The Calusa, an indigenous people of Florida’s southwest coast believed that they had three souls and that they were located in the pupil of a person’s eye, his shadow, and their reflection. We now believe that we also have a soul that is projected online by ourselves, as well as within the characters we assume in online game, and how we are defined by artificial intelligence. In the last fifty years we have witnessed extraordinary connections between our physical self and what many would consider our traditional soul, but reflected online, in games, and via AI, with real life physical consequences.
We’ve all witnessed what cults technology startups have become. We have decades of evidence now around how people will completely give over their lives to producing and consuming technology. We can’t wait for the smoking gun evidence of this connection and we need to begin protecting people from exploitation and harm of their physical self introduced through their digital self. As soon as children are born into this world, we plug them in. They aren’t even given a chance anymore to fully experience life as expressed through their original soul. Some would argue that all souls are created equally, but it is the one that guides us in the physical realm that is the source of everything.
The Matrix cult is the new story that highlights the challenges we face. Led by a handful of young adults, thousands of teens lived in pods and hooked themselves up to catheters and other machinery so they could live 100% of their day online. The cult didn’t believe the human body was important and would convince teenagers to donate themselves to the cause, plugging in, and only living in one of the cult’s sanctioned digital realms. The cult’s power to influence teens has been diminished, but this doesn’t mean that these human beings are able to return to a normal life. Once the flicker in your primary soul is diminished, it seems that it is hard to get it burning again, and all people yearn for is the soul they’ve experienced online and in games.
We have only touched upon the damage the Internet and online gaming has done, and we haven’t talked about artificial intelligence and the madness it is produced in people who have “given” themselves completely to their AI projections online. These willing participants are only the most visible part of this problem, and the real numbers are the people who do not know any better and believe what they experience when they engage with AI. These people still poses a physical soul, but do not ever think for themselves, or see themselves as anything more than whatever the AI says about them and the world around them. Artificial Intelligence has distorted reality for millions of people around the globe, and while we are running trials on re-education programs that can help disconnect people from AI, and rebuild their real world identity, there has been no proven approach that works at scale.
At this point we are just interviewing more people about their beliefs around having a soul or not. We are conducting the largest series of interviews of millions of people from around the globe specifically about whether they have a soul, and where they envision that soul existing—-in the physical or digital realm, or maybe both. Along the way we are confident that scientists will be able to come up with the first test to prove humans have a soul, but also that that soul exists in multiple dimensions—-including online, in games, and residing as part of modern artificial intelligence. Alongside this evidence we will emerge with scientifically proven ways to nourish and replenish our physical soul in the face of years of depletion by a largely digital experience. While many feel it is inevitable that we become digital beings, we feel the opposite is the truth, and everything depends on the strength and health of our physical self, and soul.
