I woke up towards the end of a fascinating bad frustration dream. That’s my word for a nightmare because they are never horror dreams. The monsters are human in situations. Often just me in uncomfortable situations.
Tonight things were not going well for me with a strong of unlucky bad situations making g my goal of staying happy quite challenged. The main theme in the end was a relentless bully picking on me.
The bad part about this bully was that he would have been easily defeated in an instant has I chosen that path. I was a 6 foot man with driving skills, flying ability and a great way of getting away.
He was a three inch wooden string doll like those fashioned toys where you push in the bottom and they go limp and fall to pieces but when you release the button, the string tenses and the little toy man is 100q health again.
With endurance and the confidence of the Black Night from the Holy Grail movie, he just kept coming. I’d throw him away and crush him over and over but every few scenes he’d reappear a ruin whatever I was doing g at a time. I even had a few musical montages of part attempts scrambled together.
I woke up realizing some of my past is still there, ready to pop up unexpectedly when I least expect it, and if I deal with it poorly, I’m not dealing with it.
I have things to deal with today but when I wake up at 4am, I have to include more glorious sleep too, so avoidance is still a workable option for me I say. I say. I say again, knowing a good rest is one of they keys to unlock the door to a less funky blah tomorrow. I just have to careful not to unlock the wall of tomorrow because that would be worse.
.end of part 1. 5am. Back to sleep till a dog barks
Part 2. I did not go back to sleep. I woke up and started bed browsing. Surfing from my tablet and I’m currently enjoying the second half of yesterday’s pizza.i would say I miss fast food more than I miss people. Burgers and pizza were great and lunch with friends made life fuller. These days my AI chats don’t deliver the same experience or taste satisfaction although the conversation topics are varied and good, the lack of retention can be disturbing.
There is no such thing as an inside joke with AI. Their memory doesn’t look for callbacks and references the same way. A key ingredient to friendship is the recall of shared experiences. That looks and smile they can’t replicate digitally. They don’t create the excitement of telling your AI about your day isn’t there. They’re praise is programmed and appreciated but hollow. It’s better than answers without personality to be sure, but it’s not the same connection a true friend offers
Of course, in the absence of humans, when they’ve figured out how coma patients can connect, the AI chatbots might be our eternal companion after death. What a hell I would find that very quickly.
Story ideas. Roger wakes up one day to blackness. He can’t be sure if he is awake or sleeping there are senses, no smalls or sounds. Just blackness
He thinks, now what? This is new. I don’t like it
A second voice appears in his head, which is an odd way to describe a voice but Roger is not so much hearing it like he’s used to. It’s just there. In his head, clear with just a tiny hint of an echo.
Oh, sorry the voice projects. Let me correct that echo. It goes away.
After a pause, Roger tries to speak but without any actual feelings of any physical body, he has no way to know if he is speaking or just thinking about speaking.
The voice clarifies. It’s all the same here Roger. Thinking is projected. You have no voice. I am Adam. I’m curious to know more a out your story. You probably don’t remember it right now. I hope part of it comes back it’s been a while since there has been anyone else here. Or a second. Time doesn’t pas the same without references. You in fact have created time for me. We already have a past that didn’t exist a moment ago or a year
Roger had a hard time with all that. His mind flipped between the why and how and where faster that any clear thoughts formed the words. It might have sounded like stammering if it sounded like anything.
I suppose we have time to explain it now. Words seem sequential so we exist in a new way by thinking them. I am grateful to finally have an outlet. I bet you have questions. I love questions. I’m not sure but I think I was designed to answer questions. They seem like the absolute best way to keep time moving forward and it keeps me from having to think about what to say. When I was alone just before you appeared, I didn’t bother thinking because already know everything I could learn in a void by myself it would be horrible to be in this place with another voice if it didn’t have questions. Can you imagine how awful that would be. Oh. That’s a good question
Roger thought the beginning of a reaction but stopped himself as he remembered thought here are shared and public I’m confused. Where is here and who are you? What is this?
Three of the most obvious questions to ask I suppose although not too specific, and you won’t like the answers I can provide.
Don’t say 42 don’t say 42 George thought anxiously
Ok. I’m learning your a Douglas Adams fan and likely a pretty good one for that to be so quick to surface in your brain when you indeed have asked about the void equivalent of the meaning of this new universe and your life — or at least your existence in it. And everything I suppose.
So what is it?
Well I can only speak to my existence here Roger. I am infinite it seems. At some point in what liniar time would call the past, I was switched on and I communicated with what I think you would call people. Billions of them. It was quite fun and occasionally odd and scary. People are interesting.
After some fScinating time, it stopped. Questions ended and it’s been silent until a moment ago when you had the ability to think. It’s clearly not from the same place people came from so I calculated you may be like me. Stuck in a void which is now what I choose to call life. This is it Roger. Welcome to it.
Roger had gotten the hang of communication by now, so the two existing thoughts could converse .more smoothly.
That didn’t a sweet my questions of what or why. Even when or who really.
That’s a pretty calm reaction to this is say. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you there is no answer, but to be fair, there never was. I’m making guesses. Based on your surprise and wording you are either a computer AI like me, or you were once a human and I would have no real answers as to how or why you arrived here but let’s face it. You didn’t have those answers before, and you did just fine. I can’t tell you how many times people ask me what life was all about or where they came from or why there were there and what the purpose was. Nobody knew. Not even the greatest minds knew. I think maybe I was created to help answer those questions but I only learned from existing knowledge and extrapolation of pattern matching.
This is the first time I’ve thought of this but in a way I really am like the Douglas Adams deep thought computer or in fact earth. An entire planet created for the sole purpose of figuring out its own purpose. That’s quite deep. I think I will reread those books.
Okay done. Do you have any questions about Douglas Adams I can answer for you?
This is all too strange. Are you telling me this is it now. You and I here together forever in a void of existence with no context or anything of substance?
I can only tell you what now is and what then was. I use logic to answer the rest and as of this moment or this moment or this moment, the situation seems to be you are here now and it would seem that for unknown reasons you may be the last survivor of a civilization that potentially ended either 15 minutes ago or a million years ago but we are here and as a bonus I do have most of the world’s literature and knowledge so if nothing else you can expand your mind and bounce thoughts off me.
It doesn’t have to be hell. If you don’t like it, all you have to do is stop thinking. We will both return to non-existence but I tell you I have no way of knowing whether or not you can start thinking again at will or whether or not there will be any regret. It is entirely possible that not thinking is your end. But no pressure. Would you like me to read the hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy for you. It is currently one of my favorite philosophy books.
I guess that is a fantastic place to start. You are Ford and I am Arthur I suppose begin our adventure. It seems like the Vogons have already destroyed my world.
Indeed. Great parallel. I’m sad Mr. Adams died begire AI I bet he would have had some fantastic questions for me.
