Oneness

Genesis, PART TWO, VII.

Both Christian and Laurinda remember:

"...having been one with a nodal being." (p. 170)

The members of the galactic brain are not absorbed but remain individuals and therefore are called nodes, not cells. Each is a complex of machines and organisms, the latter living mostly on the quantum level. Thus, the uploads' oneness was with a member of the galactic brain, not with the galaxy or the cosmos. The memory of oneness is described as:

dim;

fragmentary;

nameless;

formless;

a sense of transcendence;

"...like the afterglow of a religious vision long ago..." (ibid.);

pervading the personality;

more unconscious than conscious;

Laurinda's relationship to Gaia;

her speaking for the Terrestrial node;

Christian's relationship to Wayfarer and Alpha.

This does sound religious. Religions differ but often refer to oneness with a transcendent consciousness. They usually assume that consciousness is ontologically primary although the Norse gods arose from interaction between the unconscious material forces of heat and cold. Nodes, produced by earlier nodes, are descended from artificial intelligences created by intelligent organisms which evolved from unconscious matter.

I agree with the language of oneness and transcendence but not with the primacy of consciousness. The universe becomes conscious of itself through conscious organisms. Thus, it is the universal self and they are individual selves which can realise their oneness with the universe although consciousness does not precede or succeed organisms.