Xykogen is dedicated to experimentation, and finding ways to communicate experimental ideas in popular formats. True experimentation is about exploring the parameters of common experience, pushing out into the space of possible alternatives.
Our experimentation is grounded in a worldview known as Doctrine Zero (DZ). Part transhumanism, part neo-gnostic occultism, DZ is the idea that you have lived your entire life in the darkened basement of reality. By modifying your beliefs, perceptions, and cognitive capabilities ("expanding your mind", as Timothy Leary would have said), you can become aware of different aspects of existence.
The process of self-modification begins with psychological techniques, including examination of your beliefs (and the nature of belief in general), and points toward a future in which humanity is transformed by emerging technologies. Within DZ, the content of a belief is not nearly as important as its ability to guide your perception of - and engagement with - the world.
In addition to being the name of this school of thought, Doctrine Zero is a group of people committed to testing the boundaries of their beliefs, perceptions, and lives. Similar groups or societal trends have existed in the past, with varying degrees of emphasis on scientific, mystical, or artistic/absurdist understandings of the same transformative techniques & technologies. In roughly chronological order of first appearance, these have included:
Although strains of gnostic thought appeared within paganism, judaism and christianity (spawning the likes of neo-platonism and kabbalah), gnosticism itself is arguably older than any of these. Its strength is that it is essentially a very simple idea. The idea is that there is something subtly, yet vastly wrong with the world: We are unwitting prisoners within it. That idea, of course, can be expressed through the prisms of any number of belief systems. The post-war/postmodern world has seen both an explosion of technology and the revivification of ancient gnostic impulses.
DZ's brand of neo-gnosticism is essentially atheist (i.e. not anti-theist, just not necessarily requiring any reference to religion) and transhumanist. The idea is that the Universe manifests in ways that are beyond the perceptual capacity of human beings, for both neuro-psychological and sociological reasons. As an example of how perception is limited by our neural "wetware", just think for a moment about why it is that certain insects can see in the ultraviolet spectrum and we can't - how the term "visible light" refers only to what is visible to humans - and what implications that has for how much "reality" we perceive visually. Then, take a moment to see if you can imagine plausible equivalents for your other senses.
A second example is the fact that some things (such as face recognition or the tone or 'gist' of a social situation) can be more easily - intuitively - grasped by most people than can other things (such as complex mathematics). This is because human brains have developed dedicated computational resources to deal with phenomena common in our evolutionary history. Psychologists call these specialized resources "modules". A person with an artificial "maths module" wired to their brain could, in principle, perceive mathematical problems and their solutions with the same intuitive ease with which you and I perceive a friend's facial features. In comparison with the kind of perceptual possibilities evoked by this line of thought, humans have small minds.
Not only are we limited in this respect from the outset, but we humans tend to further limit our perceptual range in order to be functioning members of society. To fit in, we implicitly agree to perceive "consensus realities". In other words, we focus on (and therefore perceive) only those aspects of existence which we expect others to agree with, or react positively to.
DZ is based upon the idea that one could, in principle, remove the various perceptual filters imposed by our brains and societies, and perceive a much wider arena of Reality than that previously thought to exist. This is achieved through a range of techniques. For example, psychological techniques can be used to overcome rigid social conditioning and maintain vital mental flexibility. If more power is required, one might climb the ladder of techniques to employ tools such as psychedelics or gene therapy. The further up the ladder you climb, the more speculative and powerful the required technologies become. One might argue that you can't remove perceptual filters without imposing others, but there are techniques for dealing with that, too.
If you'd like to know more about Doctrine Zero, get in touch.
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