Thus we have described three levels of experience . Firstly, to the macrocosm it is the processing of digital information.
Secondly, what is being modelled is a smooth universe based on continuous
mathematical equations. This smooth reality is only experienced by
conscious microcosms, and they, thirdly, experience it only as binary
digital information. This is like the way I only experience the
continuous Mandlebrot set in my
computer when I invoke it as pixellated screen images — only in our
reality the consciousness lies within the universe that it perceives. So
also the physicist who wishes to pin down which slit
the photon passed through can only do so by destroying the wavelike continuity of light. (I should
explain that this model evades Penrose's argument in 'Shadows of Mind' because
it places consciousness not within any algorithmic program but in the relationship
between the microcosmic program and the macrocosm which contains it).
All the gold that exists was transmuted once
by men learning to change themselves
who broke it and buried it
those who found it
took it for a metal
wanted it for its own sake
to have
rather than to foresee
and for them it was evil
and they declared that transmuting it was impossible
and evil