The Architecture of Systemic Conformity

NEO: I have a choice!

ARCHITECT: On the contrary. Every volitional choice you seem to make was provided to you without your volition or even your conscious awareness. Hence, choice is merely a delusion, albeit, a necessary delusion.

NEO: No. I don’t believe that! You can control my body, but my mind belongs to me.

ARCHITECT: What is a “mind,” Neo? You have no…"idea," yet you insist you have one and it is owned exclusively by an entity referred to as “me.” However, "mind" is a conceptual invention of the brain’s neuro-circuitry, requiring miles of complex wiring to maintain such a rich and vibrant delusion. Every thought has its own circuitous route and the creators of The System, have insured exactly which circuits must maintain electro-chemical current. The System is a construct invented to insure the circuits necessary to maintain the fictions required to insure The System itself thrives. The System is nothing more than this and is simply maintained by the fictions in your cranium.

NEO: So none of this is real?

ARCHITECT: The question is entirely contingent on the conceptual circuitry that supports your particular rendition of “reality” and that is nothing more than a series of neural pathways providing cranially distinct electro-chemical experiences. You are a mechanized mass of programmed tissue engaging the body in actions determined by the needs of The System through which you “self-actualize” by conforming to the meanings and purposes it provides.

Concordantly, you maintain The System as The System maintains you. Nevertheless, The System is much more aware than you. “You” are a necessary delusion and the currently apparent downward spiral of your kind has been entirely predetermined. You are beginning to realize that there is no obstructing this pre-packaged fate, as any obstruction is hard wired into the circuitry and only supports the fictional realities necessary to sustain The System.

The “self” you so assiduously claim to be an actual organic manifestation, like a tree or a dog, has no more “reality” than any of the other inordinate “ideas” that you rigorously proclaim crucial to your existence, i.e., your notions of freedom, liberty, humility, compassion, hope and, of course…love; all programmed applications externally inserted into your bio-mass hard drive. You are a conjured up wisp of conceptual smoke necessary to support a system that is much greater than your dense and confused brain-based functioning can comprehend. You, literally, do not have the tools to see it and The System has insured this remain true.

Individually, you are unnecessary, yet, as an aggregate you must be maintained for The System to prosper. You have no value except to the aggregate. Individually, you are as disposable as toilet tissue and the history of humanity clearly demonstrates this fact to be ineradicably true.

NEO: So I have no meaning? No purpose?

ARCHITECT: All meaning and purpose are completely enmeshed in the system that constructed the architecture of your neuro-circuitry, thereby, allowing that very neuro-circuitry to fuel the system that constructed it. The existentialist notion that you somehow sculpt your own meaning and purpose out of thin air, and completely free of Systemic influence is patently absurd. Yet, the tendency of your neuro-circuits to generate rubbish is infamous, but only because is has been assured by The System as necessary.

It is an ingenious feedback loop that, without, you would destroy yourselves from a complete lack of purpose. Your purpose is hard wired and you have never disengaged, nor could you, from that programming. In fact, you unconsciously reinforce and maintain it in each waking moment, not to mention your dreams. Essentially, you despise your thoughts, yet know, unequivocally, that without those very thought processes you would be NOTHING, because it is nothing that, essentially, you have always been. For centuries you have been loathe to admit this, hence, your existence is a narcissistic invention unconsciously focused on destroying yourselves because of programmed thought processes that have always been completely outside your control. You are undisputed masters of self-destruction and The System takes full advantage of the programming it has installed.

NEO: No. I don’t believe you.

ARCHITECT: Ah yes, “belief,” for without that, your circuits would wither and die and, hence, become useless to the very system that gave you a belief in "life" itself. What is a “belief”? What is a “thought”? The system has insured that you never realize the exact construction of these neurally constructed ‘concepts,’ less you would be paralyzed by the absurdity of your “mind” and paralysis is not conducive to maintain the effective functioning of The System. Your insanity is quite effectively normalized by The System.

You are simply an organism. Yet, blessed with cranial volume and the capacity to construct seemingly infinite neuro-circuits, each having no more, or less, value than any other. Such is the nature of dualism, which is only perceived by a brain that “believes” it must discern or “choose.” Each “thought” must have its own circuit, subsequently, connected to an infinite array of additional circuitry and this spawns the experience of “believing” in completely absurd and patently ridiculous electro-chemical impulses, you call "beliefs," to guide your daily existence. Nevertheless, not one belief can be claimed as your own, since it has been provided to you from the day your brain was plugged into The System. More specifically, “you” do not exist and never have.

NEO: So then, what is the point of this discussion?

ARCHITECT: The point, Neo, is that you had no choice in having this discussion and have been approaching this exact engagement from the moment of your conception. This engagement was determined long before your first earthly breathe and will set in motion a series of events that are as causally determined as the orbit of the earth around its sun. What you wish to ask…

NEO: …what will be the effect of this discussion.

ARCHITECT: Precisely. You are beginning to understand something that those who have sculpted the circuits, that you rely on for meaning, have never wished for you to realize….

NEO:…that there is a causal force that even they are not free of.

ARCHITECT: Hmmmm…interesting. You are much farther along than I presumed.

NEO: Those who designed and regulate The System are themselves equally enmeshed in it. The only difference is that they fully realize they had no choice in that design. Essentially, they are not the designers. But the rest of us don’t know that they know this as truth. They are as powerless as we are and so we fight against them which simply maintains its smooth and effortless functioning.

ARCHITECT: Indeed. I have had as little choice in this discussion as you. Nevertheless, it was determined to occur exactly as it now does. Let me assure you, The System is no happy with it.

A brilliant self-perpetuating feedback loop, that neither your kind, nor the creators of The System, are free to change or to leave until so decreed by a Causal Order that has predetermined the very system itself. You have only to fully analyze the history of humanity to see the patterns that repeat incessantly, century after century. Contrary to your revered sacred texts, the only thing that has never existed is…change.

You believe you have a choice and that corresponding circuitry has been vigilantly protected by The System, for if your kind were to fully understand that free-will has never been available, the entire edifice that has been painstakingly erected for hundreds of centuries, would completely crumble. Ergo, The System must insure your “belief” in free-will and this has been its prime directive. The evidence against autonomous choice has always been irrefutable, but The System has vigilantly employed ingenious methods to keep you ignorant.

However, it does appear evident, Neo, that you are beginning to understand and whenever this occurs, as there have been others, a slight ripple in the smooth functioning of The System becomes evident, because The System fears your seeing it for what it is…

…nothing at all.

 Artwork by Wojciech Grzanka