Mind against the machine

This is a book about my search for truth, in an artificial world.

Jencel

Sometimes it seemed to me that I was missing something very important from life. Something that it seemed everyone else knew and was hiding from me, to laugh at me behind my back.

from Prelude

The contradiction was the wall that marked the end of the corridor

from The phenomenon

The systems of power are only holding your material self, divorce from it and you are free.

from The dinner

To assimilate what we see, we liken it to what is most familiar to us. And those are probably the two things we humans know best — water and light.

from Curious

My world was not a world of DARKNESS but one of FOG.

from Infinite Loop

The phenomenon Social Darwinism / How I didn't do any work / The light / Locked in my brain

The dinner Arriving to dinner / Trying to discuss the phenomenon with parents / Father's speech

Curious Anton's story / A party at Anton's house / Anton's take on the phenomenon

Infinite Loop On Anton's laziness / The main plot / the phenomenon returns

Didn't *you* want to kill yourself at some point? And if yes, than what made you hesitant to do it? Your strong will to live? Or just simple fear?

from Back to the facility

...and criticizing someone for being immature is the worst type of criticism there is, as with it you are basically saying that they are not as huge of a critic as you (or that they have too much desire for happiness perhaps?)

from The sleepover

...no matter what choice did I make, would always be unsure about it, and I would always be looking forward to an opportunity to change it even for a second, not so much because I regretted the choice itself, but because I disliked *the fact that I have to make it*, the fact that I could only be at one place at one time, to be one person, leading one and only one life.

from The sleepover contd

Or perhaps both of us were lucky, because we were not numb for this weird sensation, and because we can probably perceive countless other similar phenomena that don't exist for other people. But then again, perhaps we were crazy for having minds that stop and start whenever they want and often drift in unwanted directions, beautiful but useless, like most of the thoughts that they produced.

from Us and them

Perhaps the distinction between the vanilla and the perverse was just an invention of the established. Perhaps it was there just to enable some people to obscure the choices that they are making and to make it seem like they are making no choice at all, that they did what they did just because that's the way it is done in principle.

from Sex

If Alex, was in a similar situation, he would drive directly to her town as, unlike me, he was pursuing a clear and obtainable goal, which is a prerequisite for achieving something, but also a way to *limit* what you can achieve.

from Cigarettes

Meeting my roommate Alex / Picking friends / Who am I / How switching places would solve both of our issues

Hallway Church and Turing / Being stupid

X Nerd stereotypes / How I got my nickname / Establishing connection with my younger self

Fence Outside / Not being punished / Discreet and continuous models

Outside This or nothing / The moon / Fractals / Me and Alex / Explanations / Is the world mathematical

The sleepover Anna's childish behavior / Critics / Boring robots / Adoring Anna

Sex Anna's fantasy / What makes us weird / The establishment and being normal

Cigarettes Alex's good night sleep / About me and Alex again / Sex and love / The proof that P does not equal NP