Digital Consciousness: A Transformative Vision by Jim Elvidge

The recently published book "Digital Consciousness" by Jim Elvidge is a pleasant introduction to the theories of a consciousness rooted digital reality.

The book starts with an analysis of the scientific method and shows it loopholes. Then it discusses the popular frameworks of "Digital Philosophy" and "Digital Physics", which more or less suggest that we're living in a computer simulation. Elvidge presents a different alternative in imitation of Thomas Campbell's "Big TOE" and Steven Kaufman's "Unified Reality Theory", namely that existence is by nature digital and rooted in consciousness. If you're already familiar with Kaufman and Campbell, it is difficult to find the novelty here, but if you look for a more succinct summary of the concept, this book is a good start.

The next part of the book tries to convince you of the idealist philosophy as opposed to the materialist philosophy. Whereas in essence I agree with this point of view, I consider that the wealth of data Elvidge presents on OBE's, NDE's, reincarnation and paranormal events, distracts from the theme the title promises and that this approach is too esoteric to my taste. Those who already believed in these points of view might get here some confirmation, but the unbelievers will not be convinced and likely put the book away at this point.

Elvidge brings in a lot of physics, especially quantum physics to prove his points and tries to convince you that the most plausible framework to explain both our observations from these fields of physics and the supernatural is the "digital consciousness" concept. For those well versed in physics, his detailed explanations can be skipped, but for laymen Elvidge does a good job in explaining. The parallels with computer science are interesting as well, although a bit contradictory: Elvidge proposes a non-computer simulated digital consciousness, but uses notions from computer simulations to make his point.

Near the end of the book, it did find some worthwhile ideas as regards evolution in conjunction with reincarnation. Elvidge proposes the system of reincarnation as a means to accelerate evolution. Within one life one can learn only a limited amount and the learning curve is asymptotic: when you're young you learn fast but the older you get, the more your learning starts to plateau. Immortality in the same body is then not something to strive for, because it will end in a tedious plateau without any further evolution of your abilities. Repeated reincarnations could help here to accelerate evolution, as every life starts with a fresh boost of learning. Another point which I appreciated was the notion that it is difficult to change and evolve established complex systems; every change may have huge consequences. Better to have a fresh start on a regular basis to allow further tweaking and fine tuning.