As a scientist - and a futurist, I guess - I take issue with this quote. But it's mildly poetic, so I'll let it stand. " />

Unless you want to argue the existence of a soul, anything that happens in nature can be emulated. It's just incredibly complex. 'Human nature' and the 'self' are ultimately just the result of interactions within the brain, all following the laws of physics. That can be simulated. Humans don't do anything that disobeys the laws of physics, so those same laws can be applied to simulate it.

When it comes to the Machines, they might use humans in a supercomputer configuration to calculate things like emotions and the like, certainly, but it won't be because it's otherwise impossible: it's probably because it's the most efficient means to achieve it. Brains are already wired up to make those things, whereas the Machines would have to put in a lot of research and then develop more computers and programs to achieve it themselves. It's possible, but a waste of time. 

"On the existential view, to understand what a human being is it is not enough to know all the truths that natural science — including the science of psychology — could tell us. The non-reductive dualist is no better off in this regard than is the physicalist. Nor will it suffice to adopt the point of view of practice and add categories drawn from moral theory: neither scientific nor moral inquiry can fully capture what it is that makes me myself, my "ownmost" self. Without denying the validity of scientific categories (governed by the norm of truth) or moral categories (governed by norms of the good and the right), "existentialism" may be defined as the philosophical theory which holds that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, is necessary to grasp human existence." - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

3. Bluepills are not remedial.

If a bald black man named Morpheus in a purple suit and an alligator-skin coat that wears sunglasses indoors, at night approaches me, knowing my name, and other thinks he shouldn't while saying I'm in danger and that he can help, I'm a little more inclined to believe him than if his name is Sup3rKillahXxX.  Sorry, but if you chose a stupid name when you made your character, you probably should leave awakenings to those of us that didn't.

Niobe Wrote:
          It's so *CENSORED* frustrating when the people who are supposed to be on your side won't tell you what the hell they're doing.

Niobe, that is the litany of all who have tried multi-faction alliances that don't seem to work in the field, but that shouldn't stop allies of The Brethren from contacting us during any crises.

My name used to be Greg Lomax.  Now they call me PS10N.  Greg was a reporter, and a damned good one at that.  At seventeen he had graduated from journalism school and hitchhiked all over Europe to find his muse.  A prodigy you say?  No, more the product of upper class upbringing and the demands of parents with high expectations.  It was probably the rebellion of teenage angst which compelled Mr. Lomax to peer into the realm of the paranormal when a lead he was following led him into unexpected places.  Though the daily bylines he sold to the city’s top newspaper were the articulate and accurate articles his parents expected of him, what fueled his passion was the documentation and rational speculation concerning extraordinary beings such as angels, ghosts, werewolves, vampires and aliens.  The speculation his writings provoked in chat rooms and forums taxed servers across the globe as each new article spawned waves of curiosity, conjecture and paranoia.  The extra money his pen name brought in as the well written supernatural reports sold to the paranormal journals was enough to keep him entertained in, shall we say, somewhat decadent surroundings which might have been opulent if his saving and investment habits were as refined as his spending.

The inevitable conclusion he had drawn again and again from investigating the “other side” was simple: there are times when reality is a lot less real than at others.  His eyes had born witness to things which at first his mind had urged him to forget as being completely impossible - yet some part of him always remembered.  In the lucid and clear hours of the pre-dawn, with mystical music flowing around him, Greg would write.  The stories told of men changing appearance and performing incredible feats of strength.  There were the tales of the Flying Man in Black, or FMB as he’d been referred to in MUFON forums and blogs.  It hadn’t always been like that, of course.  Throughout Europe investigations of haunted locales had been undertaken with startling results, some would say proof, of what people had whispered about for millennia.  Werewolves, vampires and ghosts seeped from the realm of legend into the realm of perception.  Mr. Lomax kept a single mysterious clue to himself - the word “exiles.”

After a year of seeing for himself that reality didn’t behave itself properly, perhaps it was natural to study the mystical books of the occult - magic, ritual and meditation.  To his amazement and delight, Gregory Lomax found that with a little coaxing, reality itself could be altered slightly in accordance with his free will.  Further meditation led him to extend the metaphor.  We create our own reality, we make our own lives.  He might have considered himself enlightened if he had allowed himself to believe what his deepest meditations told him: everything was made of tiny bits of energy, arranged into patterns of information.

All his musings came to an end the day he learned that not one bit of it was real.  Not the city, not the newspapers, not his articles or his computers, not even Europe - none of it was real, not even Greg Lomax himself.  He’d been pursuing an incredible story which began as hundreds of missing person reports.  His clandestine contacts had provided eerie information.  Often, groups of men wearing black business suits, ties and sunglasses had been seen around the areas where some had gone recently missing....