THE WRITER'S LIFE
(Image source: The Ghost Diaries)
"Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever." (Paul Auster).
The problem with big ideas is that it's sometimes difficult to explain them in simple terms. I'm fortunate to have a high IQ and I've found it quite easy to get my head around quantum theory and by extension, Biocentrism. It's pretty much proof of what I've believed for a long time now: In essence, that "Life" as we know it, is merely part of an ongoing existence, the greatness of which we don't yet understand. I believe that the human soul continues to exist in a different form, once our mortal bodies give up. Quite why we have to live this way for a while is another matter. Perhaps it's in preparation.
As I've written before, my research into all of this is primarily as a writer but I am aware of my own fragility and I'm an atheist. Despite all Christianity's abhorrent sins, I understand that Christians and those of other religions believe (delusionally) in a false deity because it gives them comfort. My beliefs achieve the same for me but mine are based on scientific fact. By not following a fictitious god, I don't have to live my life in servitude to a child rapist, just to get into "Heaven." Heaven doesn't exist, any more than hell does. Biocentrism states though that we are all essentially immortal. Wouldn't it be a wonderful world, if people stopped deluding themselves and if humanity as a whole accepted science? Science is proven, after all. Imagine if all of the money wasted by religion and war was channelled instead into scientific research: How much more developed and inclusive we would be. But I'm getting evangelical.
Am I biting the hands which once fed me? No. I appreciate what various churches and their people gave me. It's the religion I have a problem with. You don't have to be a religious person to be a nice one. I look at a bigger picture, which is not one I'm likely to see in this part of my lifetime. Please don't pray for me.
Having chosen a particular path, I lead nicely into a simplistic explanation of quantum theory; the foundation of my beliefs and a lot more besides. At the sub-atomic, quantum level of physics, chemistry and biology, tiny particles exist in more than one state: they do not either exist or not exist, they exist in all of their possible forms. Using the example of quantum computers (a reality), as I did last time, bits of information are not either a 1 or a 0; They are both at the same time. There comes a point - a catalyst - where those bits must become either a 1 or a 0, in order for our computer to work as a computer, as we understand one. However, what those bits didn't become, remains: for every bit which became a 1 (an "on" switch), a zero (an "off" switch) is left behind and continues to exist, albeit not in a form which we can see. Multiply this by the trillions of operators (switches, or bits) in a traditional computer, and you may begin to appreciate the power of quantum mechanics. That quantum computer which is now running in Canada, contains an almost infinite number of alternatives: universes, where things happened ever so slightly differently at a quantum level. What we see as real, is just an almost infinitesimally small part of what is actually in existence. At a human level, we occupy just one of all of the possible universes. The one we're in was brought into existence by all of those quantum catalysts. Here's the key: the universe we inhabit is the one which our consciousness has constructed. Our consciousness will always do this, infinitely. Got that? I'll return to the analogy of the path which I mentioned, to give a really simple but powerful thing to think about:
You're walking along my path and you arrive at a point where it splits in two. You have a choice: left or right? Let's say you select left and you set off along that path. Does the path to the right still exist?
So in biocentrism, the path which we're on never ends. And that's how I learned not to fear the grim reaper and realised that David Bowie was right. It's the actual catalyst which I don't like the thought of; after that, things get easier. Am I scared? No. Does it scare me? Yes.
Of course, this and other recent scientific advances are fuel for a science fiction writer. Science is always giving us things to write about and imagine. Biocentrism features quite heavily in my next novel and many of my short stories centre on near-future scenarios. Lately I've been looking into things which the recently deceased might do to amuse themselves. In one particularly disturbing story I'm currently writing, I'm using biocentrism as a device. In this story, the protagonist is dying and makes a promise to some people he doesn't particularly like (a couple): That whichever one of them should die first, he will take care of them on the other side, while they wait for the other one. Because it's a scientific fact that our dying narrator will be waiting on the other side. It's a real psychological shocker and a haunting in itself.
This typewriter - "Holly X" (That's Mk 10, as this is the 10th PC I've owned) - has proven pivotal in my new life. It is allowing me to get everything written in time, to write more and take on things like graphic work for book covers. I wonder what might have happened if I'd had this sooner? I'll tell you: I'd have pawned it for booze. I won't be doing that, even though my benefits have been sanctioned because I no longer qualify for Personal Independence Payment. Well, I do and I will waste a lot of mine and the DWP's time and money proving that at tribunal. I did it before and the long process has already begun again. In a move to make my depression more fun in the interim, I've ordered a PEZ dispenser for my Mirtazipine.
The most tragic thing about my benefits being sanctioned is that I won't be able to afford to do much when the kids stay with me in August (when the PEZ dispenser will be out of sight). Hopefully the people who've not paid me back the several hundred pounds they owe me can still sleep at night. I have my moral and intellectual superiority to mock them with.
My recent grasping of quantum theory, biocentrism and soul quanta mean that I have to come up with more imaginative things than death to cause unease in readers and with which to torment those I develop a dislike for. There are of course many scenarios, including a particularly frightening one, where it is possible for someone to have suddenly never existed, yet their consciousness remains. This person is condemned to an eternal life of nothing, or at least an awareness of pure nothingness which will never end for them and from which there is no escape. Now that's a hell. I'm employing that device in another short story, to cause a new kind of terror in readers; one they can't walk away from. It has been said that the title story of my collection is something which couldn't be forgotten because of its very effective ending, which more than one reader reported as making them physically shudder. The one with the working title Galactic silence is far more disturbing. It will be in the anthology, due out in August, once I've finished editing (making some stories more contemporary and upping the scare stakes) and after I've published A Girl, Frank Burnside and Haile Selassie. With Infana Kolonia still growing, I'm giving myself a year to finish the first draft, while I continue to churn out quality pulp fiction.
I'm a busy freelancer and I'm enjoying life in my world; my universe, especially now I understand it and I'm not afraid of what happens next.
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
(Douglas Adams, 1952 - 2001)
For a more detailed and scientific explanation of the biocentric universe, see this Wikipedia article.
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