All Roads Lead to Mi-Fu…

By Niels Kunze

Could it be that we are approaching the end of privacy?

Online spying and information gathering legislation, ambient sound analysis software (https://www.prisonplanet.com/you-read-it-here-first-googles-ambient-background-spy-tech.html), and even just our routine sharing of life’s little details on sites like Facebook – all seem to be clearly signaling an impending end to the very concept of privacy. In the age of information it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep anything a secret. Is this necessarily a bad thing?

Long have we taken secrecy for granted – that it is a necessary thing in the world we inhabit. But do we really need to harbor secrets?

Last night I set my mind upon this very question… and some interesting thoughts emerged…

Fear requires secrets;

Love desires none.

Secrecy and Democracy cannot properly mix:

In a Democracy the People are given a tool to manipulate government… as an extension of their Will.

In Secrecy the government hides whatever is necessary to manipulate the People, and abrogate their Will.

What is the root of our shame?

Why do we need privacy?

Is privacy practical in the information age?

Privacy and secrets prevent deeper integrations… eroding trust.

Elitism depends on secrecy.

Love does not withhold… anything,

And therefore recognizes only equality.

What are you ready for?… Society?

Unity consciousness?… or continued fragmentation?

It looks to me like an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Either we all have exactly equal rights to privacy, or we tolerate no secrets at all. As soon as one class or sector of society has the right to keep secrets which is denied to the rest of society, we necessarily have inequality – elitism. That is a primary characteristic of the world we have historically lived within. It is the basis of all our power struggles. “What are you not telling me friend… foe… lover… spouse… merchant… teacher… leader… state?”

In my first book, The Thousand-Petalled Lotus, I took an in-depth look at the issue of privacy in the fictitious setting of the “Mi-Fu” serial which ran throughout. “Mi-Fu” is an abbreviated form of “mind fusion.” In the story, Mi-Fu was a very sophisticated android which derived its own consciousness from the accumulated memories and life experiences of the Mi-Fu assimilants. The assimilants were humans who freely chose to have their entire life experience downloaded into the inner Mi-Fu continuum. Everything they had ever been became stored data within the light-encoded super-computer inside Mi-Fu. Although the assimilants retained an ego-awareness– an identity, their life’s experiences were openly shared with all other assimilants and Mi-Fu himself. There was no longer any such concept as privacy or secrecy. Everyone who chose to participate laid all their skeletons bare. They could hide nothing.

I thought at the time that I was just writing fiction with interesting moral and philosophical implications. Now I’m not so sure. No, I haven’t constructed a super-computer android named Mi-Fu, but I think that in the not-too-distant future we will discover a similar opportunity to blend and share our individual and isolated consciousness with others. We will be able to ‘mind-meld,’ or simply become telepathic.

Have you ever thought much about telepathy? Communicating mind-to-mind without the clumsy intercession of imprecise words definitely has its appeal. But did you ever consider what that might mean to one’s ability to harbor secrets or value privacy? Perhaps the only thing keeping us from becoming telepathic is our insistence on clinging to our precious secrets.

Would you be willing to lay them all bare, putting it all out there for all to see? Probably not if those who would be scrutinizing the skeletons in our closets were themselves still able to hold onto their privacy; to retain their secrets. That would make us feel vulnerable, even violated. But if we had equal access to each other’s life experiences, how judgmental would we likely be? We all have unsavory nuggets of personal experience of which we’re not particularly proud, but when they’re viewed in their full context– from the whole content of the life which lived them- would we be quick to judge or condemn another? I think not, especially if our own blemishes are equally on display.

And what might be the advantages of such a mind fusion? Well, as individuals isolated in our own personal experience we are severely limited in the knowledge we bring to any of life’s situations. But if suddenly we can draw upon the experiences of countless others whom have already experienced similar things, then wouldn’t we be apt to be infinitely wiser? And then merely all the artificial barriers that exist between us now, due to the mere fact of our secrecy, would instantly cease to exist. There would no longer be any impediment to truly loving everyone. What could we create together as a social-memory-complex?

I don’t know; it’s food for thought… and you just might want to check out my books, if you like to ponder such matters. And then let’s meditate together… and see what happens…

Niels Kunze is the Fairmont Hot Springs-based author of The Thousand-Petalled Lotus and the recently released Humanity Incorporated, among many other works. For more on Niels, go to: https://www.nielskunze.com/ or https://schudde.net/Stories/NilsandTheodora/Niels.htm /

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