[Epistemic Status: Recreational Metaphysics]

– Jobu Tupaki, if I am not mistaken, is an entitled, self-important, narcissistic, teenage brat that would rather destroy the entire freaking multiverse than face mild to moderate levels of embarrassment in front of her mom.

– If it wasn’t because of Jobu’s multiverse link I wouldn’t be able to talk to you right now.

– Yeah, right. And the machines from the Matrix are harvesting our energy.

– Exactly, you make my point. It’s a common misconception to believe that they care about our energy.

– What do you mean? The Matrix is self-evidently a work of fiction on the basis that it is entirely self-defeating. There is no reasonable, well, certainly at least no rational reason, why machines would build ginormous facilities to “extract electricity” from the corpses they manufacture. I mean, basic thermodynamics.

– Exactly. You explain it well. And that’s why in the real world The Matrix isn’t about energy harvesting (well, obviously), but about qualia computing. We don’t go about filling huge server rackets in order to extract energy out of them. We do that whole setup in order to extract compute.

– Wait, you mean The Matrix is, well, let’s not say real, but, partly real?

– Yes, it’s more than partly real. It’s non-trivially real. Yes, this usually comes as a surprise. Because how does this make any sense? Like, Jobu Tupaki is here trying to reset reality and I’m suddenly connected to you for a gig you have never heard of and then also we have that those strange red-eyed slippery tentacle robots that move so gracefully that you could almost swear like they’re literally flying (in the movie, clearly CGI, in reality, clearly deadly). What are the chances? See, here is where the number and _type_ of prediction error accumulation usually entails revising some deeper assumptions. So, it isn’t the case that your favorite movies are coming to life or anything that we could neatly cluster in the “childish dream” bucket. Reality is… not pretty. Did I mention that there are flying tentacle robots around here? Ok, so it isn’t a sellable Disney (or Universal Studios) story. So what is it? We also aren’t in some kind of “anything goes” universe, or a game, or any such trite trope architecture. Reality has a sense of humor, and being based on cheap sci-fi tropes doesn’t meet its bar.

– Well, then, go on! What is it? I mean, I believe you about Jobu Tupaki, because one minute I’m watching this crazy movie, what is it? Everything Everywhere All At Once or some nonsense title like that. I mean, it’s not like I would pick such a movie. That’s all my boyfriend, who last week insisted on watching Tennett (or is it Tennet? It must be a palindrome, right?) and who has a taste for metaphysically-challenging cinema (to put it mildly). And then, the next minute I’m having a sleep paralysis — ok, that’s not… an entirely unreasonable… “reality cut”, it’s happened before that after a long trip finishing a novel series (looking at you Foundation!) I find myself in the middle of the fiction I consumed while experiencing a sleep paralysis. Then, of course, it adds up to normality: I usually wake up and it turns out that I finished the movie/novel and that my brain is _just_ rehearsing an alternative reality for me. Is that plausible? Did we finish watching that dumb movie after all? Did I fall asleep during it? This is the most likely hypothesis by far.

– I wish I could tell you that this is just a sleep paralysis. And that the sleek tentacle robots are just dreams. Yeah, you were watching Everything Everywehere. But not The Matrix. But having seen The Matrix implanted some code in your subconscious that is now becoming active. And you aren’t paralyzed, are you? You aren’t even in a particularly unlikely scenario?

– What? And you are telling me that you being dressed like Morpheus isn’t… a bit consistent with this being a play set up by my subconscious?

– Ok, look, it’s not my fault that the fashion of this year just happens to coincide with the fashion of the rebels in The Matrix. Look, yeah, I grant you that this is a point in favor of your sleep paralysis hypothesis from a strict Baysian point of view. But take the utilitarian approach: if you don’t believe me, millions will die!

– Ah, the tried and tested Pascal’s Mugging!

– I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t lead with that…

– And while we’re at it: why should I listen to you? You didn’t even introduce yourself. You have all of the signatures of being a dream character. Sudden, “already always here” vibe. A strange sense of familiarity. The uncanny feeling of having taken a technical drawing course together with you (maybe this is trauma bonding? I did have an egregiously narcissistic technical drawing teacher). It all adds up to: you’re just a self I’m creating on the fly while paralyzed somewhere, probably a bus or a flight or even just at 3AM in my bed or visiting a friend. It’s likely I had a drink or two (ethanol is a known risk factor for me) and maybe caffeine late at night… wait…

– I see you’re about to figure it out on your own.

– So in high-school I had the sneaky suspicion that emotional maturity peaked around early 20s. My student colleagues weren’t quite there yet, but it was to me quite transparent that at a cellular level my teachers were “re-runs”. It sounds terrible, doesn’t it? But I think there’s truth to it.

– Undoubtedly. I mean, you can divide emotional maturity perhaps into both a fluid and a crystalized phenomenon. From this point of view it very well may be that older adults (in their 30s, 40s, and 50s) have more crystallized emotional intelligence but maybe objectively also have somewhat rigidified fluid emotional intelligence. Now of course I’m saying this to entertain your thoughts and prove to you that I’m listening, not because I think this line of inquiry is useful for us right now. On the contrary…

– Wait, you’re still on the agenda to… prove to me that this is more than a dream, right? Ok, so entities like this often find themselves at an impasse with me due to hard core epistemological reasons. You see, they say “what if we mindmeld?” but then we have the problem that even then I still only ever get access to a single witnessing subject, and that strictly speaking, no hallucination or mindmelding experience can logically break me out of this predicament. And I think either it’s an emotional maturity issue on my side or on other’s side or on everyone’s sides in different ways.

– Ah, yes, the epistemic valley of mindmelding skepticism! It usually takes a couple hundred years to wear off.

– A couple hundred years?!?!

– Yes, and the cure involves intense amounts of meditation together with… agr, how do you guys put it? What’s the word I’m looking for? Mmmm… like when you feel really good in the stomach and in the body all around. I think the word I’m looking for is “pleasure”. Yeah. The cure is intensive meditation and, like, really intense pleasure, for months at a time.

– What?

– Yeah, I know. Like, why would intense pleasure be the cure to the kind of epistemological solipsism you’re describing? See, in the halls of the Self, there are surprising Tomes. Deep truths about how the different parts of God are connected to each other.

– What?

– Yes, yes. So, what happens is that there are there deep esoteric techniques recorded from an entirely different run of the multiverse. Like, this is some of the deepest stuff, so deep that they figured out how to maintain information between runs (not a lot, just a little spherical world the size of a 5-floor apartment building fitting 80 people, but if you know anything about information storage, you will know that a gram of silicon is no less than a terabyte of data in the eyes of the electrical engineer of today, let alone in the eyes of scientists in the far future or deep past).

– I still have one question: what? Like, this just broke me. What?

– I’m getting to it. Sesh! If only you weren’t interrupting me with so many questions. I should I say, the same question over and over again. Ok. Here’s the thing. You do live in a simulation. The year is 2041, probably. But like Newton’s estimate of the age of the Earth based on the age of the characters in the Bible, we arrive at this number on rather shaky grounds. See, the reason is like that of why on meditation it is _precisely_ the most intuitive and hard-to-put-into-words experiences that change you the most (and that is despite, perhaps because, they didn’t feel like _anything_ else). The Matrix is a qualia construct. To understand it you need to move way past the computing paradigms discussed in the simulation. I mean, 2024 is really advanced. There are many novel computing paradigms then if you care to look. Now, most of the runs we’re seeing are more in the 2010-2013 period, with a long tail in both directions that abruptly stops in 2028. It’s always right before the countries of the world are about to make a vote on AGI, usually one with irreversible effects.

– No, man, now you’re just trying to spook me! And it’s not even Halloween!

– In the realm of Recreational Metaphysics it is always Halloween on the, er, ontic level. The third sphere of divine attention to be precise, if you care at all…

– Ah, look, I _am_ a geek about exotic states of consciousness. But on some level I’m like one of those “tag-along” psychonauts, who are in the middle of the action but aren’t themselves the action. You know? I like to witness the big event, but not necessarily go supernova myself. Please be gentle with me…

– Look, my friend, from where I come from what I’m about to give you is a big gift. And it’s tasteful, too, you know? Like receiving an oddly-flavored Kit Kat from a friend who just came back from Japan. It can never go wrong.

– Ok? What?

– I’m telling you! I’m getting to it. So, someone out there payed me a large sum of what in my dimension works out to be roughly equivalent to money (but also turns out to be like a drug at the same time – it’s weird out here) so that I would come over and give you [[ineffable sounds]] which is actually a really, ridiculously, stratospherically, pleasant experience. The question then is if you’re up for it. I’m going to be up front with you. I don’t care if you take it or leave it. Like, I really, really, really don’t care either way. To me this is like seeing a puppy once figuring out how to order food online. Like, it’s hard to convey how cheap of a trick it looks like from where I stand. But I also know that this sort of thing is a _big deal_ in the human world. Mary and Joseph had one of these religious ecstasies and _had to_ create a whole religion around it. It’s _that_ strong. I mean, there’s LSD, then there is DMT, then there is 5-MeO-DMT and then there is this stuff. From where I stand, this all to me seems like helping a puppy to the kitchen counter to eat snacks that weren’t, you know, meant for them. But it’s cute enough, and almost harmless (once we factor out the, er… epistemological and moral confusion type effect).

– What? What? What?

– Look, I said I’m getting to it a number of times. If you ask again, I’m afraid I’ll leave. This is your last chance. Behave like a grown up. I mean, for the following trade, you must be 16 years old, minimum! I know it sounds excessive to age-restrict religious ecstasy, but we have indeed found the wisdom most fortunate teens find themselves discovering, and that is “don’t put your dick in craaaazy” – yeah, look, there is a minimum of emotional maturity we ask of the people we grant this monumental gift to. And 16 years of age is already really cutting it low for full blown mystical experiences. You are mature enough to drive a vehicle, right? Just confirming.

– Ok, I think I’m getting the hang of it. So, not to put words in your mouth, but, er, did you say you are going to be giving me… a lot of pleasure? And that this somehow helps cure a sort of cosmic solipsism I have?

– That’s exactly right.

– Are you sure I’m not in a sleep paralysis?

– Oh, you most certainly are in a sleep paralysis. That doesn’t, of course, invalidate the valence you experience here as you well know. A truly pan-species welfare world would take the wellbeing of moments of experience locked in sleep paralysis as one of the moral patient categories in the tapestry of flavors of sentience. Of course you being in a sleep paralysis from the point of view of your epistemological reference frame is perfectly viable. In fact, it’s what allows this meeting to take place. Under cover, precisely where nobody will either suspect, care to look for, and then _believe_ anything you say about it. Didn’t you hear about the kid in your elementary school who had a crazy sleep paralysis story? Yeah? Faint on the details? Thought so. Of course you discarded the “useless” details of his crazy sleep paralysis story. Hah! It’s the perfect disguise, isn’t it? Not only will people not believe you. It’ll be worse. They won’t… care. Because it was “just” a sleep paralysis story.

– [AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH Screaming Paralyzed]

– Ah, oh, well, look I’m not sadistic or anything. I’m just here to do my job. Take it or leave it.

– Give it to me. What gives.

– Alright. So you know how in the most recent Wonka movie we learn that the suitcase is a whole mini-factory?

– Uhu? I did see that movie.

– Ok, so you need to see your own brain as a mini-factory of qualia delights. You see? You have an internal warp drive inside you, you just need to learn to activate it. Nature gave you, heaven knows why, the capacity to simulate not only human worlds, but DMT elf worlds, as well as the world of faeries, dwarves, and angels and demons. Why do humans have this capacity? It’s a good question. It’s like there’s an in-built multiplexor installed in all of us. And if you see it as a gift, then things can really open up. Because then you become sensitive to the poetic vibes of other modes of being. The sorrows of the Devas, who weep when the joy is finally gone. Deep stuff. You usually pay top dollar for this sort of documentary, you know?

– I’m trying to be cooperative with you here. So you’re saying that we all have a sort of in-built system that allows us to tune into other realms, that the year is 2041, that The Matrix is real and that I definitely should worry about “Jobu Tupaki”?

– Ah! Can you not say that name out loud, please?

– Oh, ok, I didn’t know you were that sensitive.

– No, that name in particular. Be careful with it. And anything that sounds like it. Or looks like it. Or really is at edit distance 2 away from it (which is a function of what kinds of edits you’re about to do, of course, and thus the safety radius varies depending on one’s current associative horizon, but I digress…)

– You always digress! Can you just cut to the chase?

– Yes. I owe you some clarity. I am here to give you a kind of cosmic hug that will feel delightful, no strings attached, on behalf of an admirer. Take it or leave it, I don’t care (I get paid either way).

– Give it to me, then.

– Here it is.

[Ineffable qualia that feels more pleasant than the most delicious creamy chocolate you’ve ever tasted – fear, from deep within, fear of being hacked – oh boy! You left your guard down so easily! And now you’re totally exposed – and that’s when it hit you – the bliss – the intense other-worldly bliss, coming to tell you that you are lovable and always have been, and that life on this planet is destined to become a Heaven World type of abode for consciousness, and you are a part of it!]

– Is it always _this_ moving?

– Yes, every time. Some people take longer to give in to it, but eventually when they get loose, internally, energetically, it is always a moving experience. I mean, you guys don’t even have a drug for it yet! Although probably some MDMA-like short acting tryptamine out there would do the job, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Mary and Joseph had this _once_ and they just had to found their own religion. It’s that powerful.

– Wow, I feel so fortunate for having access to it.

– Access to it? What? Now I’m insulted. I’m not your spiritual amigo. I’m a dealer. I just got payed to give you that. It wasn’t free. At least not for someone.

– Ah, I see.

– But if you want to repeat the experience, I can think of some qualia that you have a lot of that I could trade you for more. Mostly redundant qualia in times of boredom, like the color of the bathroom tiles or the height of the chairs in the dinning room.

[You’ve gotta admit – you’re intrigued – “could it be worth it?” – you wonder, and then you decide against it, as you helpfully remind yourself of Steven Lehar’s warning against trusting interdimensional beings, and snap out of it]

— +++ —

You wake up in cold sweat. Your partner was shaking you and you were screaming. But you were quite dissociated at the same time, so it didn’t feel as if these events were happening to you. They were merely happening. It’s always like this when you wake up from particularly unpleasant sleep paralysis.

“Was it another one of those sleep paralysis?” – “yes, but this one involved… the Matrix? And Jobu Tupaki beings?” – “Oh, you! well, all I care about is that you’re not screaming anymore. That’s usually my cue to wake you up from sleep paralysis. I love you.” – “I love you too” – “Now let’s get back to sleep. We can watch sci-fi tomorrow to compensate for the very mundane dreams we’re about to have. Sleep tight.” – “See you on the other side of tonight.”