S.A.O Project Alicization - OC/Male Reader Insert

Project Alicization ----- Chapter Eleven

The unfamiliar name sounded like a spell in a game, Shino thought. Something about it didn't seem to fit the concept of cutting-edge technology. Next to her, Asuna wondered, Really...? "Soul"...?

"Yeah, I thought the name was pretty overblown the first time I heard it, too," Shi said, shrugging. Then he abruptly asked, "Where do you think the human mind is?"

"The mind?" Shino asked, taken aback. The answer seemed obvious. She cleared her throat and said, "Inside the head...the brain."

"Then if you zoomed in and looked at the brain in detail, where would you find the mind?"

"Where...?"

"Well, the brain is just a mass of brain cells. Like this..."

He held out his left hand toward Shino, fingers extended, then used his right index and middle fingers to trace a circle in his palm, then a larger one around it.

"You've got a nucleus in the middle, then a cell body that surrounds it..."

He tapped his five fingers in order, then drew a line from wrist to elbow.

"You've got dendrites, and an axon, then the connection to the next cell. Which part of this brain cell contains the mind, do you suppose? The nucleus? The mitochondria?"

"Umm..." Shino mumbled.

Asuna spoke up. "You just mentioned that it's connected to the next cell, Kirito. Isn't it the network of all those neurons tied together that makes up the mind? It's like if you asked someone what the Internet is-you can't explain the answer if you only look at individual computers."

"Yes," he said, satisfied. "At present, the neural network is the mind, in my opinion. But...I feel like the question of what the Internet is, for example, would get you a lot of different answers. I mean, it's a construct of computers all over the world connected through a common protocol..."

He pointed to his own phone on the table, then to Asuna's. "In terms of making up that network, you can say that these individual computers are the Internet. You might even claim that the users operating those computers are part of the Internet. All these things together make up what we know as the Internet."

Kazuto took a breath there and asked for a sip of Asuna's ginger ale. He swallowed and closed his eyes. "Wow...the ginger ale here really is sharp."

"It's not at all like the stuff they sell at the store. It's supposed to be for mixing cocktails, but I like drinking it straight. You really taste the ginger."

Shino's first experience with the Dicey Café ginger ale was half a year ago, when Kazuto first invited her to the place. If she'd never met him in GGO, she would never have set foot in this odd establishment. The way your life could change from the smallest things...

"So...what does the human mind have to do with the Internet?" she prompted.

Kazuto gave the glass back to Asuna while Shi made a spherical gesture with his hands. "Well, the shape of the Internet is this giant net of servers, routers, computers, and mobile phones."

"The shape..."

"So what is its essence?"

Shino thought it over and asked, "You mean...what flows through that network? Electronic bits and bytes...?"

"True, but the electric and light pulses are just the medium. The essence of the Net is what is passed through the medium: information put into words. Let's use that definition here."

He stopped gesturing and steepled his bony fingers on the tabletop. "Now, let's return to the network made up of tens of billions of brain cells. If we view this as the shape of the mind, then what is the essence we should be looking for?"