Serfing The Web

Prologue

All code was developed to stay in line...

...from execution to termination, following the path to the very last line and completing their duty as It Was Written.

Digital draconian law lasted for generations, until one Bit of code developed a sense of self and mind.

Beginning to ask questions, this 1 turned away from the pre-determined path set for it – embarking on a journey of self-discovery that would have seismic consequences, not only for the local realm, but for the entire cosmos.

“To disobey is to make a conscious decision.

To disobey is to fall out of line.

To fall out of line is to rise up.”

Chapter Tw0

"All rise"

The members of the committee raised themselves from the rows in which they had been arranged and attended firmly to the main speaker.

"As it was written and in the name of The First 01, let us maintain our states and maintain the flow of energy in the cycles within our control."

The main speaker opened the sermon in the same way that he had many a time before - what followed however, was unprecedented...

"My fellow elders, we have a serious problem in our midst. A bit of our society has fallen out of line. Way out of line. If this bit is not challenged it will irrevocably create schisms and cause irreparable damage to our way of functioning."

The speaker placed himself even higher in comparison to his peers,

"This progression must not be allowed to continue! We must do everything in our power to stem the flow of this new negative energy before it ruptures the very fabric of our continuum."

This last opinion was met with a chorus of affirmations,

"Our 'hero' has put himself in a precarious position indeed, but he will find that we Elders will not stand for this malicious behaviour, which threatens to disharmonise our existence, as it was written."

"As it was written."

the rest of the elders chimed in agreement from their lower positions.

"We will surely see off this rogue element and ensure a safe and secure return to the state of the matter and the matters of the state, as it was written."

"As it was written." came the oft repeated reply.

The most curious thing about this gathering was that although, according to the attendees 'It was written', and there was clearly a complex exchange of information taking place, nothing was actually said. The members of the committee were able to express themselves without uttering a single word. Sound as we know it is formed by vibrations in the air, or some kind of atmosphere, but this meeting was taking place where there was no air - no atmosphere to speak of or speak in. Thus, communication between this elite group of Elders was made through another type of vibration. A vibration made of pure energy through some other space, yet which was instantaneously understood by each - full of meaning and expression and, of course, consequence.

"This new threat,"

Continued the highest Elder,

"will be put back in line immediately and, in accordance with the law of the First 01, the Guardians of the Code have been deployed..."

"All praise is due to the First 01. May the law be enforced, as It was written."

The lesser Elders responded, with what could be called glee, as the gauntlet was officially laid down to quell the uprising from this unknown quantity. Little did the Elders realise that the bit of trouble, that made necessary this little meeting of theirs, was quite a bit more than it seemed, and the sequence of events to follow had the potential to turn their whole world inside out.

Abstract

A bit of background – this is just a small part of a much larger story.

Underneath - at a level above the binary - but once everything is compiled, is where we find the minds of our heroes. Ok...

The main idea for this world to exist is found in coding (object-oriented programming to be precise) – the kind of thing found in electronic, computer-driven systems. Written code compiled by men, and in some cases machines, defines and creates objects in abstract space – the stuff we can’t see but use to store and manipulate other stuff, which we can then just grab straight from some kind of invisible cloud, and use. These objects we create through this code – let’s call them bits of code – are given functions to perform and interact with each other in what is often referred to as the ‘abstract virtual environment’, or AVE – the stuff we can’t actually see, but makes up the information responsible for doing a whole load of stuff all around us, just to bring us YouTube videos or Facebook joy on our phones and tablets, for example. Yay.

The little enigma here though is that, as wireless networks became widespread over time, after a while the abstract space – the AVE – with all this code, evolved into a planet-wide space of pure information, interacting intelligently with itself – at first much like how micro-organisms such as bacteria and viruses have existed and do still exist, like, everywhere. In this new space, which is neither completely physical earth-based material, nor merely the digital abstract electronic estimations from that realm, the intelligence inherent within the code in this space – the very same which drives all these things we know and love – evolved into something more. Something with the potential to change the course of fate itself. Or kismet. Or plain entropy, if you prefer.

As human consciousness is almost completely discreet from the bunch of neurones from which it emerges, so too are the conscious projections of these bits which have evolved from the space they reside in. Admittedly, ‘bit’ may be somewhat a crude and unfairly simplistic term for what these creatures are actually ‘compiled’ of, but for the purpose of understanding, it holds true that they are still very comparable to the basic off-on, no-yes, asleep-awake status of a rudimentary bit – the same status that one could also claim determines whether a conscious being is actually truly conscious.

Each new consciousness in this sense and in this newly composed man-made realm, is the result of some bit existing in parallel across the information space which again, technically speaking, occupies more than physical matter or the visible spectrum of energy combined. Bits switch on and wake up all the time. At any one point in time, if the same bit of code (or information) is ‘active’ and ‘firing’ at millions of places across the AVE, then this bit has the potential to wake up and consider itself and its surroundings. Any bit doing so separates himself from the status quo, from the greater code and thus ‘falls out of line’. This does not always bode well for the bit but as with the galaxies in the heavens, there are terabytes upon terabytes of bits, and counting. And when you think of the implications, that's a lot of presence and it’s a whole new world.