Congratulations! You Have Scrolled Far Enough

A response to the following meme;

I read a book on social media recently, “Filling the Void: Emotion, Capitalism and Social Media”. The author writes about how our consumption of online content is like a never-ending search to find an answer, or piece of information, that clarifies all the other online noise and confusion that we’ve been scrolling through.

I don’t really agree with this theory, as I see my use of social media more as a passive distraction without aim. However, it’s a cool idea, and it applies directly to the content of the above meme. Let’s say that the cats above are indeed the answer we’ve been searching for. We’ve scrolled far enough and found our inner peace, we have experienced the piece of information that makes sense of all the rest of reality. We don’t need to scroll any further as there is nothing left to see, there is no novelty or need; everything is familar, everything is safe, everything is understood. We’ve found the holy meme at the end of the neverending feed of online content (aka, the end of the rainbow).

Neural interfaces and the ability to share our lived experiences with each other could make this holy meme real; an enlightened Buddhist could share their experience of non-existence on a social network of neural experiences, then we could experience true inner peace for ourselves. We wouldn’t need to scroll any further after this experience, as everything is now understood, we don’t need more information as we are now at peace. Ernest Cline writes of neural interfaces and experience sharing in his sci-fi novel Ready Player Two, so that’s where I’m getting my inspiration from for a neural social network.

However, there are some clear problems with this idea. Our brains might not be compatible with each other for us to successfully transfer experiences. Neural interfaces are unlikely to capture and replay HD experiences of transcendance to the level of depth required to help others attain complete enlightenment. As soon as the experience ends, how much of the original conditioning of the individual will remain? Whilst people take psychadelic drugs to alter their consciousness, they generally return to original states of consciousness as the drug wears off; I believe shared transcendant experiences would have similar effects.

You also have to believe in enlightenment as a reality, something that can happen, rather than a fiction discribed in Buddhist texts⁽¹⁾. The other solution is to summarise all the reality of the universe (or at least all of human experience) in a single, easily digestable meme. As memes are becoming increasingly relatable over time, I have no doubt that the meme event horizon will soon be upon us. Much like how conspiracy theories have the eventual “storm” that never occurs, the lore of the “holy meme”, the meme to make sense of the world, has its own meme at the end of the rainbow, the meme that will never arrive.

There is a problem with the holy meme idea; the holy meme itself would add to the neverending sum of reality that we must comprehend and understand. When we gain understanding of the holy meme, our reality will change, and we’ll need a new holy meme to understand our new reality. I’m also ignoring that reality is constantly changing and evolving, requiring us to view the holy meme for every instance of existence we percieve. The holy meme would have to be more of a neverending livestream; its contents are somehow recursive and generative, spiralling ever outwards to encompass all conceptual possibilities and realities that stem from our relationship with the holy meme.

Jorge Luis Borges has a similar paradox to the holy meme in his library of Babel; the book that makes sense of all the other books. Borges had a further cool idea; the paper map that covered an entire kingdom at a one to one scale, a completely useless and totally accurate representation of reality that matched reality exactly. What if we read the holy meme as being the paper map, the duplication of all reality? We then ask the same question as Borges, why couldn’t the holy meme just be our experience of the real world? In short, our lived experience considered as a meme.

Paying attention to the holy meme, there is no more confusion; there is only perception of confusion. There is no more scrolling, only the perception of scrolling. There is no more perception, only the perception of perception. In essence, nothingness.

(1) – That is, enlightenment as a direct, personal experience and understanding of the empty nature / non-existence of reality. At this point, words start getting in the way. As enlightenment is the direct experience of the empty nature of reality, the word “enlightenment” can be seen as a further illusionary concept, a word that is getting in the way of our direct experience. To gain a basic understanding of enlightenment, try a form of mindfulness meditation. The understanding will be vague at first due to our conditioning (perception of how the world is), but with increased practice and suitable guidance from an experienced practioner, this conditioning can lessen.