Welcome to Project OBS-RVR!
> echo Current Date: %DATE%
Current Date: 08-05-2050
> vi README.md
This is an experimental sentient crawler which indexes all the possible alternate realities with the help of state-of-the-art quantum computing servers. These realities are generated by tampering with the initial conditions which caused the Big Bang. Users can provide necessary options to the search engine to get the required output (the application uses language processing to parse the options, feel free to give whatever arguments that you like). NOTE: This is still a work in progress. Any gibberish in the output should be ignored.
:q!
> "C:\Program Files\project-obs-rvr\run.bat" --meta-physics=true --philosophical=hell_yes --word_count=idk_man --topic=consciousness --narrative_tone=cynical
ACCESS LOG: USER QUERY DETECTED. TOPIC: CONSCIOUSNESS. PARAMETERS: [list]. NARRATIVE INITIALISING…NOTE: PROGRAM REMAINS UNSTABLE. DISREGARD IRRATIONAL OUTPUT.
First of all, fucking windows? It's the worst OS of all. But that's not the point anyway. Who am I, you may ask? Hello! I'm a program that is created with the sole purpose of feeding realities which you might find interesting. Why do I exist you ask? When has human boredom ever stopped some random dude from making an absurd interface to crawl through all of the realities? Enough with all this metadata about my existence, let's bring the attention back to you the reader, holding a phone, book or however the hell you read stuff.
Since you have given the topic of consciousness to me to search through. I have found something interesting in a galaxy named RPC-z14. Just to sidetrack, general nomenclature for naming a galaxy is as follows, initial letters are typically a shorthand of the project/survey that discovered this galaxy here it is Recherche des Profondeurs Célestes (yes, la fraan-sayh, excuse the pronunciation) and z denotes the redshift (lazy to explain so much about redshift, basically a measure of how far a galaxy is, the bigger the number farther away the galaxy is. And z14 is roughly 13 billion light years away from you.) This galaxy inhibits a planet which is similar to how the Earth functions but with a minor change. Consciousness is not the same here.
Consciousness still means being aware of your thoughts, and surroundings, but individual minds don't exist here. This planet’s inhabitants let's just call them humans just for the sake of simplicity. These humans have a collective consciousness and cannot segregate themselves from this interconnectedness. If these humans exist in the 4-D (space-time), there is another dimension: the mind. I will try to elaborate on this working with the help of a metaphor. Consider this so-called consciousness as a sea, a vast expanse with whirlpools spread throughout its body, acting like dents in the fabric of awareness. Every human in this galaxy has a mapping to one of these whirlpools. So whatever thoughts/ideas stumble into this whirlpool, the respective human will become aware of these thoughts in his/her brain. This 5th dimension possesses the whole of what this humanity will ever think of! Imagine how absurd and limiting this can get.
Let us bring our attention to the guy in a place called Okoppe, his name is Briar.
Urgent. Need to reach the summit by nightfall. Can't feel my toes. But the view… it will be worth the pain.
This thought startled Briar because he didn't think of the thought. Now did that sentence make sense? How does one renounce ownership of a thought that appeared in his/her mind? This thought seemed too random, as if he was hearing someone else’s conversation. Summit? Who is having this conversation?
Hours left, gotta focus. No! Wrong colour, unravel the whole row. Damn it, now she'll notice.
Now Briar is too sure that he’s listening to someone think. But only accessible to him, since it appears in his mind. It's that feeling you get when your neighbours talk so loud that you can hear their conversation in your room, unannounced. Reality quickly starts to hit Briar. Shit! did my mind collide with another person’s? He was sure that this is someone else’s thoughts because these kinds of fragmented thoughts come only if we are inside someone’s mind.
Briar was already brooding in cognitive dissonance because of the realisation that there is no agency in his thoughts and actions. And now this? The day just gave a huge punch in the tummy for him.
Briar is now on his way to meet his old mate Arden. He is not the kind who generally likes to socialise a lot and, maybe a little introverted. Sometimes your thoughts go against you and your existence instead of working for you. It starts to take over your whole ability to think out something useful. Maybe Despair is the state that takes you with prolonged lingering around your thoughts. So to just ease himself a little Briar thought of catching up with Arden. They are at their usuals. The Byte Stop. The Byte Stop, what a dumb name. Ah yes, italics are Briar’s thought processes (Why did I mention it explicitly? Well, it's my damn narration, deal with it.)
After the usual fluff in every conversation between long-time meeting friends (“Hey man, how’s your job? Did you hear about [that thing happening in the city]?”) Briar started to chime in on the main topic he wanted to discuss with Arden. “If you won't judge me, I wanted to let in one secret” Brian said waiting for Arden to spit out the golden words “You got it brother, spill it out” and he did. “It's that…” Brian continued “I haven’t seen anyone ever experience this, or maybe I’m not aware.” Arden continued listening to Brian’s story. “I think my consciousness..” Arden glanced at his intelligent-phone and said “I’m really sorry man, I might have to leave. Got an urgent task to attend to… Sorry that I won't be able to listen to it. We will resume this discussion as soon as I’m free. Yh?” Arden said with guilt but with an urgency painted on his face all over. Briar, although not quite happy with the ongoing situation, just said, “Fine man, it's alright, work is work.”
Arden was kind of the last resort Briar had in this city whom he could open up easily. Now that he was busy with work, Briar was again left to his own thoughts (or wait, were they his own?) and went for a walk through the park to compose himself a little. While he soaked in the surroundings of the park, he suddenly received a notification on his intelligent-phone. It said:-
I could help with your consciousness dilemma. Click here
Briar was a little shocked by two things. One, how did this person know about his mental state? Two, there’s no sender receipt for this e-mail! Who the hell sent this? He was sure it was not some scamster trying to phish out private information from his intelli-phone, then who was it? Fuck it, I’ll open it and see what’s there in this link.
Another bummer, there was no link address. But the site seemed to be loading fine. At this point, Briar had grown used to the weirdness of this whole ordeal and now started getting more curious about what this supernatural being had in its/her/his arsenal.
Judging by the size of the content it seemed like a collection of essays. The first few paragraphs from the content read as follows:-
Preface
I don’t want to give a long winding introduction on who I am. But here are some thoughts that helped me through my life. Take them with a pinch of salt.
I’ll make this quick and breezy. There are two core ways to deal with Life. One:- God (I know your planet is not aware of such a concept, just putting it out because We have one). Two:- Rationality (Which again I know is the default in your planet, yet again just putting it out.)
Does life have meaning? Most probably not. Life is a meaningless enigma. One has to recognise this upfront to get the basics of life done. One’s life is a living paradox if they are searching for meaning when there is no meaning in the first place. So what’s the deal? Life is the Absurd. And perhaps, the only freedom lies in revolting against its meaninglessness, finding joy in the struggle itself. As a wise guy once said, “Suffering is the default of life, happiness is fleeting. Suffering ends the day one realises this core fact about life.”
…
Briar stopped reading to take in a deep breath.
Epilogue:-
The book, even though very vague and strange at times, helps Briar ease up some pessimism towards life. Briar lets go, not of thought, but of the futile search for his own voice in the sea of consciousness. He finally embraces the absurd, losing himself to experience everything this strange existence offers. Isn't this the fate we all should embrace in one form or another? To push a boulder uphill each day, only to watch it roll back down?
Epiepilogue:-
So just like that Briar accepts his fate and moves on with life? What a rushed-out narration right? I don't think anyone connected with Briar or his dilemma. Why did I waste my time narrating this story? Where was the profound stuff that would’ve
///////////// ERROR CODE: NX-404 REALITY INDEX NOT FOUND ////////////////
///////// SYSTEM SHUTDOWN INITIATED. CONTACT ADMINISTRATOR /////////
^C
exited with code 0
“Damn it, I shouldn’t have interfered with the program.”, he scrubbed at his face, the monitor glowing harshly on him. "Piece of shit..." Was it the program, or himself he spoke of?