Microsoft Windows™ AKA Windows™
[related: Symantec, Donald Hoffman, Interface Theory of Perception AKA ITP, Conscious Realism AKA CR, Multimodal User Interface Theory (MUI)]
A graphical navigation environment initially launched in 1985 by Microsoft as an operating shell of its MS-DOS. Following its release, the Windows™ operating system came to dominate the world of personal computing, capturing over 90% of the market share despite its notorious vulnerability to hacking in the form of worms and viruses [1], including the infamous government-developed exploit EternalBlue. The premiere iteration of Windows™ was known as the "Executive" and included a visual dashboard replete with calculator, clock, clipboard, notepad, calendar, Reversi (a checkers-like digital game), and a rudimentary version of Microsoft's famed Paintbrush™ program. Following the apex of its functionality and adoption in 1998 [2], the Windows™ platform gradually fell out of public favor. In the wake of its long tail slide into irrelevance, the system found new life as an allegorical model for cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman's interface theory of perception (ITP). Hoffman's work centers on the scientifically proven discovery that the human perceptual system has evolved to conceal and reduce reality in order to maximize "fitness payoffs". The ITP presents the Windows icon-based navigational system as a metaphor for our "mental interface" [3]. Objects perceived to possess a discrete identity "out there" are, in Hoffman's view, representation icons - items that can be manipulated but whose form is not indicative of objective reality. This system of reduction and reconstruction maximizes brain efficiency by avoiding the need to process the almost infinite amount of data present in underlying (fluid) reality (re:the Emptiness). As a proponent of Conscious Realism (CR), Hoffman subscribes to the Buddhist/quantum worldview that reality has no inherent existence outside of observation - and that perceived reality is in fact non-physical [4]. Proponents of both CR and the Buddhist/quantum worldview contend that time/space, particles, and fields are in fact resultant from multimodal user interface [5] (MUI) indigenous to humans [6]. Consciousness is, in other words, fundamental. Consciousness. Is.
href#[Hoffman, Donald D.] :: The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hides the Truth from Our Eyes.
href#[Hoffman, Donald D.] :: "The Mind As Interface".
href#[redacted] :: "Solitaire".
- ↑ According to recent studies, it is estimated that over 80% of functional Windows™ operating systems are infected with a form of malware, with an average infiltration time of around 8 hours. In a study by Kevin Mitnick found that Windows™ systems unprotected by a firewall were infected within the first four minutes of operating. It is rumored but unproven that Microsoft owns a substantial amount of shadow stock in Symantec, the parent company of the NortonLifeLock anti-virus system, leading to the investigation of alleged GAAP financial reporting violations by Symantec in 1996.
- ↑ The introduction of Solitaire!
- ↑ Leading to speculation that a negative feedback loop has developed between computer interface programming/design and our misleadingly representational perceptual system. Perhaps in developing navigable digital technologies we've further cemented our commitment to seeing reality other than as it is. The ring of samsara deepens. Cards cascade against the greenscreen. We paint in perfectly straight lines, or in pixelated diagonals. Squares and circles. Ideas. Fucking concepts. Is it worth the loss of total freedom to be an "executive"?
- ↑ A trait CR clearly also shares with simulation theory and the holographic universe model.
- ↑ Briefly: the MUI theory interlinks with ITP, essentially serving as a shorthand term for Hoffman's Windows-based theory of "representative" perception.
- ↑ It's worth noting that Hoffman stops before reaching full-on Panpsychism- in his model objects (ex. rocks, salamanders, trees) may have some form of MUI yet lack consciousness.