The Electric State

In the beginning, God created the neuron, and when electricity flowed through the three-dimensional nerve cell matrix in the brain, there was consciousness.

Lighthouse keepers were once warned they shouldn’t listen to the sea for too long; likewise, you could hear voices in the static and lose your mind. It was as if there were a code in there—a code that could, as soon as your mind detected it, irrevocably conjure demons from the depths.

Do you know how the brain works? Do you have any idea of what we know about how the brain and consciousness work? Us humans, I mean. And I'm not talking about some new-age hocus-pocus, I'm talking about the sum of the knowledge compiled by disciplined scientists over three hundred years through arduous experiments and skeptic vetting of theories. I'm talking about the insights you gain by actually poking around inside people's heads, studying human behavior, and conducting experiments to figure out the truth, and separating that from all the bullshit about the brain and consciousness that has no basis in reality whatsoever. I'm talking about the understanding of the brain that has resulted in things like neuronic warfare, the neurographic network, and Sentre Stimulus TLEs. How much do you really know about that? I suppose you still have the typical twentieth-century view of the whole thing. The self is situated in the brain somehow, like a small pilot in a cockpit behind your eyes. You believe that it is a mix of memories and emotions and things that make you cry, and all that is probably also inside your brain, because it would be strange if that were inside your heart, which you've been taught is a muscle. But at the same time you're having trouble reconciling with the fact that all that is you, all your thoughts and experiences and knowledge and taste and opinions, should exist inside your cranium. So you tend not to dwell on such questions, thinking “There's probably more to it” and being satisfied with a fuzzy image of a gaseous, transparent Something floating around in an undefined void. Maybe you don't even put it into words, but we both know that you're thinking about an archetypical soul. You believe in an invisible ghost.

We rolled our eyes through classes and skipped school and trespassed on private property and stole clothes and records together, and all of a sudden I didn’t want to run away from Soest anymore.

To, čo robíme, nie je civilizované, viem to. Ale viem i to, že aj tebe sa to muselo prihodiť - presne ako ja si sa zobudil a zrazu si si uvedomil niečo nezvratné: nežijeme už v civilizovaných časoch.