Focus of Attention

“One must take the world as it is―this is the substance of the lives and doings of these millions, the copy-people. They find everything given: concepts, notions, thoughts, as well as customary behavior―in short, everything is given―the copy-person brings nothing with him. So, everything is given―and then they rush off, busily, each one to his own affairs, to make money, amount to something, get married, etc. etc. Existence does not really notice that these millions are there, they have no contact with it, the whole of their lives is too insignificant to make contact with existence, which is structured and designed for lives of a different sort―so, in relation to existence, copy-people are like sticklebacks in relation to a net that has been set for larger fish. The net is certainly a net (as in similar fashion, existence is also a net) that has been set to catch fish―but sticklebacks can pass through it freely. The fact that copy-people become large groups does no good―they do not weigh any more on that account: one copy-person and 1 million of them make equally little contact with existence, which like a horn of plenty gushes out people of this sort. On the other hand, as soon as there comes a person who brings with himself a primitivity, so that he therefore cannot be said to take the world as it is (the license to pass through it like a stickleback), but says, ["]However the world may be, I relate to something original that I do not intend to change in accordance with the whims of the world.["] The moment these words are heard, it is as if the whole of existence were transformed. As in the fairy tale: when the word is spoken, the castle that had been under a spell for a hundred years opens up and everything comes alive―thus does existence become transformed into sheer attentiveness. The angels get busy and pay curious attention to where all this is heading, because it concerns them. On the other side, dark, sinister demons who had long been sitting and gnawing their fingernails―they jump up, stretching their arms and legs―because, they say, ["]Here there is something for us,["] and they have been waiting for it a long time, because the copy-people do not give them anything to do, any more than copy-people give the angels anything to do.”

― Søren Kierkegaard, Journal NB32, 1854

“What is out there really is the same as what is in here really—i.e., what I call Zebra, which probably is either Christ—the cosmic Christ—or Brahman—or a reality-web forming, mandating AI-like entity which observes us, sets up problems for us, and assists us in solving them, and at the same time teaches us, and, as it teaches, sorts us into different groups for postmortem assigning into a totality of a hive-like corporate system. It takes great pains to occlude us perceptually, evidently not wishing to "contaminate" its results. But I did over a 26 year period ask the right questions, and so, in 3-74, it did answer, which suggests an AI knowing system once more: one must know it is there or guess a little correctly to "punch the buttons" which cause it to answer. People have not gotten it to answer before because they did not guess it was alive and hence did not question it. The universe resembles a teaching machine, and part of the problem (i.e., learning) is to discern just precisely that.”

― Philip K. Dick, Exegesis, Folder 27