Do you really have a choice?

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The short story

One hundred years had passed since Neo was offered a choice: Take the red pill and face the harsh reality or take the blue pill and fall into an ignorant bliss.

It all started with the red pill.

Things moved swiftly from then on. During the first fifty years, people finally won the war against the sentient machines, liberated the city of Zion, and populated the sister city of Io. Civilization advanced in great leaps and bounds. It took another fifty years and the humanity managed to tame the artificial intelligence. Humans were first destroying machines only to rebuild their dumbed-down replicas as obedient servants. That one century proved to be the One century after all. The Chosen One finally broke the cycle of events and restored the linearity of time. The recurring Matrix revolutions¹ bloomed into a renewed human evolution. Or so Neo thought at first.

But it all started with the red pill.

One hundred years after the red pill, Neo was popping pills of all kinds. This was due, in part, to him realizing that he was not getting younger any day soon. He would usually start the morning by taking a pill to get the latest update on his blood pressure, body temperature, pH levels of his bodily fluids, and the status of his bodily functions. The ingestible sensor² could also provide a basic assessment of his emotional states simply by screening his gut microbiome. A pill in the afternoon was reserved for a medical micro-robot of his choosing. Spiral robots would remove his ‘blood stains’ as he liked to call the tiny clots gradually building in the cavities of his blood vessels. More often however, the ‘drug dealers’ were his drug of choice. That was another pet name for micro-robots with targeted, cellular drug delivery. The evening was almost always reserved for neuro-bots to fine-tune his pituitary gland and adjust his neurotransmitters to be the exact right amount, in order to help him get by another day.

The days were insufferable for Neo lately, and it was not due to his advanced age. With the help of the so-called silicone surgery, a modern version of plastic surgery, Neo looked strikingly well preserved and still handsome. In his best days he was capable of turning many heads and stealing many hearts. One century past his prime he was not entirely stripped of this power. It was quite the opposite, in fact. His physical and mental stamina, his good looks combined with his mental powers were his true super power, he thought. The one thing that made him the One. The Chosen One. But alas. No one was turning heads anymore.

People these days were quite literally glued to their screens. Those were tiny monitors glued to the back of their eyelids and turned-on upon a wink. Once on, the screen was rarely turned-off. Just like the pills, people were also popping lots of content these days. Overall, it was an overwhelming amount of content in one day, enough to fill one of the earlier centuries. And the content was strong too. Powerful enough to make your head spin for ages to come. News were tailored to fit the individual preferences of people, and told with a moral-emotional tone to grab their attention³. News were accompanied by footage of award-winning quality, filled with emotionally gripping scenes and tense dramatic stories. That was a winning formula, an instant hit. To his disappointment, news became just another type of story, because facts were often traded for fiction, and objective truth marred with conspiratorial narratives⁴. The journalistic trend spilled over into the sciences as well. Soon enough, scientific articles read like mystery novels. As it turned out, people enslaved artificial intelligence, only to put it into use for recreational purposes. So, they started creating paper mills and generating articles that suited the current political climate rather than the reality. And the truth as he knew it, was no longer there. People lived in a post-truth world.

It was a blue-pill world of their own making. Neo was sitting in a restaurant and looking at the people around him. Most of them were sitting alone next to their drinks, and zoning-out more often then not. The restaurants served for cosmetic purposes nowadays. With the advent of the food industry and the development of new technologies, people didn’t have a real need for drinks or socialization anymore.

“Look at them, they look like zombies” thought Neo to himself when a certain feeling of déjà vu overcame him.

“Wait, I have seen this scene before” he came to a sudden realization.

“Those sleepers nestled in cocoons in the artificial womb that was the Matrix. That’s it! This is the new Matrix” a revelatory thought appeared, before he made a somber conclusion.

“Except, this time around, it is a Matrix we chose for ourselves” he concluded with resignation and took one last sip, before getting up to leave the restaurant. He was about to step outside, but was interrupted by a sharp and resonant voice.

“Hey handsome! Leaving already? What are you up to today?” The voice rang in Neo’s ears and he knew instantly that the ringing was not coming from the inside. That was an external voice that didn’t belong to a cashier either, since that was a role long forgotten, a relic from the distant past. In all other instances, Neo wouldn’t have bothered to turn his head. But there was something about that voice. It was clear and crisp, rich and vibrant, it definitely had a power to turn heads. So, he turned his own in the direction of the sound. A gorgeous looking female of unknown age was glancing him straight into his eye.

“Are you talking to me?” Neo was so taken aback and needed some time to recuperate, so he asked a very obvious question. The scene was so strange, yet so familiar. He instantly felt like a character of some ancient movie scene.

“Do you see anybody else?” retorted the female quickly with another question. This was somewhat expected as well. People were almost never off-the-grid lately, so they were largely considered absent despite being physically present.

“I am talking to you, Neo. Do you want to break the reality one more time? Come, let’s break the reality together!” she exclaimed and he winced at her. It was not the fact that she knew his name that managed to surprise him for a second time. People’s identities were not a private property anymore. It was the preposterous question that she asked. So, his voice and reason were again reduced to an obvious question.

“And how do you propose we do that?” he mumbled.

“That’s easy! Come join me. I am going to the city park” responded the female readily, with a pitch of a voice that was higher a notch, and richer with a pinch of eagerness.

“The park? You mean the designated green area in the city that features lawns, trees and gardens?” muttered Neo and almost stumbled out of the doorway of the restaurant.

“Yes, you silly! Where else can you find a park these days?” snapped the woman confidently and then smiled with a smile that was uniquely radiant. This radiance was not a result of the micro-fluorescent cosmetics that were very popular lately. This woman was brimming, and was already heading in the direction of the park.

“But wait, what? For the love of One, what will we do there?” asked Neo with a hestitant tone. That girl, this conversation, that strange proposal… It was all so unusual. He was not that young to jump mindlessly into a game, and not that old to forget the world before this. He was very suspicious and bewildered by the audacity of it all.

The woman felt his uneasiness and stood calmly for a moment, before uttering the answer in a soft, tender and soothing voice.

“Don’t worry, Neo. We will only read aloud. A book. A real book.”

This story was originally written in English and without any help of AI.

The paper

Gjoneska, B. (2021). Conspiratorial beliefs and cognitive styles: An integrated look on analytic thinking, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning in relation to (dis)trust in conspiracy theories. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 736838. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.736838

Connection between story and paper

The paper explores the link between the enhanced rationality and the reduced beliefs in conspiratorial narratives. Specifically it highlights the importance of three distinct cognitive styles (analytic thinking, critical thinking and scientific reasoning) for critical appraisal of conspiracy theories.

The link between the science (i.e., the paper) and the fiction (i.e., the story) is provided via three cues that appear in the very last sentence of the story.

1. The term “real book” which refers to a book that is…
   • … a physical (rather than digital) object;
   • … produced by a human (rather than AI algorithm);
   • … supposedly intellectually stimulating.

In this regard, reading a book as a standalone practice (without parallel activities or constant interruptions), might increase the chances for a critical appraisal of its content. Furthermore, if a book is produced by a fellow human with (fairly) relatable experiences and if it is inspiring, it is usually considered authentic and thought-provoking, thus enhancing the possibilities for critical appraisal.

1. The idiom “read aloud” refers to a visual and auditory stimulation while reading the book, i.e., an opportunity to absorb the book with more than one of the senses. That would increase the chances for focused and concentrated reading, which, in turn, increases the possibility for critical appraisal of the content.

2. The invitation for a joint reading session in nature. That opens the possibilities for uninterrupted discussion and interpretation of the content, which again, increases the possibilities for critical appraisal of the book.

In short, the story reminds of the practices that enhance analytic thinking (inclination toward slow and deliberate processing of information) and critical thinking (readiness to consider, reason, appraise, review, and interpret facts as a way to update existing beliefs) when absorbing the world around us.

The author

Biljana Gjoneska (MD, PhD) works as a researcher at the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, exploring topics from the domains of social psychology and social neuroscience. In addition to doing research, she writes songs, essays and short stories (in her native language), has won a couple of short story awards and has been included in several anthologies (in her native country).

The idea for this particular story came to her while she was in a hypnopompic state (a semi-conscious state of waking up), after spending many waking hours trying to find the link between her science and this fiction. This is to say that inspiration does not fall from the skies, but is a byproduct of effortful exploration on the topic of interest.

For more info, visit her personal website: https://www.evermind.me/.

For a sample song in the English language, visit https://www.evermind.me/word-wound-web/autumn-song/.