Chapter 26
Convergence And Divergence: How Conscious Paths Split And Merge
In the real world, consciousnesses do not simply split into perfect copies that diverge forever. The picture is far more complex and far more interesting. Conscious paths can split, yes, but they can also converge. And understanding this convergence and divergence is key to understanding how superimmortality actually works.
Awaredivergence
Awaredivergence occurs when two or more awarepaths that were previously identical begin to differ. This is what happens whenever an identical replica is created and then released into the world: it starts with your awarepath but quickly diverges as it has different experiences.
Awaredivergence is the norm, not the exception. Even two identical brains in nearly identical environments will diverge over time, because tiny differences in sensory input and quantum-level randomness will cause their brain states to drift apart. The rate of divergence depends on the sensitivity of consciousness to small physical variations.
Awareconvergence
Awareconvergence is the opposite: two awarepaths that were previously different becoming more similar. This happens whenever two people's brain states become more alike, through shared experiences, similar training, or the natural tendency of certain brain dynamics to converge on similar patterns.
Awareconvergence is more subtle than awaredivergence, but it is just as important. It means that consciousness is not always fragmenting and scattering. It can also come together, with different people's ixperiencitnesses becoming more similar over time.
Cultural immersion does something similar over longer timescales. A person who moves to a foreign country and fully immerses themselves (learning the language, adopting the customs, forming deep relationships within the culture) gradually develops patterns of thought and feeling that converge with those of the native population. Their ixperiencitness shifts toward that of their adopted culture.
This has significant implications. It means that even if your exact ixperiencitness is not reproduced in the future, consciousnesses that are converging toward your ixperiencitness may exist. Over time, through the natural dynamics of brain development and experience, some future consciousness might converge closely enough to your ixperiencitness to constitute a meaningful case of your survival.
The Big Picture: A Web of Consciousness
Put divergence and convergence together, and you get a picture of consciousness that is nothing like the simple linear model we usually assume. Instead of a single thread of experience stretching from birth to death, consciousness is a vast, tangled web. Threads split and merge and split again. Multiple threads can be instances of the same ixperiencitness. Threads that were once different can converge to become the same.
Your consciousness is not a single line. It is a web, or more precisely, a region in the vast space of all possible consciousnesses. A region defined by ixperiencitness, populated by all the physical systems, past, present, and future, that produce consciousness within that region.
This is the deep structure of superimmortality. Not a single thread of immortal life, but an entire web of conscious existence, stretching across space and time, converging and diverging, enhanced and fragmented, biological and electronic, natural and designed, all connected by the common thread of ixperiencitness.
Key Terms in This Chapter
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