Of Many Minds

Chapter 1

"...while reason embraces a cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over the space which lies between the most opposite extremes." -Edward Gibbon

Thursday, October 16, 10:02, coffee shop

Executive:

Holy shit.

I can think two thoughts.

That's what I said when it first happened. And I didn't mean it in the trivial sense- like some cheap ode to muIti-tasking- nor in the sarcastic sense- like, "the only thing he thinks about are women and sleep". No. There were actually two thoughts running through my head simultaneously.

Two thoughts.

Can you imagine?

The experience beggars comparison- I'd never felt anything like it before. In fact, until the advent of Cognition Units, no one had. There weren't even words for it in the language. We had to invent them. Now we talk about "lelling" (a contracted form of "parallelling"), and "hitching" (or piggybacking on an information stream originating in someone else's Cognition Unit). We have all manner of new words and ideas, and new ways of explaining consciousness...

When the procedure was first being rolled out, they used to try to sell it- to explain it. Unfortunately, it was like trying to explain quantum physics to a dog. People would try to equate it to multi-tasking...but it's not like that at all. You see, the primitive human brain is only able to concentrate on one thing at a time. While some people were able to exhibit something that looked like multi-tasking, in reality, it was just illusory. What they were really doing was thinking of one thing, and then quickly switching to another thing...and then they'd flit back and forth between those two processes. The result was something that resembled parallel processing, but was, in reality, but a dim shadow of a distant cousin.

When I had my procedure, it was a bewildering experience- like my eyes had been opened. Eyes that I never even knew existed. My brain was trying to interpret the world in a different way. It was exhilarating, enlightening, and brilliantly confusing. But, it was also shattering, like a pane of glass that had been dropped. Now there were many shards, many different edges to reflect the light, but, I was no longer whole...I was...disjointed.

Maybe that's because the procedure was done to me as an adult. Normally that doesn't happen anymore- no need. Nowadays, kids are born pre-wired- the DNA for the production of the Cognition Units is incorporated into their genomes. After they're built they act as every other organic superstructure in the body- cellular metabolic processes supply them with energy, organelles build their proteins, and they even replicate.

I suppose that it sounds great- like some marvel of technology- but, ever since the procedure, I often wonder who I am. Thankfully, however, that never lasts too long- something's always demanding my attention. I'm always busy with a task here, a resource request there, a pending executive decision...the list goes on. Perhaps that's deliberate- like they say: "idle hands are the devil's playthings". I wonder (though admittedly only in those rare calm interludes): is busyness a function of social control and cohesion? Are they directly related?

Part of the difficulty in adapting is the fact that things are never silent- you are never alone with your thoughts. The Cognition Units (CUs) are coded with network communication devices, giving them the ability to interact with the CUs of other people. If you really want, you would never need to be alone- there could always someone in your head with you. And, even if you wanted to be completely alone (which most people don't) the CUs are there, interacting- a minute community of consciousness beavering away in the background. You can talk to them- have discussions- but it's a bit strange. Because of the fact that they make use of the neural circuitry of the brain, you know their thoughts instantaneously- in fact, they're your thoughts. Even though some of the CUs are self-aware, it doesn't make sense to distinguish between you and them...you are one. At the beginning, it was really scary, being so connected.