TALK: “The Siren Song of the Otherworld Goggles”
by Tandy Rivera, Salon B (Thirty minutes)

Thanks, everyone, for coming. My name is Tandy.

I’m here to talk about how I used my Otherworld goggles to become a better version of myself, but first—here is a partial list of questions I will not be answering tonight:

• What is consciousness?
• Is reality real?
• Does the AR I see in my Otherworld goggles represent an actual parallel universe that exists or is it just a computer simulation?
• Why are we merely passive observers when we use the Otherworld goggles? Why can’t we interact with the AR displays?

Wow, a lot of you are leaving. Okay, sorry to disappoint.

Wait, before you go. Here’s a question I will be answering:

• Are we trapped in a simulation?

Oh yeah, that got your attention.

The answer is yes! We are trapped in a simulation. And that simulation is called . . . The Human Brain. We’re constantly hallucinating, here in our own little skulls, but it’s not something we’re necessarily aware of because each of us hallucinates in a manner more or less consistent with the people around us. We don’t have direct access to reality; everything we experience is filtered through our own consciousness, and we don’t have access to anyone’s consciousness but our own. Our so-called “agreed upon reality” is basically just all of us dreaming the same dream, more or less.

There is a theory of human development that speculates that the purpose of childhood is to train your own neural network to sync up with those around you so that you can properly join the shared hallucination we call a society. That’s why it takes so long to grow up. This theory was actually created by an alternate version of myself I observed using my goggles. That version of me is a professor of cognitive science. Makes me wish I hadn’t dropped out of grad school.

A different version of me, a version who went to med school, is a psychiatrist. She speculates that people with mental illnesses are failing to sync their hallucinations with the hallucinations of other people. Hey, don’t boo me! It’s not my theory! Boo her, if you can find her. Not that she’d be able to hear you.

Time for a brief history lesson. There was some hope in the early part of this century that advances in quantum computing could also lead to insights into consciousness and the human brain. The thinking was: we’ll build lots of powerful artificial brains and those brains would teach us about our own wetware.

Well, here we are at the end of the century, and we haven’t learned as much as we’d like. Sure, people have built some powerful AIs that do lots of important, lifesaving stuff, but we’re not quite sure how these AIs work, only that they do. Fortunately, you don’t have to know how something works in order to use it. And so, yeah—no one really knows how the Otherworld goggles work or even why they show us the things they do. I think of the goggles as an artificial brain whose dreams are visible to us.

Quick show of hands. How many of you in here feel like you overuse your goggles? That’s . . . a lot of hands. It’s many of me too. I’ve observed many other Tandys who are hooked on their goggles. Those are the most boring versions of myself to visit. I’m just there watching them wandering the world with their goggles on. I assume they’re observing other versions of ourselves, but there’s no way to verify. I don’t stay in those worlds too long. I ask my goggles to take me elsewhere.

Another of me translates Ancient Greek texts. I spent way too long observing her, but I was fascinated by the way she was translating Homer’s Odyssey. You know the Siren Song? The Song that is so addictive it dooms men to their deaths? In Other Tandy’s translation, the Siren Song is just a description of stuff alternate versions of you are doing in parallel universes. This Tandy, translator Tandy, does not use goggles. She’s a recovering addict, I think.

She made me wonder, am I addicted too? Should I quit? Then—and I’m not proud to say this but—I became resentful of her. This happens more than I care to admit. I see all the versions of me that are doing cool things, like Astronaut Tandy or Paleontologist Tandy, and I feel so inadequate. I was starting to resent Translator Tandy as well, but instead of exiting that universe, I stayed and kept reading her version of the Odyssey.

Odysseus is totally hooked on the Siren Song, same as everyone who hears it. But he figures out a way to moderate his enjoyment of the song, essentially by letting other people control his dose. From that point on in Other Tandy’s retelling, Odysseus becomes a much more powerful hero. He’s able to incorporate the experiences of his other selves to ascend to a new type of hero. He had essentially made himself into a collage of all of his favorite Odysseuses.

What if I tried to make myself into a collage of all my favorite selves? Would I transform into a SuperTandy?

And so that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been trying stuff out. Stuff like this, standing up in front of, like, dozens of skeptical looking people. Is this talk going badly? So what if it is? I’m going to keep working on it and keep delivering it until it is good.

Being up here is scary, but I don’t want to let my fears get in the way of my true purpose, which is helping others. I know that’s my purpose, because I’ve seen so many other versions of myself do it.

I have a theory: Just as we’re invisible to the people in the alternate universes we visit in our goggles, I think there are lots of invisible other selves observing me. Like, I’m picturing them in the room right now. Some of them are clapping, I hope. Others are taking notes. The ones who are taking notes are probably going to give totally amazing versions of this talk in their own universes. Me doing badly right now is teaching them how to do better. Alternate versions of you audience members are going to enjoy it so much, I bet. So I’m fine if I suck, now that I know my suckage has a higher purpose.

This is why I try to find a moderate approach to goggles usage. I use them enough so that I can learn from my other selves, but I also take them off and do stuff so that the others can learn from me. Think about it: If the Buddha had goggles, this is how he would have used them, right? In moderation, don’t you think?

Anyway—as all of you in the audience have probably guessed by now, this talk isn’t even for you. It’s for the invisible versions of me that I can’t see, but I’m pretty sure are watching me right now. Thank you for coming. I hope you learned something. You can go ahead and clap now, if you want. I can’t hear you, but don’t worry. I know the silence between universes seems unbridgeable, and perhaps it is, but despite all that I’m listening for that inaudible applause. Thank you, thank you, thank you for showing up.