Welcome to the matrix !

Mr. Elvidge must have had a great time describing his science fiction universe as a digital reality. A world where everything is only a binary or quantum connections and each sensitive perception is a pure illusion.

Notice that many others before him made the same supposition. In philosophy, the impossibility of knowing for sure that there was an external reality is already proposed by Gorgias de Leontium (about 4th century BC, contemporary of Plato). And physicists and philosophers closer to us have tried to prove that we can't be certain of what our senses convey to us as messages. No need to be schizophrenic to doubt what we perceive. Didn't Emmanuel Kant say, "We don't see the world as it is, but as we perceive it". I'd add : "We don't see the world as it is, but as we are."

https://www.conscience-et-eveil-spiri...

And since the beginnings of quantum psychics, assumptions about the diversity of our universe (multiverse, parallel universes, etc.) have multiplied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR0gx...

The author has taken only one small step forward on his previous work. And he said nothing new compared to what Thomas Campbell's said in his "Big TOE" and Steven Kaufman in "Unified Reality Theory", except perhaps some examples of what might be extrasensory experiences, imminent death and decorporation.

I admit to having had a lot of fun reading this... I was going to write "novel". But how to prove what only seems real and has no other true reality than virtual, binary? The only way would be to disconnect yourself from the digital world as Neo in the Matrix? Even if you did, wouldn't you be sure that you wouldn't be in another level of the digital world as it sometimes happens in our dreams? And I'm pretty sure the author never not disconnected himself. ;)

But this book can be fun to read.
"The only thing this model can't explain is the unexplainable. Like Donald Trump's hair."

And the author was not even honest enough to say Donald Trump himself. lolll

So I give 3 stars for the pseudo-scientific or science fiction side of this book I looove good science fiction), plus a half-star for Elvidge's sense of humor.

I admit I wasn’t sure what I was going into with this book (and that I don’t know anything about the author or his previous work). I requested it thinking it was a science-fiction novel, and of course realised it wasn’t one after the first couple of pages. This said, it turned out quite interesting and intriguing in terms of ideas and points developed, even though I sometimes had trouble going on.

What if our material reality is not what we think it is? And isn’t even really material to start with? Well,” why not,” is what I think about this. As much as I see myself as a materialist (I often joke that I’m waiting for the Men in Black to come and recruit me and pump me up with juicy cybernetics and bio-engineered alterations—hello, Iteration X), I also have no proof that we are -not- living in a simulation, after all. That the reality we think of as ‘material’ is not simply what the author calls a ‘Reality Learning Lab’, where consciousness goes to live through new experiences for a while, in order to learn and progress. And when you consider all the strange things quantum mechanics have forced us to consider—things that a 19th-century scientist, for instance, would have rejected as preposterous, ridiculous, and completely misguided—it’s not so silly at all. What’s to tell that in two centuries from now, we won’t have come up with something even more outlandish, that turns out to be -the- truth instead of what we knew before?

It’s probably a lot of speculation, but the arguments used throughout the book do make sense, too, so there’s definitely a part of me that won’t discard them.

I didn’t appreciate the tone at times, though, when it veered off sounding ‘objective’ and into more ‘personal’ jibes at other theories. I get the same feeling with any author who does that, really: for me, it’s all about “if you want to convince me, you don’t need to take a shot at anyone; let -me- do this on my own”. But that’s more of a pet peeve of mine. What was more troublesome, I think, was that some approaches and examples were both too simple and too complex at the same time. As in, if you already know the basics about quantum mechanics, string theory and the likes, you’d need more in-depth examples; and conversely, for someone who doesn’t know much to this, the examples/comparisons would probably not make as much sense.

Conclusion: 3.5 stars

Well-written book on the concept of reality and our understanding of what is and what is not. With laser-like precision, Jim successfully expounds upon his thesis and presents a stunning exposition on the redefinition of reality. With an extensive bibliography, Digital Consciousness casts itself as a comprehensive introduction to the concept of noetic sciences. Why? Partly it is the intellectually dense text, yet it is also the novel method in which he presents the content.The questions posed as titles and headings throughout the text encourage the reader to see and experience reality in a new way - to utilize rare and not often tapped connections and networks.

Highly recommended for readers who enjoy deep thinking. Further, for those readers who enjoyed the deeper meaning behind Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol will immensely enjoy this text.

A fascinating read that I want to intergrate into my teaching. Students will also engage with the book completely, although some will need me to break some of the concepts down.

This is not a book to read if you can't pay attention. There are some concepts here that were a difficult slog for me at times. I think if I can re-read it when I have all my faculties about me, it might be easier to understand. If you have a background in science, you should be okay.