...

I am sick.

Not with anything permanent or life-threatening, thankfully. Regardless, it sucks, and I wanted to complain about it somewhere. I noticed I felt a hesitation to write about it here. As if this place is supposed to be somehow divorced from my body, from the so-called "meatspace."

I don't even know where I picked up that term, "meatspace." It was years and years ago. Recently though, I was reading Techgnosis by Erik Davis, and he mentioned that the term is commonly used by a group referred to as Extropians. Essentially, Extropians believe in the reverse of entropy: extropy. Extropy, in this sense, would be intelligence--human or otherwise--bringing order to chaos. One of the aspirations of those with an Extropian mindset is to upload one's mind into a machine, and effectively evolve humanity past the "meatspace."

It wasn't until I read this passage about Extropianism that I realized I don't truly agree with this end goal. I've thought about the idea of uploading one's mind to a computer before. I may agree with some Extropian beliefs, namely that intelligence is a force for good in the universe, but I don't think uploading our consciousnesses would...work. I don't think it would be truly us. It would just be a copy. That's not to say I think machine intelligence isn't possible, but that's an entirely different topic. I just think that for humans, there's some magic here in our meat. We don't fully understand the human body, and how it all interconnects and behaves as a whole. We are not just brains piloting human mechs. If the aetheric mind is real, it is tied to our bodies in ways we don't yet understand.

Still, I have a tendency to think of the internet as a place where the mind is distilled from the body. A place where the ails of the body are nearly irrelevant. If someone does share that they have an illness or disability, it must be so extreme that it impacts their identity and their capabilities as a person. Among influencers, it's a "coming out" moment. This sense of the internet as a mind-only place is, I think, the root of my hesitation to complain here about being minorly ill.

I know, intellectually, that the mind and body are more cohesive and intertwined than we often give them credit for. Nevertheless, I still hold some level of disgust for the reality of living as a creature with a body. Growing up in a very gnostic-flavored religion, this is probably be something I will need to continue to unpack for years to come. This anti-meatspace reflex is a huge discredit to everything my body does to keep me safe. There are so many little processes, all working outside of my conscious awareness to keep me alive. They may not have a choice, they are just doing their programming. I think it's good to be grateful though.