6. Run (COMP)

In the chain reaction described in chapter 5, intelligence falls farther and farther behind optimum because we are less and less prepared for the changes that are happening to us. With physically maturing bodies, we present the appearance of maturing humans, but our intelligence is alas far behind even before we approach puberty. This ongoing immaturity of intelligence makes us prone to malfunctions in certain key areas, which we'll explore in this chapter. First though, I want to give you a glimpse of what should be going on, from matrix 3 on up.

I have said, thus far, that intelligence development in humans goes wrong because biology relies on having its needs met, every breath along the way. (So will an AI, of course, albeit different needs). In every intelligence growth stage, we need certain things to happen in order to keep our minds developing.R3 Without those things, without those crucial necessary inputs, parts of our brains develop too slowly, incompletely, or not at all.

I've also said that we often err by not just merely denying input, but by pushing the wrong kinds of input too soon. It is obvious what input is relevant to the body at most stages. (We wouldn't give a two-month-old baby a whole, shelled lobster and a porno magazine, for example. Waste of a good lobster.) It's also obvious that a body needs its food and its sleep. But the problem with the mind, of course, is that we're not telepathic... How do we know what the mind needs and when?

By watching the behavior of its owner with different inputs. We are compelled, as children, to seek the kind of input we need, or find the nearest thing to it. If the input's right, we'll interact with it. If it's not, we tend to stand and stare, trying to figure it out, as we do at first with television. If the input is judged boring, we lose interest, as anybody knows who has ever done data entry all afternoon, or sat in a dull schoolroom staring out of the window at the sunshine, envying those fellows brave enough to bunk off, defy their parents, and go downtown (or, in the rare but not unknown case, to bunk off with their parents and muck about with tech.)

According to Piaget, human children play in two different ways,R2 fantasy play (imagination acting on physical reality) and imitative play (physical reality acting on imagination). Both kinds involve imagination. Both kinds are used by COMP.

Hyperreality

Imagine you're a kid of about seven and I've just given you a large cardboard box. Now sit in it, and let's play pirates...

In fantasy play, real physical objects are used, but imagination changes the objects (the cardboard box you're sitting in becomes a boat, or a cave, or whatever. Let's go with a boat...) Obviously you still know it's really a box; i.e., you're not deluded, but the play reality is distinct from the physical reality although both happen in the same place at the same time. If there are enough points of similarity between the physical object and the imagined object, the game works; you sit in your boat and play away, and the box obligingly rocks about and -wahh! Watch the sharks! -Almost overbalances as you're attacked by pirates, for example....freeze it...

...Your intelligence has, at this moment, touched upon hyperreality. You have perceived an object absolutely correctly, and then you have made that object a tool for your fantasy image, by transforming it in your imagination. You have changed reality into a tool, by and for desire, and the new reality you perceive is both the sum of, and more than, either your imagination or the physical world on its own. That is hyperreality.

You may not get this yet, but don't worry. There are plenty of examples as we go along. The whole idea is that we can change things in the real world by applying our imagination, not just in having creative ideas for designs or inventions (although such ideas certainly change reality) but also by acquiring skills via imagination that we can then apply in real life.

COMP uses hyperreality in the bonding process. In a sense, everything we learn must become a part of us; we must bond to it. Hyperreality is that place where the similarities between two otherwise dissimilar things work together to create that bridge between realities. The box rocks, the boat rocks...the box has enclosing sides that give a feeling of safety, the boat has enclosing sides that give a feeling of safety...these are hyperreality links. The box ends up being both a box and a boat (i.e., it can give us skills that we would also learn in a real boat, balance and coordination, for example). But the really important skills are these: How not to panic in a crisis. How to be aware of where a dangerous creature is. How to fight to survive against the odds, even when you're scared...Courage...Competence. By pretending, if our imagination is good enough, we can practice all these things and we will then be able to apply that practice in reality. Later, we can manipulate physical reality through creative logic and imaginative strategy and practice scenarios in our minds. Hyperreality is not a simulated reality or even a virtual one (although we do play with imagination in a virtual space, the space of practice and variation). The difference is, VR and Sims give less information than ordinary physical reality, and hyperreality gives more.

COMP also uses imitative play. In this, as a child, your body is used in imitation. You see some task done by a parent and you copy their actions with your own. Or you come back from the movies and feel compelled to dress up as Batman or Superwoman or whoever and go leaping about acting out the part as our hero models did.

When we do this, we act as though we are the models we're copying, and a part of that act is to assume the abilities of the models imitated, to see what it feels like to really be that character doing that thing. The game is to copy the model not just by adapting one's own body to the actions of the model, but also by adopting their attitude. The more perfect and accurate the copying, the better the play. By dressing up or making the same movements, saying the same words, we again touch hyperreality; we experience being transformed into that image. More than just imagination, but more than just physical reality as well. And in that transformation, we experience our model's attitude towards the world and we experience the emotions that causes. We make the same facial expressions...release the hormones related to them...We feel how our heroes would feel. The patterns of neurons fire to accommodate this experience...Our body chemistry changes. Our brain chemistry follows suit. Synapses begin to form, receptors for those hormones; we will find it easier to access those emotions and that behavior next time...The patterns for feeling brave, strong, athletic, and downright heroic; the image out there transforms the image in here, we think in the same way as our heroes, and those bits of our brains related to those emotions grow more connections. We find it easier and easier to copy that; to think that way, and we become more and more similar to what we are copying.

This is the skill we should later use to view from hyperreality as a creative programmer of our own minds.

Almost everyone has to run COMP to some extent. The COMP program running at its most basic level, is how we learn. Without it, we could not learn to walk, talk or control our bladders. Neither could we learn music or mathematics, nor who sells the best pizza or who our brother is. Everybody can run COMP on the basic level, except the severely mentally subnormal. But to get any further than that first level we need it to run on a machine with the relevant systems. In most people these systems have not developed too well, but they can be developed sufficiently by neurohacking.

The relevant systems for COMP are: a complete set of neural modules and a sufficient number of connections between modules enabling sensory motor, imagination/emotion, and intellect/abstract thought. Not just one kind of thought, as is the case with most people, but all three.

The central processing software of intelligence for mind, brain and memory is imagination. This needs qualification, and we'll look at it in depth in the advanced user section level 2 (chapter 17). For now, all we need to know is that COMP is the major program that intelligence runs and it calls on all parts of the brain to run efficiently. If you will recall its description earlier I said it did four things, in this order: (1) Lo-res scan, (2) Imitate/copy, (3) Hi-res scan, and (4) Practice/variation. It always does them in this basic order, although there is a lot of overlap.

In the initial, lo-res scan it catches the basics, like you do when you watch a movie on fast forward that you haven't seen before. It then starts to imitate/copy what it has seen, whilst assimilating any unknown points about it in association with things it knows already. It then runs a hi-res scan in order to improve its copying, and this time around it watches the movie at the proper speed and really pays attention to detail. It may try the most difficult parts out in slow motion before coming up to speed. Continuing to copy, it will assimilate as much as it can before trying variations on a theme in practice. Practice goes on quite intensely until the skill becomes automatic and assimilation mainly goes on during sleep. Eventually the skill or ability within an experience becomes automatic. The program then starts a search for the next relevant thing, skill, or information to pay attention to. That's it. This process is iterative, it is repeated, in parallel, over and over for every thing we learn, from how to open a jar to how to save the planet.

COMP is a masterpiece of a program. It is the way intelligence grows and it is almost (but not quite) impossible to crash. Its problems in execution lie in the fact that it tries to keep on running regardless of whether its input is optimal, sub optimal, or just plain gobbledygook. It cannot compensate for damaged hardware or distorted input due to other software malfunction. It behaves in these circumstances a little like Windows; it keeps trying to be helpful, causes you loads of hassle and eventually does your head in.

The mind makes it real

What goes in determines what comes out; this problem cannot be understated, although it can take a person a long time to see the literal reality of it. Distorted input will only ever result in distorted output. When the main architecture of the hardware is still under construction (as is the case in childhood) we are doubly dependent on the correct input at the correct time; the hardware is designed for us to install stuff in a certain order, and as any good engineer knows, it is therefore vital that we do so.R3 Consider that the development of the rest of the hardware is dependent on the correct order of installation...If the input we are given is inappropriate, no such development can take place.

During M4, we should start to be able to use COMP to alter reality; not just in the world around us, but in ourselves. To do this at first, we need actual physical role models to copy. People on television and films will do fine, but we need to choose our role models carefully, watch them often, and play at being them. This is what brings about the set of action potential patterns in our brains, which starts synaptogenesis (the formation of new synapses between neurons, thickening networks). The brain should be working with the incoming input from two sources: stuff from the ordinary, physical, sensory motor world of cause and effect, and stuff from our imagination and intellect about our role models. We play at being those models and our brain does the actual work of genuinely making us more like them. We run COMP. The mechanics of intelligence are that we are learning how to become our own matrix. To depend on and rely upon ourselves. To be self-reliant. This drives us towards intelligence's autonomy, self-sufficiency and total freedom. First though, we must learn about self-sufficiency by copying examples of it.

If you watch a video of a favorite role model performing some action which you have never done before, and you imagine the action over and over in your mind's eye until all movements are seen clearly, and then actually go and practice the action directly, you will find your ability to perform that action, whatever it is, almost feels familiar. This technique, known as Neuro Muscular Training amongst other things, is used nowadays in sports training. How does it work?

Imagining is thinking, and thinking needs muscular movement.R16 We all make micromuscular movements in response to sound, light, and other inputs, including input from within. Beginning before birth, these movements are generally microscopic, tiny action potentials firing off in muscles, but they are always present, and can be captured with digital imagery these days, jog shuttled and viewed in slow motion. Everyone's are different but consistent to themselves (i.e., when the input is the same, and the person is the same, the movement is the same). Brain activity also makes body movement happen; and the same networks light up in response to imagining that input. The body is not so much an extension of the brain as an interface suite for it. The brain will start to make the same internal muscular and hormonal survival response to imagining a tiger as to the external tiger, the important mediating factor being a different network which tells you it isn't real in the physical world and puts the brakes on. An inability to 'put the brakes on' often afflicts people in M3, because there are not adequate connections between the midbrain and the LH. The pixies or the aliens or the gods remain real. An inability to suspend disbelief afflicts their counterparts in M4, who often say they 'cannot possibly imagine' believing in that sort of thing. They are correct; they can't. They cannot suspend disbelief, and because of they cannot run COMP efficiently and must work really hard to learn, being largely unable to learn through play.

These unfortunate people can never learn how to make creative/intuitive 'shortcuts', and must laboriously work through every scrap of information before understanding anything. They are the people who do very well at school and then fail to do better and become teachers.

This switch for disbelief suspension/putting on the brakes is central to the operation of COMP. We must be adept enough to get the thrill (stress) of narrowly escaping being eaten by sharks, without having to cope with the actual being eaten if we fall out of the box; we must at that point put on the brakes and laugh, (relaxation) because it's only a game.... And this should always be our approach to the unknown in life.

It's no good saying 'but real life isn't a game' -the point is we have to suspend disbelief and make it so, in order that we learn at optimum...In the same way that you could project that image of the boat onto your cardboard box with COMP, so you should now be able to project your long-rehearsed 'VR' internal actions as a competent person onto your external action in the real world. It is biology's own NMT (and the reason why NMT works in the first place). The micro-movements become amplified into full sized real movements with familiarity and precision, because they have been rehearsed without opposition or failure, in the virtual reality world of your mind that underlies the physical one; your imagination. (Actually it not only underlies the physical one; it also creates it, as we shall see...) The model has been a good one, and your imagination has come out to play, and met it halfway. Suddenly you are much better at, say, tennis, or arguing coherently, or not getting annoyed so easily, or computer programming, or whatever. The actual technical aspects of a skill, in this frame of mind, become just part of 'filling in the details', and seem easy. The changed image has changed reality. The outside world now reflects the inner play. Disputes about the 'real world' out there, and our 'internal imaginations' in here, once you know how COMP works, begin to have less meaning.

This is how the mind makes it real. On their own, your untrained muscles are powerless, an unknown skill is unfamiliar and may be difficult and require much practice, a long term habit will be difficult to break, people cannot walk on the moon, women must spend half their lives pregnant or breastfeeding, and so on. These are biology's principles, subject to the laws of chemistry and physics, understandable by common sense, and predictable. They make up reality. But add intelligence, idea, or image, (imagine) and you add the mind. You weight a memory with emotion and imagination and you remember it more easily. You learn faster because you remember more easily. Add the mind to the world, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts. You have, not 'reality' as in, 'the world', but reality as a construct, a created reality. Not a virtual reality, with less information than the real, but hyperreality, with control, and a great deal more information than the 'real'. Human reality experience and the physical, material world should not be the same thing, but an interaction.

Despite never knowing how to run COMP full on, many people experience it once or twice in their lives. This happens when sudden shock or emergency blanks out the ordinary personality and for a short while, they are in hyperreality and fearless intelligence rules supreme. In such states of mind, people have performed 'superhuman' feats of strength and endurance and emerged victorious to announce 'It was a miracle', or 'However did I do that? I don't know what came over me'. Oddly enough, it was their own mind; sexual pun intended.

I'll give you a real life example, an experience my colleague had as a child:

"My parents and their friends had a boat back then, and we were about to use it to take a ride. I was five and didn't know how to swim. I was on the pier, playing with some stick I'd found, trying to pour water on my brother and his friend who were on the boat. Because of my movements I fell into the harbor water (the fall threw me at least 3 feet under the surface, and around me was only filthy dark green colored water.) I didn't have time to take any deep breath before falling, so the quantity of air inside my lungs was not sufficient to help me float or be pushed up by Archimedes' principle. I was sinking! But without panicking, my limbs got it together quite naturally, and I emerged at the surface, finding a tire used for protecting the boats to hang onto, my father saw that and got into the water to take me out. I should have been terrified, but during the time I was under the water, it was quite thrilling."

All young animals can swim, including humans, until somebody convinces them otherwise. The younger we are, the easier it is, under crisis, to allow intelligence to take over. But we always have the chance to do that, for as long as we would like it to. And this is what we should be learning all along. -How to face the unknown and use COMP to conquer it.

Competence is based upon the truth, not lies. The reason why we spend our time in M3 exploring the environment, is that intelligence needs to be hardwired to reality exactly as it actually is in order to learn how far it is safe to suspend disbelief, and when to put the brakes on. COMP needs its input to be as accurate and complete as it is designed to work with. If the modules are not powerful enough, perception is distorted, and decision making and judgment are affected. Events are judged with disproportional importance. We jump in the river to save our dog (or Rolex) and we drown. No forward planning. No realistic conscious thought, but thought dictated by sentiment, from moment to moment. Our brains' inability to run COMP successfully means we cannot learn very easily, the CC develops only sparsely, the brain's wiring replaces bonding format with attachment format and emotion with sentiment (okay, I know; I'm not going to jump ahead but I'll get to these soon). At this point though, the hard-line to reality, the CC, our bridge, our link from one matrix to another, is cut and we're stuck. From that time on our perception will remain faulty, and we'll be stuck in a simulation of reality created by that faulty wiring and perception, instead of by reality. We can never get out by trying to run COMP in the format of attachment behavior; attachment and sentiment are not powerful enough to give enough weighting to fire enough action potentials to grow that much brain. We need bonding, and real emotion; intelligence hardwired to reality, the midbrain wired to the neocortex, and a pair of luscious, ripe, firm, curvy hemispheres linked together with a CC dedicated com line between them that's got you from here to there and back again before you can even say 'ADSL'.

Instead, we currently have a social majority of 'average' human beings, living in a simulation full of weak sentiments based on attachment behavior.

Our input shapes what we are. It is during M4 that we should be able to really take advantage of our role models. Dr. Edmund CarpenterR21 was really surprised by this some years ago when he took a bunch of city kids to a ranch style riding stables (they were all around 11-12). The kids had never actually seen real horses before, but when told that they were allowed to ride, they rushed to the horses, jumped skillfully onto them, and rode galloping away with astonishing skill; just as they had seen their hero models do on television for years. These actions were thoroughly ingrained in their minds and bodies by a kind of accidental NMT, a set of neuronal connections which had been grown entirely by watching the likes of Indiana Jones. Up to that point, those connections had been built, programmed, and used solely in imagination, fueled by COMP running unobtrusively in the unconscious background making all the relevant muscular micromovements, while all they did was watch the movies. Play and the work will be done for you.

With a bit of neurohacking we can get back into doing this in no time. And we can use it with anything. The ability of the role model is the 'loading program'. We can load anything we want to; sports, knowledge, appearance, skills; anything we need. If the model exists, we can use it to copy and gain those skills, as long as it has enough points of similarity with our existing world knowledge. We can record the biofeedback of that process and replay it to ourselves at normal speed, or other speed, or we can hack the biofeedback file itself and initiate changes in the brainwave pattern faster, pushing the speed of our learning. We can 'overweight' the input so that we remember it faster, use TMS or NMS to assist the process, and chemicals to augment it, if we want to...But before you M3s start quoting The Matrix, or shouting 'mind over matter!', and the M4s start estimating their potential IQ increase and dribbling on the mouse mat, there are problems we have to solve first.

The 'education' (or rather, 'enculturation') of western society is based on a word-built logic which can only be profitably used by only one module of the brain. There is very little other input provided by society. When we shift into the 4th matrix (age 7) we should be able to internalize thought as speech (young children externalize it, by talking out loud as they play). This should be a great advantage to intelligence as it offers an extra tool for learning; most of the input then comes from outside, gets looked at mostly inside, and then output heads on out as it is meant to and we make the relevant response. But when an intelligence is stuck in a matrix and is operating from attachment's ethics (sentiment) the hard-line to reality is down; the input from inside seems much stronger than that from outside. ...So the person's awareness becomes one vast stage for internal word arguments. Their brain forms the equivalent of a data loop. It feeds the thoughts from one part of itself into another, and the part it feeds them into assumes this information has come from outside (i.e., from the real world). ...So it makes decisions based on this information and sends them back to the first part...and round they go again. Very little real time input from the real world in the here and now can get a word in edgeways. Output signals are out of sequence with reality, sometimes giving not enough information, like in a badly dubbed movie, or sometimes completely wrong information, like the ambassador in the fabulous designer dress, who kept getting inexplicable embarrassed and offended looks from Japanese dignitaries (the arty Japanese writing on the dress, presumably copied from some random sign by a non-Japanese designer, said 'good whorehouse'. Her perception of written Japanese was inadequate to detect this). People make what they think are appropriate responses in communication and are promptly misunderstood, never knowing why, which causes anxiety. They do not understand that they are giving out inappropriate signals. Without the correct wiring this is inevitable.

So the first thing we need to do is get that hard-line back up and get those lights flashing in sequence. To do that, we need to look very hard at reality without being squeamish and see how it actually isn't our fault that we get conned into wiring things up the wrong way.

The evolution of sentiment –anxiety relief

Here we must deviate into the 'biological psychology tangent'...A part of the human dilemma rests on the fact that we are actually animals, and that we are not overly proud of or even accepting of that fact. We're damned smart animals, but, currently, animals we are, and anything we try to do that goes against those deepest primal instincts is going to make us feel anxiety, regardless of whether it is intelligent or not. Obviously. Our genes don't know about religious rules and political laws and social niceties created by the intellect. They know about survival and fight-or-flight and eating and not getting eaten, and reproducing successfully and often, and having status in group hierarchies, and using intelligence only to get these things. All of these things were very very good; they were evolutionarily stable structures and they have gotten us where we are, as opposed to inside the belly of a predator, or extinct. So far.

This, though, is a major difference between human intelligence and AI. We humans have, in our societies, created a conflict between what we think is right or nice or polite or acceptable to think and feel, and what nature demands of us. An AI would not. (If it did, it would not be an artificial intelligence, it would be an artificial stupidity, or, if you are not prejudiced, a stupid person.)

Don't get me wrong; an AI of necessity would have basic survival programs, just like we do. But it could not logically be ashamed of nor deny them, or cover them up with social niceties, or invent laws that contradict them. We do. (And I believe we do that only because of the kind of damage that is under discussion in this book.) And boy, are we gullible...If an AI had a wicked sense of humor it could take advantage of us something rotten ('He's not the messiah; he's just a very naughty AI...')

Morals and values are an ongoing basic problem for intelligence housed in biology. The morals and values of nature are not the same as our societal morals and values.

Trying to mix them together is not going to work in reality even though it appears to work on paper. Intellect makes up a rule, say, for example, 'If somebody has sex with somebody, they shouldn't have sex with anybody else as well.' Sounds simple. Sometimes we add: 'It's bad to break that rule, or evil to want to.'

Along comes reality. Someone who would probably make a good genetic mix with us for reproduction comes along and waves their private parts at us (flirts) and we want to have sex with them. If we do, we might get caught, lose status, commit a sin, have a paternity suit to deal with, die and burn in hell forever (delete as applicable). Obviously, these concepts cause anxiety. Wherever society disagrees with biology, we will create anxiety. And without intelligence, people have no choice but to behave, quite simply, like animals, and then feel guilty about it afterwards. This is considered 'human nature'.

Biology wants to survive and be successful. To do this it has to get the correct input (food, water, sensory stimulation), interact with other biologies (communicate and reproduce, play and learn), and protect itself (disallow interference). It's pretty straightforward.

Intelligence wants to survive and be successful. To do this it must get the correct input (face the unknown), interact with other intelligences (communicate and reproduce its knowledge and abilities, play and learn), and protect itself (disallow interference). That's pretty straightforward too.

Intellect tries to work out a way that will work for both...and, on its own, backed only by our biological urges, it can't. The two motivations are not compatible, with biology in control, unless you believe that biology is better at protecting intelligence than intelligence is capable of protecting biology. (Our present society is based on this belief despite the obvious evidence against its validity.)

Biology, unfortunately for it, is not evolving as quickly as intelligence. We have at least noticed that we do not wish to spend our whole lives being pushed around by it and then dying. Intelligence would like us to think really hard, have fun, learn, and try to stay alive. It has been fighting biological limitations in order to do this since human evolution began, inventing all the tools and strategies for outwitting the biological deadlines that are imposed upon us. We have never had any intention of conforming to the desires of biology when we can see that they're harmful to our physical lives, which is why we use condoms and take antibiotics. But we've missed the fact that our minds are being damaged, because the only apparatus for detecting that until very recently was the damaged mind itself! And even now, the proof is being looked at, by damaged minds...that maybe cannot face the consequences of that proof.

Some see any interference with 'nature' as a bad thing, and think that we should, if we want to improve ourselves, in some way 'get back to nature'. I think we should keep a jungle somewhere, in its natural state, and anyone who wants to 'go back to nature' could be left in it naked. Give them no interaction with the world outside that jungle, and watch what biology does. No return tickets. I would be interested to see what evolved.

Biology programs us to survive physically and to reproduce, above all else. Everything that we are, biologically, is striving to get laid and avoid being eaten. This means biology is even running intellect because decisions made through intellect with even 'apparent' altruism still hold status as a priority and that is still a biological imperative, caused by a biological limitation. Status gets you laid and stops you being eaten. Appearing to be altruistic gives us status, because that is what our society values (if it valued long hair, we'd all have wigs down to our knees, for much the same reasons.) Our biology controls our motivation. Up to a point (or a bridge, which we who would neurohack must cross...and before we can even cross this bridge, we have to build it.) So we have to be bold enough to be realistic about biology.

'Apparent' is a good word to focus on here because our biological success, (and we may know this only unconsciously) depends almost entirely on how we appear.

If we appear to be brave, and courageously defend ourselves against attack, we are less likely to be molested by predators. It matters little if we are secretly crapping in our pants, as long as we succeed in scaring off the danger or escaping it, outwardly we look really cool. This is one reason why humans are good actors, good mimics, good fakers. Being able to Pretend well could stop you being eaten. ...Or get you laid. This ability though, can backfire on us. For example, it's why humans currently spend their whole lives deceiving each other and lying, frantically searching for ways to avoid facing the truth, and making up intellectual reasons for their actions which have little to do with reality.

Consider this: how we appear to others determines our success, not how we are. The beautiful and the handsome, the successful and the strong and the famous, attract our attention and our favors. Everything in our biology, everything in our unconscious mind knows that. One of our cornerstones for personality structure is a sharp concern with what others think of us. With how we appear. With our reputation. With our status.

Do you think an AI would care if everyone in the whole world hated it? Yes, it would.... If all other AIs hated it or there were no other AIs to interact with, humans would be the only source of interaction, and they would therefore be a priority, because intelligence critically needs interaction to grow. If there were other chummy AIs to talk to, but all the humans hated them, they would be aware of how humans generally tend to behave when they hate something, so humans would still be a concern, because interaction with them would be hampered and communication dangerous and prone to misunderstanding, much as it is now. 'Do-people-like-me?'-type status makes sense to intelligence because of biology. The innate programming of emerging intelligence is to value productive, high-interest interaction and if this develops an error, I think you'll find it's human error, Dave. (And even uploads will hang on to the 'status' habit if those uploads are ordinary humans.)

Status, or reputation, dictates how many social allies we have and how powerful they are. As a group of animals this provides us with protection and aid in case of need, which is vital for individual, family and tribal survival. Interaction with others is of course vital for the development of intelligence too, so as animals we are both consciously and unconsciously aware of our need for company.

Status is a measure of our value, in a biological group. Low status animals are not given help or defense against predators. If nobody likes us we are a lot more likely to die, and a lot less likely to reproduce.

Add intelligence, and it gets complicated. The more competent, autonomous, self-sufficient and intelligent we are, the less we have to depend on others, but the more they desire our company because instinct tells them to hang around high status individuals. Our abilities make us high status because others can learn from us how to become higher status themselves. The less we need them, the more they need us. So they have to entice us into staying around by making it worth our while. If we withdraw too far though, they may decide we are of no practical use to them and so we lose status. The social dance begins...

It is more than merely social. It is logical. If you had two computers both of which upgraded themselves randomly, you would choose to work with whichever machine could best suit your needs at any given time, checking them both out regularly to see which was most advanced. We treat our allies in exactly this same manner when we are choosing whom to spend our time with. Who brings the best returns? 'Returns' can be anything from financial gain to someone making us feel good or laugh. We compute our best moves all the time, with status and biological survival as our algorithms. We forget that mental health is a part of biology too.

Humans are nicer to high status people and negatively discriminate against low status individuals. Driven by our biological needs we unconsciously grade people into a hierarchy and we 'feel concern' for prestigious individuals within that hierarchy only if they remain in the hierarchy. We set a great deal of store on both identifying potential allies and treating our allies better than others.

The biological reasons for this are quite startling.R22 We unconsciously know the value of status because humans of higher status acquire different brain chemistry. They have a higher level of the neurotransmitter serotonin in their bloodstream, and this controls their behavior and their motivation. They are more confident and assertive, less insecure and more sociable. Higher status animals are more successful, live longer and reproduce more. They are more likely to become more intelligent. Those who use it, do not lose it.

Low status individuals often indulge in high-risk criminal strategies, for example theft (biology trying to increase resources and so gain status), rape (biology trying to reproduce despite low status) and murder (biology trying to gain status, or remove something standing in the way of our gaining status, or remove something causing us to lose it). This is another reason why we value high status individuals. They are less likely to harm us. Status is not about wealth or strength, it is, pure and simple, based on the other person's estimate of how useful we are likely to be in keeping them alive and helping them to reproduce. That is all. Our brains do the equations and we churn out the responses and hormones accordingly, just as all primates do. And this will continue to be the case for as long as biology has a stranglehold on intelligence.

If we pretend there is anything more and that 'altruism' is genuine in current society, we are conning ourselves. The fact is, we cannot truly care about a person unless we bond with them, and it's not possible to bond with many people these days, so we pretend. Most people do pretend, because perception and acceptance of the truth is only possible with an open intelligence and a flexible logic provided by at least five matrices. For those without one (i.e. most people), who are not competent to do that, 'Pretend' they must. Reality causes too much anxiety to be faced in that space because without a fully developed intelligence the truth is too great an unknown for a human imagination to even want to think about grasping. It's disgusting. Biological reality is indeed 'red in tooth and claw', and a bit much to face even for me before breakfast. Our situation is dire. Here we are. Look at you; you're human, okay? Welcome to Utopia, Gaia, mother earth, the desert of the real... Two thirds of it is water and lots of the rest is too cold, too hot, or full of interesting natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanoes. Everything on the planet is out to kill you, from deadly insects to poisonous plants to large hairy predators, the weather, HIV, everybody else, and salmonella. Your biology breaks easily and takes a long time to repair. Your society and most fellow humans are beset with apparently never-ending circular problems of disagreement, depression, violence, conflict and war. Welcome to your life. Happy birthday. You'll suffer, physically and mentally, programmed as you are to never give up; never surrender, you'll fight to survive against enormous odds to stay alive and sane and your reward for this in the end, –from the very thing that made you do all that fighting -your biology- will be death. Indifferent to how you have lived, of how intelligent you are, of how much you are depended upon, or how much you love life, it will kill you. You'll be annihilated, put to death, probably in quite a nasty way. Such is your reward for that entire struggle. Everything that you are, will be lost in time...like tears in the rain, or too many sci-fi quotes...

This is, quite understandably, totally unacceptable to any intelligent mind. You want more life, swearword.

Here you are in society. Your everyday life. The real world. Our instinct for being a part of society is built into us. There is nothing wrong with this, if we have a sane society in which to live and of which to be a part. If our society isn't quite so sane, it still shapes our lives even from our conception, whether we like it or not. Society / biology pull us one way, intelligence often another, but it is a law of intelligence to try to interact with our society, so we have a catch 22. Operating from attachment ethics, there is a further split. Examples: society tells us we should love our neighbors as ourselves, give to the poor and be good Samaritans. If we are wronged, forgive and forget. These seem like good ideas to intellect, however, we are not biologically programmed to 'care' for individuals per se, and we have to be currently conned into it with false examples of sentiment. We are programmed to care only about those in relation to whom it is in our survival interests to do so. Our allies. Partner, husband, wife, friend, son, daughter, teammate...all these are allies. If your girlfriend leaves you and the result is a gain in status, (e.g., a better job and a more attractive potential mate,) you are programmed, by biology, not to care. Being nice to those who crap on you, doesn't feel right, but we'd be ashamed to say so...It gets worse... If your kids are better looking or more intelligent than you, you are programmed to defend them as long as they stay within your group, if they are not, you are less likely to; they are less likely to be high status allies. The more like you they are (or appear to be) the more you will care about them, biologically. Neither are we programmed to 'forgive and forget', indeed, it would be a most dangerous thing for biology to do; something which has been a danger once, could be a danger again. We are compelled to be unconsciously aware of that, regardless of what we say. This is biology. Not very altruistic, is it? Get real. Things eat things. Things get eaten. And all of those things feel pain. It stinks, doesn't it? Live with it. But get real and admit it's going on. Biology is a master assassin and torturer, and all it's victims die in the end.

In life, biology constantly looks at appearances. If something looks like us or like someone we admire, they must be like us, says the unconscious. If someone smells very different from us they would probably be a good sexual mate, and so on. Our bodies make the decisions regardless of our logic. We then make 'logical' excuses to make it so.

Ah, but what about free will? I hear you ask. For we are not as beasts of the field, controlled by base instincts, we have intellect, and logic, and free choice, and cheap reliable contraception, and recreational drugs that we can give up any time we want to...We are civilized. We've grown up enough now not to believe in any of that fate crap; we're in control of our own lives, remember?

We think we can override feelings with rationality, and often we do, but of course our rationality is rooted in the fact that we are biological and its decisions are just as much under the control of that tyrant as the body is. Status and ultimately survival rule the biological mind. 'Intellect' is just as programmed as intuition –with biological survival as priority, which is why we panic when someone disagrees with us. Our brains interpret body language, smells, sounds, shapes and colors, textures and tastes. We are not telepathic. But we are very very good at interpreting signals; molecules in the air too small to smell, things in the periphery of our vision, body language, tone of voice, combinations of colors, and our brain cannot easily stop itself from being programmed by whatever it is surrounded with, because new connections are forming constantly in the areas currently under use. And what biology expects us to be surrounded by is not what intelligence has as priority. The animal inside us all is running the show; only the props it uses are different, and it can use intellect just as effectively as it can use fists.

I recall reading a report about a tribe, the Sanema I think, who behave, socially, much as we do most of the time. They behave in a manner that will give them reputation for value. If they are valuable members of the community, they are more likely to be cared for when sick or assisted when in danger. They are more likely to survive. They get this reputation by appearing to care about others. Those who care more for sick or injured 'friends' will receive more care if they fall sick. They will have status, prestige, and thus value to the tribe... All this falls apart however during times of great famine, when everyone makes it quite plain that in these circumstances it's everyone for themselves, and young people are seen laughing at the suffering of the ill and weak whilst stealing food from them. This is how biology alone would have us behave.

Fortunately, once intelligence perceives the truth, it will tend to hold to it. Our intelligence has informed us often and painfully how biology's way is not often the best way. We have seen that it was not good. To this end, we have built houses, made fire, worn clothes, invented medicine, discovered physical laws and created language, started farming, assembled computers, walked on the moon and come at this heady time in our intellectual evolution to consider ourselves educated. 'Civilized'.

And of course one of the most important things to us throughout all this, and even now, having rejected in outrage or at least distaste, the morals and values of nature, was to try to come up with a better way. A better set of morals and values. A better way to live. A less cruel way. A more intelligent way.

This is the best idea humans have ever had, ever. A real potential singularity for the emancipation of intelligence.

Unfortunately they really messed it up, big time.

They've cut the hard-line –let's get out of here!

Now consider this: in a tribal situation (which is what we are still genetically programmed for, evolution being slower than the emergence of intelligence,) if you are weak, sick or disadvantaged in some way it makes sense for you to gain status by providing some useful skill, such as medical or musical ability or childcare, but if you're not smart enough or too apathetic due to damage, you can still survive by cheating; by using your intellect to manipulate people into a position where you appear invaluable, such as 'communication with the gods' or 'special magic powers'. Fear works well, if people fear a curse they will appease you, as long as you can keep them afraid. Once in a position of power, you could contrive to make it a status symbol to 'give to the poor', for example, (you being one of the poor), and make people believe that the gods will repay them if they do, or punish them if they don't. These 'religious' issues always become moral issues in societies because 'gods' are presumed to be more intelligent than we are. It makes good sense to take our instruction from the smartest source possible, and our brains are sadly innocent in a lot of ways. Intelligence expects the truth; and stupidity can rely upon deceit in order to fool it.

The most blindingly obvious clue that there is very little competent intelligence on this planet is the fact that death due to old age is not considered a research priority and a major problem. In an intelligence-based system, this would be a very high priority. Where can we get an intelligence-based system? Only from a competent intelligence.

Only a competent intelligence will design competent morals and values for the organisms that we are. Humans don't live long enough to solve philosophical conflicts about morals and values without one. Way back in our origins before literacy or even the ZX80, society's problems had to be solved for exactly the same reasons we try to solve them now; to avoid anxiety enough to try and grow a little. Some people want a solution given to them, some want to take control and dictate their own solutions. 'So what?' think you; social evolution; those who found the most intelligent systems, are probably those whose systems have survived. Wrong.

We are fallible; we are capable of being deceived. We want to believe. And more than anything, we want to belong.

And perhaps we think we are smarter than we are, because unconsciously we know that we should be.

It doesn't take much to fool a human. Our biology can trap us in the manipulations of another person just as it dictates our own. An innocent intelligence begins its interactions under the assumption that everybody else is probably about as smart as it is. Only slowly does it come to realize if this is not the case.

Instead of creating a value system based in the physical reality of our animal natures, yet with intelligence as a priority, we have allowed the invention of systems based on our need for status, with bodily survival (group or individual) as a priority over intelligence. Some people have used mainly emotion to create their manipulating systems and rules. Some used mainly intellect. All are filtered through biology. So, society has invented its religions and political systems, based on status. Priests encourage people to believe in their gods, and so get higher status as the voice of those gods, politicians and strategists vie with each other over how best to use the public to rise in status. Smart strategists in social engineering, seeking higher status. Fair play to them, you may think. Cunning stunts. The problem is, these systems now inherited by or imposed upon us all are designed by incompetent minds based upon attachment behavior, driven by fear of abandonment, and dirty in the fight to survive in an unknown and unknowable reality. (Abandonment means total loss of status. Biology translates that as: 'as good as dead.')

...And so the laws and morals based on pretending and false sentiment begin. The effect these sort of memes has had on intelligence, being designed as we are to copy, is to make others feel guilty that they were not as caring about others as the altruistic high status people were, and then decide to pretend to be (not knowing that their models were pretending too)...After all, who would know the difference? The gods might know the difference, and those who felt the most anxious about that would have to pretend to themselves that it was real or worry all the time and try to do more things the gods wanted... But would the gods mind? ...Biology knows that the biological effect on those being cared for is the same; the brain cannot tell the difference, biology cannot tell the difference. It's not your fault if you can't really feel it. Your act-of-care still reduces stress hormones and improves the health of those cared for (but only if they never find out its a cheat)...could the gods not use us as a conduit for their goodness, even though we are not that good ourselves...oh what a tangled web we weave...

More recently we have been manipulated into thinking it is respectable to 'do good works' regardless of what one feels, and even in opposition to it; this has evolved into the meme of the epitome of the greatest good, i.e. selfless behavior, the ideal of civilized moral and ethical thought, and, in my opinion, the ultimate sadistic weapon against intelligence. Consequent to selflessness' importance, those appearing to have it rise in status. Even those who get paid for doing selfless things (firefighters, nurses, etc.) are accorded respect and status based on job title rather than character or psychology. We are terribly shocked if we hear of a doctor or a teacher or a nun doing something gross or getting beaten up because they are high status individuals and it doesn't make sense. We automatically assume either the stories or the characters must be counterfeit because we expect this behavior around low status individuals. Public accusations of nastiness aimed at celebrities always cause a furor for the same reason. It's easier to believe a person is incapable of cruel acts when they are a great musician whose tunes you've danced to. They've given you a good time, so they must be a good person. Wrong.

We need everyone to believe that we are a high status person in a high status group with high status friends. We subconsciously calculate every move and spend just enough energy on caring to prevent others from usurping us in the hierarchy, (and may become defensive if they appear to care more than we do.) So-called 'selfless' behavior is mathematically predictable and is based on factors affecting status. Numbers don't lie. More than a certain number, you're genuine. Less than it, you're not. In the latter case, if you're operating according to attachment format you cannot increase your intelligence. Most of what you do will be done for the sake of appearances. Humans care more about being seen to care than about the welfare of the person they are actually caring for. (No 'attached' human would actually admit this, unless they were happy to be labeled 'psychopath'.) People are so afraid to admit it that they have convinced themselves their cover-up is reality. It would be impossible to reveal without losing prestige. No one must ever find out its a cheat.

This conflict itself causes anxiety. We cannot resolve the anxiety without sufficient intelligence, and we cannot increase intelligence without first resolving the anxiety. This is like one of those 'stuck in a loop' situations, in which Isaac Asimov describes an AI getting caught. It does not compute. We find this situation especially intolerable because we unconsciously know that if it cannot be resolved it leads to entropy and extinction, ours personally and also that of the species.

Sentiment, or false emotion based on pretending to care, has evolved anthropologically into a social 'norm'; a status quo (very apt term), a consensus of opinion and values, held by the majority of people in the group or society, connected to a set of 'feelings' designed to pacify anxiety because we will not allow ourselves to behave as biology would have us behave, full moon though it may be. Quite right too! The trouble is, that's not a moon ...it's a space station. And in a very similar predicament to the rebel's dilemma, we can't run...but there are alternatives to fighting. We can hide (control input), and then we can escape (reprogram & rewire), and then we can come back fighting with an arsenal of intelligence behind us.

Individuals are driven to be a member of relationships and groups, either because of (if they're damaged) fear of failure to survive alone, or, (if they're not) confidence that together we can make it better, baby. Transhumanists fall into the latter category, as do most doctors, scientists, engineers, writers, artists and musicians; in short, creators and explorers in part, but in the main, people stuck in matrix 4. A good proportion of high quality intellect moves through the winding streams of Internet country. We are, as a species, still in there with a chance, as it were. We do however still have to live in this society, and we need intelligent interaction. Never forget that.

Unfortunately, fear rather than a need to explore, drives most individuals and groups. If the group therefore values something highly, members will strive to conform and achieve it, or rather, they will strive to appear to achieve it even if they cannot actually achieve it. To have to admit that they could not actually achieve it would bring them down in the eyes of the hierarchy they value, and of which they are a part. Thus, society has come to value 'selflessness'. Selflessness, altruism, caring, consideration, pity, mercy, martyrhood, sacrifice, charity, self-denial. We admire these traits in others and we strive to emulate them, to prove ourselves as 'good' people. From childhood we are shown examples of these traits, on TV, in books, from the behavior of parents and friends.

We copy whatever is around us, on a neuronal as well as a physical level, and from a mixture of that we form our own line where 'selfish' ends. Most of us would not shoot ourselves in the head to save our pet dog, but most of us would put ourselves in danger to save a child. Not because we care, but because of what would happen to us if we made it clear that we did not care. (That's the part we can't admit though).

I am not trying to say here, 'face it, you're really an asshole'. I am trying to say, 'face it, you're not an asshole but you're going to lie, because people are too stupid to deal with the truth, and if they're stupid, they're going to lie to themselves'. You're doing the best possible thing you could be doing for your biological survival, in your current circumstances. If everyone around you is deaf and hearing is illegal, it's best to pretend that you can't hear.

Everything we do currently has its roots in biology, everything. We use intellect to attempt to rationalize it, but this falls apart under the scrutiny of intelligence. We say, for example, that we send our kids to school to get them a good education; if told that home-educated kids do just as well, we think of another excuse, if told that school-educated kids do worse, we refuse to believe it or even to look into the possibility... We can't be bothered.... It can't make that much difference. ...Well, we went to school and we're okay...We send our kids to school (and summer camp, and kindergarten) in actual fact because it makes biological sense to get someone else to bring your kids up, freeing you to reproduce more often. We don't want them around because they cramp our style. We will do this at the cost of our kids' intelligence because we value biology more than intelligence. If our kid develops ADHD, we don't remove or change the input (the cause), we treat the symptoms, currently with Ritalin.

And there's a darker reason...these days, we send our kids away because when intelligence is young enough to still believe that it might get its needs met by complaining, it does so, constantly. It's bored. It needs constant interaction. And we don't want to hear it. It drives us nuts. We don't have the energy, and it keeps reminding us that somewhere, somehow, something does not compute. Something is missing.

What I am suggesting is not that we do these things without thinking but that we are conning ourselves about our reasons for doing them, and the same things that are causing us to do this are holding our intelligence back. We need a new paradigm, action based on that paradigm, and the morals and values derived from it, or the future for intelligence looks grim. To get this paradigm, we need an intelligence adept enough to design it. An intelligence that can process sufficient information about reality to compute the best course of action in real-time, for each of us, and for all of us (intelligence itself).

Matrix theory encompasses one method by which we can achieve this through neurohacking. It may be that we will see the only way to accomplish this is to develop to the point where we can create an intelligence greater than our own; that may suffice. Or it may be that we have to go the whole way ourselves, by the dual tactics of increasing our intelligence and living longer. I have no idea which it will be, or whether both, but where a path lies towards it, of that I have no doubt.

I say 'a' path, because there are quite likely several. Matrix theory is the one I have chosen to go down.

The most important first step on this particular path is to delete (with wiping) sentiment. All feelings of sentiment stem from fear of abandonment. Romance, jealousy, possessiveness, homesickness, nostalgia, emotional blackmail, fluffy-bunny-cute or melodramatic tragedy, bossiness, sulks, tantrums, pathos, even the 'attached' pallid version of 'love' is founded in fear of loss. I believe as very small children, when we first encounter sentiment, we wonder why we don't feel it too. After a while we start to get subconsciously uncomfortable and feel that there might be something wrong with us, but we are designed to copy, so we innocently trust it and go through the motions connected with the so-called 'emotion', and that causes a physical response. We think 'Something's happening! What is it?', label that response (as labeled by others) 'Sympathy' or 'Ahhhh, it's cute', or whatever, file it as 'normal for human' and then take it from there. We program our responses subconsciously as we grow, to fit in with everybody else's. We never really look inside and realize we don't really feel like that.

We wouldn't want to look. -What would people think? What will happen to you if people think you're weird, think badly of you? What will the neighbors say? The more intellectual among you may think, 'If I admit this I may lose status/cash/assets', but it's all the same thing.

Because we unconsciously know we cannot truly empathize with sentiment, and we also know the anxiety-pacification value of a thing decreases over time, both from experience, and instinctively (familiarity breeds contempt; there are sound intelligence-based reasons for this, based on our need for a varied input), we have a society based on the fear of abandonment.R5 We know that we are going to get used to things, bored with things, and we know that they will, if they are biological, also get bored with us. In that setting, we have come to accept the feelings of guilt, shame, jealousy, envy, worry, rage and depression as a part of human nature, and attachment behavior with its false sentiment, ultimately selflessness, as the products of a 'normal' intelligence and desirable things. They are not. Humans should have realized something was going rather wrong when confronted with paradoxes such as 'My husband beats me up but I can't leave him because I love him'. (Replace 'love him' with 'will feel abandoned, become more insecure and fall in status', or 'will get beaten up if I try to leave but I daren't admit that 'cos I will fall in status if everyone thinks I'm weak', and see how it rocks.)... When confronted with priests blessing weapons...('If our side wins, our god looks stronger, so I get higher status')...When we find out about biology's morals the first time we think, 'Hmmm...If they think I'm too different they might not sleep with me'.

The brain has some marvelous abilities, and one of them is its ability to fool itself, and others. I believe that human emotion is learned in much the same way language is –as children we have an open-ended value system and are happy to learn any emotion. The examples given to us in all our interactions will determine what we will copy and learn. Those examples seen more often or those most intense will be copied more accurately. If we are only given sentiment to copy, we will copy sentiment; just as if we would eat bread and water if it were all we were given to eat.

Like language, the window of opportunity for quick, easy learning of emotion (or sentiment) is limited. The good news is that unlike language, once we have learned a feeling, it is reasonably easy to overwrite and erase the original. This is because of its weighting link to memory.

Humans have created a psychological construct; a false reality complete with a false set of feelings, and made it their reality, confining intelligence to it by recurrently inflicting biological damage which prevents us from having enough intelligence to get out of the cycle. They have based that reality on morals and values that conflict with both our nature and our intelligence. The net result of this has been to limit our own intelligence, leaving us supporting our intellects with crutches of sentiment, distraction and delusion. And we need to get off these crutches and get back online, because it is pointless trying to exceed these limits in the next generation if all they have to copy is this one. It takes biology far too long to fix the damage in our lifetime, so...

That is what neurohacking is for, at first. Fixing, and fine-tuning, the current machine. N-hacking has other goals, but this is the first one. If our brains are not running at optimum in the first place we have much less chance of augmenting or enhancing them. And without understanding how intelligence grows we have little chance of getting much farther with our own, or AI.

Attachment behavior and sentiment

Sentiment is a false mask of 'feelings' that mimes what we think we ought to feel. It has no naturally provided neurochemical background and so uses big blasts of hormonal 'uppers' and 'downers' in order to function. We can learn to initialize these kinds of chemical changes but not to control them or turn them off again, so they are a big stress on the body and mind, too much, on an ongoing basis, for us to avoid anxiety.

The format of attachment behavior programs is grounded in sentiment. If you know how to use sentiment, you can write programs in this format and manipulate people with their own psychology. Intelligence demands emotion, not sentiment, to fully function. Attachment behavior arises because of dysfunction; and makes us run the whole system by default from mainly the mid brain networks, like a seven-year-old; its format is primarily feelings, but intellect is not aligned with emotion (as it would be in a properly grown functioning system, with dense connections in the CC.) In attachment, the CC hasn't fully completed its growth and may never do so; the hard-line to reality is cut. Feelings such as jealousy, self-pity, fear of the unknown, and guilt are dutifully copied as the program tries to copy what it thinks is genuine. Intellectually we can even come to dreadful conclusions such as 'original sin' or 'evil forces' as the only possible ways left to make any sense out of it all, because it doesn't make sense and unconsciously we know it doesn't make sense; splinter in the mind syndrome. Ironically enough, it is the feeling that, somehow, life should make sense or that we can make it make sense, that drives us to invent our morals and values in the first place.

Even when people grow bored with cultural achievements, feeling (rightly) that they are really quite shallow and meaningless, when they sense (correctly) that something is missing, because they are still looking outside themselves for the problem they can fall into the greatest trap of all; thinking of 'spirituality' as that missing thing in their life and going looking for it.

The hardest concept to define, 'spirituality' is the easiest to fake, and there are thousands of religious and spiritual fakes in our culture. People pick a spiritual 'program' according to its symbols, guides, teachings and rules. (The program then manipulates these images to stimulate their temporal lobes to produce the 'spiritual' feelings needed to fake a spiritual 'journey' in a way which will comfort them but in no way threaten their illusion.) This gives them the warm and inspiring feeling of spiritual righteousness and often a temporary relief from anxiety. And what do their chosen role models of spirituality tell them? "Here's a code of behavior for you, put these blinkers on, and follow me"... ' I will tell you how the god / goddess / spiritual beings want you to behave, and that will guide your life'….

Yeah, right. Far out. What a great way of avoiding the responsibility of making your own decisions, of being self-reliant.

You could argue here that I myself am saying, in my own way, 'Follow me, and I shall give you eternal life'…but the differences are, I'd fully expect to have to prove it before you consider yourself converted; I'm not going to threaten to burn you in hell if you don't live how I think you should; I won't force you to go to heaven if you don't want to, and I'm not going to ask you for any money.

True 'spiritual' (temporal lobe emotion) experience, like any other neurological state, conforms to the laws of intelligence and interaction. All parties gain. Which is fair enough. We quite often reap more than we sow, in the real world. Whole financial institutions are dedicated to that very pursuit. Culture's main activity is to produce things which attract us, and which can be possessed, attached to, at a price. These things might be objects, ideas or abilities, or even other people. Attachment to and the inevitable loss of, things we loved, are behind all of culture's poetry, songs, drama, news, and entertainment. "I will love you forever", sings the pop star, and everybody sighs, because their experience of 'love' has always been short-lived, again and again. Self-pity and wallowing in sentiment, is our indulgence in feelings that remind us of those objects we love, and their loss. Sentiment, the false substitute for true emotion, thrives on phrases like 'if only….', and its grip on people runs like a rich bed of treacle porridge beneath all cultural life. Immature aggression and pettiness are the twins of sentiment, thought of as real emotions by most. Everything they grasp turns to dust and ashes, especially relationships. 'Love', as attachment, is equated with sex, soppy sentiment and self-pity, or jealousy, frustration and violence. Recognize anybody you know? Yeah, nearly everybody.

Another sign of someone stuck in a matrix in relationships is their interpretation of appropriate gifts between lovers. Sentiment considers 'romantic' to mean 'a gift which is pleasing to the physical senses'. (Hence chocolate, perfume, flowers and shiny objects) There is also the 'selfless' trick of buying someone something they love and you hate, a music album for example, to 'prove you love them'. Gifts between mature intelligences betray their matrix too...if people are free from the obligations of sentiment they'll find something pleasing to their lover's intelligence and more than likely, creative and personal; best of all, something with which they can interact and that will grow their mind.

Unable to provide their own entertainment (no creativity), attached people are dependent on others to provide it... and this is why our culture values 'entertainment' so highly. People spend a great deal more money on entertainment than on medicine, for example. Pop stardom and acting are our societies highest paid professions. Entertainers are paid to muck about with our emotions and 'make us feel good'. Attached people never realize that they should be able to do this for themselves.

An interesting recent development is the current proliferation of 'tribute' bands. Tribute bands are bands who model or copy a famous band and provide access to that material for those who would otherwise be unable to see it live quite so often.

That this is using a fake version of someone else's creativity matters not to the human brain, which is quite good enough at pretending things to fill in the gaps, but tribute bands are in a way the epitome of an example of how people live in VR. Simulation is the norm.

With no personal creative power, a person will be still remain dependent on role models, but has no ability to copy them. They can't click on COPY HERE. They will spend their life stuck in matrix 3, worshipping their models faithfully, defending them as they would an ally against abuse, and learning nothing. People like this will be the ones who say 'I couldn't live without you' to their partner, they will be the ones who start a fight or cry because somebody criticized the football team they support or said their favorite pop group were crap. They are attached to their models and so they cannot tell the difference between someone attacking the model and someone attacking them personally. There is no separation; they will actually feel hurt because the model was criticized negatively. (The worst cases of this show psychological illness when the person actually begins to believe that they are the model, or possibly a reincarnation of the model. It was a man stuck in matrix 3 who shot John Lennon, because he thought he was the real Lennon and there couldn't possibly be two of them).

An 'attached' person cannot run COMP as intended, and can only understand specific, obvious physical signals. They cannot copy behavior accurately; it comes over as ham acting. They cannot understand subtle or intuitive signs that give clues about situations, and they cannot understand analogical language. They cannot read body language or emotional signals, and they will always try to control events in the outer world by using sentiment. They will treat other people as objects to be used for anxiety-pacification. They will be unable to relate sensibly and maturely on emotional levels, and may even throw tantrums or sulk. They will be compulsive consumers of sentimental experience, always wanting more, but never satisfied.

Anyone operating from attachment behavior cannot interact. They can act (a one-way movement towards something) or react (a one-way movement away from); all animals can do this, but interaction requires intelligence. In interaction, both parties in any situation will always benefit. All the moves we make which are interactive will succeed, all others will not. Action/reaction does not work, on a social level, unless you want something to explode. Action/reaction is for the transference of energy, not the amplification of it. Proper sex is interaction. (Hyperreality sex is synergy by the way. Oh yes, there's fun to come.)

There is chemical interaction in the brain, between biochemicals, but the ability to interact with the mind is the marvelous pinnacle of complexity that human intelligence can reach. Without intelligence there is no interaction. There cannot be. To interact successfully with anything includes the ability to alter things and make them more conducive to your survival. Only an open-ended intelligence and an unprejudiced creative logic can do this. Interaction is the way of intelligence, and in this it might have found the way to save itself from biology.

If someone hits you and you hit them back, a fight starts, that is action/reaction. Both of you risk damage to your intelligence, therefore both of you lose, as far as intelligence is concerned. If someone tries to hit you and you run away, that is also action/reaction. Both of you have learned false information that will hold back intelligence. The bully has learned that it's okay to be a violent asshole, and you have learned that the only way to avoid trouble is to run away. (You may, on reflection, learn not to frequent the places where idiots hang out, in which case you have won, because you got smarter.) But somebody still lost, so it's not good enough for intelligence, although if interaction was not possible then it is what we have to settle for. An interaction would have been the ideal outcome, where violence is prevented and both parties end the dispute in a manner that teaches you both something valuable. Both would have increased their intelligence, and could possibly become allies. Everybody wins.

Obviously, interaction is only possible if both parties have sufficient intelligence. If a tiger or a lunatic attacks you it is no use trying to talk about it. Run your ass off...and then remember not to go to places where violent animals hang out.

When you can successfully run COMP and interact, you can begin to program reality. I ought to make clear before we go there, what I am not talking about. There is a big difference between 'programming reality' and the 'control' dictatorship kind of idea where someone 'wills' a person to do something, or outwits another by clever strategy, psychology and manipulation. That's both very very stupid, and peanuts. The kind of domination where one is trying blindly to forcibly change things never works in the long run. Intelligence needs freedom, and it will get biology to fight for it. Think of it like this: you have, at root, as an intelligence, very sharp, specific needs from life and from every situation you are in. So does everybody. To deny yourself your full potential is silly, but to go forward blindly enforcing your rules or your point of view won't work, because they will immediately come into conflict with some other people's. You're trying to direct the situation with your own 'common sense', but so is everybody else. There is no 'common' sense; every one is isolated. No synchrony. Your intentions will clash with their ideas of what they think is best. All that can result from this is chaos, which is what usually happens.

Instead, as a programmer, all you walk into any situation with is your creative ability to interact; to respond to the needs of any situation and act appropriately, doing what is necessary. To do this you simply open the COMP program in your own computer brain, expect it to cope with all the variables without attempting to figure out how it does it, and then just follow its lead. Act as though. Assume what you wanted to happen, is happening, and behave as though it is. Know that your intelligence is competent to deal with this. There is no 'try'. Don't think it is, know it is. Act that part and really live that character. The intelligence you are ever becoming. And know that your intelligence can cope with, and interact with, an ever-increasing unknown. You will need fewer familiar cues in order to act appropriately, as you go along.

To adopt this attitude, sometimes in the face of hostility, aggression, and urgent problems, is to tune in to a kind of pure thought without words, a calm alertness and clarity, in a play of intelligence for very high stakes. It keeps you hyper-alert, and the only way I can think of to describe it is as 'thinking in code'. Because of your willingness to play, all the computing work the brain needs to do can then take place. So what you play at; what you pretend, is that the computing work is taking place (even though you cannot know that for sure before the events unfold). You play fully, you let your mind prompt you, and you discover, (at first to your surprise and then delight) that you are programming the sequence of events, by your output, to bend towards your ideal imagined outcome...(Your ideal imagined outcome is that if you respond to the needs of the situation by interacting, those needs will be met by intelligence.)

This act of programming is one of the most difficult things to try to explain in words to anyone who hasn't done it yet, much like trying to tell someone how to swim or make love, but I'll make the attempt...At first it is as though you can 'tune in' to intelligence, and listen really hard...as though you were trying to remember something that was 'on the tip of your tongue', and then suddenly the right words and actions are there for you, created by you...and it is as though you have to sever the link with sentiment in order to listen that hard. Later this all becomes automatic and you don't notice the process at all. This is the journey into the mind, the programming of realities, and the point at which the brain's computer work beneath the surface of conscious thought joins together with our conscious minds and the play in our awareness. This is what play is for, to make that joining possible. This autonomy is a singularity for intelligence, but it retains an unbroken history; never at any point should there be a break in the process, a point at which play somehow becomes reality. It is all play, and it is all reality. If the cardboard box is crushed, the ship has fallen to pirates. And you could get eaten by sharks, except the carpet doesn't have enough points of similarity...It's best to remember, with matrix theory, if you die in the game, you don't necessarily die out here. Usually, you can go back in and play again. You just need another cardboard box, and courage.

The final goal is the only thing worth looking at; intelligence's development must be in line with its goals. Once we can focus on that, all else falls into place and fixes itself. We don't have to work, because that final goal is creative play, playing with consciousness, playing with the world, with our minds, with our reality.

That is what neurohackers are, really. We are programmers. We are gamers. And we are here to play.

...So now we've got our priorities sorted out, let's go have a look at some ways to start doing that.