The Shape of the Matrix

The psychology concept of "ego" treats it like an organ of the mind. It's no different than the spleen or a muscle. I think the strawman concept, or the "matrix" concept is better. That is the "I" is like an avatar in a mind-created "matrix" or shadow world. That is, the "I" is a model version of the man in an imaginary world.

I think the concept of a "emulator" for computer hardware provides some useful information about the strawman and the shadow world. An "emulator" implements computer hardware like a CPU in a software model. In some cases, a fast, powerful computer can easily emulate a simple processor. For example, a modern CPU can easily emulate an old fashion 6502 based Commodore 64. However, if a computer "emulated" itself the emulation is necessarily slower and less capable.

The strawman is like a shorthand, low fidelity version of the organic person. It's like a computer emulation of itself. Therefore the "matrix" world, that is the inner world model representation of the "I" is a slow, low fidelity representation. The "matrix" representation of other people is even slower and less detailed, and the "matrix" representation of the real world is even more faulty. It's all shadows and fuzzy shapes. The strawman prefers language and line-art, geometrical and algorithmic representations of the world to realistic textures and 3D shapes because it can work with that low level of detail.

The "matrix" is in the dimension of an individual's consciousness. It does not overlap with others', obviously. One of the key delusions of matrix life is that the matrix model is shared. People believe the ghost characters of other people that populate their inner world actually are who they represent, for example. The concept of shame and envy are based on this delusion.

Conscious awareness of the strawman is like a "meta-consciousness". The realization that "I" am a model created by my own mind allows for improvements on the matrix. There's basically two options:

• Edit the matrix;
• Shift focus of consciousness to the organic mind.

The organic consciousness is in the immediate reality; it also exists in dreams. There is no written language for most people in their dream world, by the way. Dreams can be in vivid, full color visual fidelity, though. There's really no concept of time or seasons in the organic consciousness. There would be no planning because there's no language or simplification.