The Possibility of a Good Matrix
[Disclaimer: I am well aware that this article is not accurate to the T, and that it involves a decent amount of generalizations. However, I believe the thought in it is intriguing and fun to entertain]
Looking at Big History, and over the past millennia, human life (at-large) seems to be -more or less- on a progressive trajectory of well-being. Human life expectancy is always rising. Global poverty has been declining over the past centuries. And despite the dreadful news that we are always subjected to, this is the most peaceful and equitable mankind has been. But the looming environmental catastrophes are threatening to cease the prosperity progress, if not mankind’s entire existence.
As individuals, we have to always chase after something, we just can’t help it. We will be totally convinced that whatever we are chasing is a big deal. Our brains are wired that way so they’d survive and thrive.
In this 21st century, I define the pyramid of needs into 3 main stages; Physical well-being, social well-being, and intellectual stimulation.
Physical wellbeing: Food, water, shelter, and access to healthcare.
Social wellbeing: Finding meaningful human relations (family, relationship, friendships), finding oneself’s usefulness, and sense of community.
Most people endlessly dwell between these two. Disappointingly trying to find more gratification to only find none. Material saturation is eminent. And the emotional capacity to find meaningful human connection is limited, but here comes the top third of the pyramid:
Intellectual stimulation: This is a hard one to define. Because this one is very person-specific.
It’s when you watch a film, or read a book, or listen to music, or look at a painting, and this act feels so special to you. It intrigues you and moves you. It connects you to a life you never had, and never will. It evokes your awe and makes you wonder what’s possible and how possible; it intellectually stimulates you.
But this is not just entertainment. It’s a dimension beyond entertainment, more precisely, it’s mindful entertainment and perception of the creation of other humans’ imagination.
I theorize that human development of science and breakthroughs in medicine will at some point allow for humans to live forever, when we crack the code to making our tissues self-regenerative. It may happen in 50 years, 15,000 years, or anywhere in between.
With a few environmental catastrophes, wiping out big big chunks of human population, humans might finally gear their lives and earth’s resources to a state of endless mental stimulation. It will require a lot of AI and computer science, hand-in-hand with neurology and medicine.
I imagine a future where humans will willingly plug themselves, with their now immortal bodies to a drip that’s sourcing nutrition automatically from earth’s resources, granting immortality. And they willingly plug their minds to a computer simulator of sorts, that’s capable of creating endless simulations of lives and adventures. It sources from all literature, history, mythology, movies, music, art and games. It is the ultimate holder of humanity's collective imagination, since humans have existed. And hopefully, it cross sources the imaginations.
It takes one person’s brain and then keeps exposing it to the imagination of infinite lives. It lives in every novel, as every character, as a main character and then as a side character, that has a fully fleshed life, that’s completed by the creation of another writer. Then unto the movies, and games, and myths, and so on, till a meteor smashes this planet to smithereens.
Have you ever lived like a lizard?
