Within complex systems arise situations of emergence where the collective have attributes that individuals in the system do not themselves possess. This concept, commonly known as the wisdom of the crowd, or Collective Intelligence can most easily be summarized with the Jelly Bean Jar phenomenon.
However, before going into that, it must be said that this is not an appeal to authority fallacy. Consensus Gentium is not an end to the argument, but a tool to be used to get us closer to truths we may not be able to uncover individually. In this way, the church of Thea Apo Mesa separates itself from the Gnostic idea of attaining unity or conversation with the creator directly, but instead attempts to use collective intelligence to create a map of the territory so to speak; to map out the simulacrum from within the simulation. As a group, it may be possible to unify our ideas into a greater understanding, as in the following example.
Have you ever seen a contest where a large jar is filled with jellybeans and the person whose guess is closest to the total number wins a prize? As it should happen, if you take all of the guesses, add them together and divide by the number of guesses, you'll get remarkably close to the exact number of beans in the jar. Here is a nice little video that explains it fairly well:
The first known instance of this phenomenon taking place was in 1908 at the annual show of the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Society in Plymouth, England where a large group of people gathered to guess the weight of a cow. As it should happen, the combined guesses were only one pound away from the actual weight, an experiment that has been duplicated many times, as in the above video.
This is perhaps the structural idea driving Thea Apo Mesa as, if we are indeed within a computer-simulated universe, it may be that each of us has enough of a glimpse of truth encoded within us that as a whole we may be able to understand our paradigm to a much higher degree. Conversation and discussion are integral; not only where our ideas and insights are involved, but also where our observations of the world may apply. The idea is that if we put enough ideas and observations together, we may be able to create a quasi-religious practice that actually (and verifiably) puts us in communication with the creators of this simulation.
As a collective, we may be able to cobble together spiritual truths heretofore unknown to us. A religion of the hive, where everyone has a voice and participates in the overall understanding of the universe. No patriarchy, oligarchy, or submission to holy writs, but a historical joining together of all people for one purpose: to understand the nature of the universe we find ourselves in.
To do this, we need you to join in the discussion. We do not ask you to believe or swear an oath or allegiance, but only to share your ideas.
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