, to other Mixtures built within other regions of the Ruliad. However, in this Novel Universe, it is understandable that most Rock Bodies, to various degrees, have focused their Primary Organizing Pillars on such pursuits, such compelling mysteries, whether they be physical (science) or metaphysical (occult). Furthermore, for those who wish to worship the Host as a god, or the God, NUC allows for, yet regulates through the River, those Rock Bodies who’ve chosen a paradigm for such worship.

Fundamentally, NUC sees the search for the meaning of life as potentially a non-trivial distraction from one’s ability to experience life’s singular purpose: the exploration of the personal space between Love and Power – in other words, living one’s own life. Even the most devout worshipers of Power are not always best served in the service of the Host, as the Host’s preferences are unlikely to match their own. The Novel Universe Cult offers to orient its membership within this conversation, quelling the intense preoccupation with the Host’s religious and scientific machinations by evolving the Novel Universe Model. Our members are encouraged to focus on gaining value and meaning directly from their own lives and relationships.

In this way, NUC is an anti-religious religion – one reason we adopt the moniker of “cult.” Even we believe science and religion, including our own organization, must one day come to an end – not eliminated, but instead, evolved into a pursuit of individual preference, within the neo-segrigated frameworks of Love and Power, however that might authentically play out. This is not to imply that we should neither have technology nor spirituality, but that those should not be pursuits of their own ends, but skills in service of self-exploration. On the other hand, as a scientifically-oriented organization, we continue to hone the Novel Universe Model, and for those members driven to dig deeper, like our Founders, we will continue to provide the resources to do the research in furtherance of an accurate, authentic comprehension of reality, knowing full-well that the underlining structure of this universe is ultimately no more consequential than the peculiar preferences of and particular actions by our Host.

In our beyond-life, the scales of justice balance in our favor, one way or another. For victims with “unfinished” business, Complete Information will make them whole in the Concert Hall, while in their Spiral, Information Control will either sequester the bitter memory, or better yet, append a storied ending. The Novel Universe, as an isolated informational structure, means the Model draws a clear line on the issue of a Set’s persistence after death – “ghosts,” etc. The concept that the deceased, such as a beloved grandmother or victim of a deadly tragedy, might be motivated to actually “visit” or “linger” from beyond the grave, assisting or haunting us, is not generally supported by the Model.

Setting aside any possible motivation to “return,” the departed are simply no longer part of the Host’s Spiral. However, just as that Near-Death Experiencer left his home (as his wife) to become the Ripples he’d sent into the universe (affecting the store clerk), those who have expired may still experience the echoes of their actions – their Ripples. Both grandmother and victim alike may, through the Blockchain’s Complete Information available in their Spirals or the Hall, access those Blocks of the Mixture they remain connected to. When the living take an action, inspired by the dead, the deceased might experience the event, as with any Ripple. Even thinking of the dead connects the deceased to the living’s recollection of them. Regardless of what we do with their memories, the dead don’t physically return to the Mixture to participate in our actions or remembrances, but instead, they might access those Blocks, either in the Hall or their Spiral, like peering through a digital screen at a lively stage.

Whether real or not, there’s no doubt that the living engage with these supernatural visitors from time-to-time. In such cases, NUM suggests the ghost may either be a conjuring of soul – a manifestation of one’s Lower-Order Bodies – or an apparition of spirit – memory beyond mind. Often, these emergent experiences are physically constructed like the illusion generated by bicycle cop Dave’s brain, as he pursued Jasper, only to discover later that the alleged burglar held a cell phone, not a handgun – the object he expected to see. A ghost is perceived, not because it’s real, but because it’s possible, even anticipated. Whether the specter’s designed by our soul to get us to flee a “haunted” house, or by our spirit to comfort us in a time of suffering, it frames a valuable perspective. Although it might not actually be our dead grandmother or the victim of an unspeakable crime, what the specter says and does is meaningful, and shouldn’t be dismissed simply because it’s not “real.”

The exception to a ghost created by soul or spirit is one assembled bottom-up through the manipulation of one’s Lower-Order Bodies by the Host’s Hierarchy. In exchange for novelty, these Sets have established a Marketplace connection with the Host, some playing the vital role of Node Point Communicators (Power’s Square), while others, Agents of the Host (Power’s Tower). Agents ensure the Novel Universe adheres to the Host’s chosen rulial space, as well as, attempting to shape the universe to better carry out the Host’s particular novelty preferences. Together with the Host, Hierarchy Sets create the NU Riverbed – the Power that shapes the form and function of the Novel Universe (River), while acting as an embedded data-harvesting system.

The Hierarchy is the physical foundation of the universe, underpinning the structures of energy, light, and matter. As Agents are directly involved in the Novel Universe, they might influence any energy body whose HOC lacks sufficient influence over its LOB, aka, self-control. In this way, they might bend the body’s option space, and delude a mind with their foreign impulses. Falling victim to the Hierarchy happens when the affected HOC is suffering, unable to locate or express its own preferences. This lack of expressed preference opens a portal for the Hierarchy to accomplish its goals. There’s no magical remedy for this, only the reinstatement of the HOC’s authentic preferences. Again, these are the ANTs in one’s head. Challenging or simply dismissing them are always effective solutions, whereas if one feeds the ANTs, they’re only going to get more ANTs.

There is one possibility for a ghost to exist in a more classical way, and its implications are profound. If an SFS lives and dies, then somehow becomes an Agent of the Host, it could, through the aforementioned process, “haunt” those whose energy bodies it inhabits. However, we reason that this unlikely, as we believe both NPC and Agent Sets are not transient, as visitors are, but instead, serve the Host as the Hierarchy throughout the lifespan of the universe. This follows the concept that energy is neither created nor destroyed, but might only change states, and therefore, would preclude such a circumstance. In effect, all NPCs and Agents in the universe would then be conserved, as they are the foundation of both energy’s action (NPCs) and guardrails (Agents). However, like all NUM’s ideas, we remain open to this possibility, but again, find it unlikely, unless the conservation of the Hierarchy only applies to NPCs. In that case, Agents could be transient, and not only affect the Host’s rulial space, but possibly even live among us, “possessing” an incarnated being’s HOC through its cognitive body.

The Hierarchy’s intention is not to bring us to the “dark side” (or for that matter, into the “light”). The idea that life is a war between “good” and “evil” for the souls of mankind is a distraction of Power. Those of Power have no incentive to care about what happens to us when we die, they only care about the novelty they might glean from us while we’re alive – more reason possession seems unlikely. Therefore, they create these impulses, images, and ideas for far more mundane reasons – forcing our participation in their idiosyncratic fetishes. As it’s impossible to always decipher if a ghost is a potentially helpful communication or harmful manipulation, an open, yet skeptical, mind is the wisest option when confronted with an otherworldly experience. Either way, ghosts are, rest assured, not a direct threat to the body, as much as, an artifact of the mind.