“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
– C.G. Jung

When somebody fantasizes about an illegal action, are they a criminal? When an undesired individual features you their sexual daydream, outside of your own control, with no authorization, is it a form of assault over your essential being? What happens if consent, for any reason was issued by your virtualized clone? What integrity does this externally created (solely via expression) avatar entail? Does it expose any fidelity towards the “original” and can the two ever overlap in all the right places? I think therefore I am. Right? But what does “I am” really mean? Most people don’t perceive “I” as a series of self-updating neural maps. Being its embodiment, we can not experience ourselves through the virtualization of character, which others employ. “We” are the result of our experience, the rendering of the guts inside, which whilst we obsessively analyze in the mirror, and yet never get to see from the outside – your sole representation to the external world. You can never have it all, for the puzzle piece you need to complete the picture is a paradox that doesn’t fit the hole in the center, for the hole is always shifting shape.

But if others say “you are” whilst away from your presence, then the virtual must also be real. It is highly unlikely, dear reader, that they are all insane!

It is unfortunate that once you stop the cogs from smoothly turning, once you open it up to look inside – any physicist will sigh, you need to keep your distance or observation will interfere with its functional state. Shrinks can’t look at the brain without rewiring it, they knowingly exploit this fact.

There are multiples of you living in time, out of sync and interacting with others. There are also multiples of you in everybody’s mind – 8 year old you to grandparents, 18 and irresponsible to your parents, that horrible bastard 28 year old version of you which is the last your ex will recall and scoff at. They are all “you” – Chinese whispers of the side effects of your existence, imprinted onto others minds. Imperfect models with variations, roaming around others, all thinking they are the only ones.

But all is not so passive. In reality that you is not read-only. It is a large database of chess moves, arrangeable at will. Like a game book – use the pieces to write a story. And in this story you can decide on the ethics of what happens. It will only be simulated in your mind – so, nobody gets hurt, right?

to be continued