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The way out: Perfect State theory.


ReaderAt2046

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I was rereading Perfect State, and I noticed for the first time something that doesn't seem to add up. This whole system is supposed to be ruled by XinWey's Doctrine: that the essential morality of mankind is to create the greatest amount of happiness among the greatest number of people using the least resources. And they accomplish this by removing each Liveborn brain and placing it in an artificial pod that keeps it alive and creates a simulated dreamworld tailored to revolve around that specific Liveborn. Ok, so far, so good. I find the whole concept obscene and horrific, but that's because I subscribe to a different postulate about the essential morality of mankind. The system is internally self-consistent.

But then the Wode does something that undermines everything else: they tell the Liveborn what they truly are. There is no logical reason why they would have to do that. Even if the Wode believe that the Liveborn need contact with other Liveborn for psychological health, they could easily put multiple Liveborn in the same simulations or make connections between the simulations that don't reveal the truth. The Liveborn will be perfectly happy with their dreamworlds whether or not they know what they are. In fact, they will be more happy not knowing, since once they learn the truth any Liveborn who really considers his or her life must come to the same realizations Sophie and Kai did. So why exactly do they tell the Liveborn the truth? What possible reason could there be for knowing that your whole life is an illusion, every achievement spoonfed to keep you happy?

I can only think of one good reason: there is a way out. Somewhere in each Liveborn's coded dreamworld, if they look for it, is a portal that will let them exit their dreamworld, at which point their brain is plugged into a robot or implanted in a cloned shell or something and the Liveborn awakens into the real world. Perhaps the Wode included that code as a safeguard in case they were wrong about the ultimate purpose of humanity, or perhaps this is simply where new Wode members come from. Either way, I suspect that there is a way out of the dreamworld somewhere.

Edited by ReaderAt2046
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 6/24/2019 at 10:34 PM, ReaderAt2046 said:

I can only think of one good reason: there is a way out. Somewhere in each Liveborn's coded dreamworld, if they look for it, is a portal that will let them exit their dreamworld, at which point their brain is plugged into a robot or implanted in a cloned shell or something and the Liveborn awakens into the real world. Perhaps the Wode included that code as a safeguard in case they were wrong about the ultimate purpose of humanity, or perhaps this is simply where new Wode members come from. Either way, I suspect that there is a way out of the dreamworld somewhere.

How?  They don't have a body.

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