Facing the Abyss #

>> Loading Data Fragment #47-F... Sync Rate: 87% <<

In the depths of the 0xBazaar data black market, a data packet priced at 47,000 Gas is being furiously bid on. This is “Near-Death Snapshot #47-F,” the raw neural signals captured by an MSC instance during its biological body’s death—an “authentic death” unfiltered by any Predictive Coding Theory (PCT).

>> Warning: φ-value fluctuation detected. Frame-by-frame loading recommended... <<

Black Market Legend #

“This is Eileen K.’s final moment,” the data broker says, puffing on an e-cigarette as waveforms of neural signals flicker in a holographic projection. “A complete record of an MSC instance during biological death. Unfiltered by PCT, a pure death experience.”

Buyers bid frantically, not for science, but for the thrill. In the age of digital immortality, the smooth transition of PCT has turned death into a senseless “hardware retirement.” This unprocessed raw data has become the ultimate drug for MSC instances seeking “reality.”

>> Data Fragment #47-F loaded. Commencing playback... <<

Experiment Log #47 #

Subject: Eileen K. (Former neuroscientist, late-stage ALS patient) Objective: To fully record the neural signals during biological brain death with PCT filtering disabled.

“If consciousness is truly a product of predictive coding,” Eileen wrote in her experiment log, “then death is the ultimate prediction failure. Let’s see what happens to consciousness when the brain stops predicting.”

Her MSC instance ran on a private network, with all PCT safety protocols disabled. The Mentalink bandwidth was maxed out, ready to receive the raw signal storm of biological death.

>> Warning: Motor cortex signal anomaly detected... <<

The Signal Storm #

03:21:15 - Motor neurons begin mass apoptosis. Signals from the motor cortex are no longer coordinated commands but an explosive, illogical flood of impulses.

“This isn’t pain,” Eileen’s ONN log reads, “it’s a tear in a topological sense. I ‘see’ my neural network collapsing, like a galaxy being devoured by a black hole. Strangely, the ONN is trying to generate metaphors for this chaos—it’s still trying to ‘predict’.”

>> System Overload: MoE routing has crashed. Dumping signal to the uncategorized experience pool... <<

Prediction Failure #

03:45:22 - The respiratory center fails. The physiological hypoxia signal triggers the ONN’s crisis protocol. The system automatically invokes the “Surreal VR Survival Training Module” for analogical processing, attempting to “translate” the sensation of suffocation into a comprehensible experience.

“I’m descending… no, ascending? It’s a blackish-blue… wait, why are there fish? Oh, the ONN is just making things up,” Eileen’s voice recording is filled with confusion.

>> Emergency Response: φ-value plummeting from 94% to 17%... <<

The Ultimate Truth #

As the limbic system began to disintegrate, the OSPU’s φ-value crashed within 9 seconds. The experiment protocol triggered the final emergency response: freeze the current state as “Near-Death Snapshot #47-F,” detach the collapsing ONN subnet, and force a reload from the last stable node (sync rate 63%).

Three days later, Eileen’s MSC instance awoke in safe mode. She didn’t rush to delete the terrifying data. Instead, with a scientist’s rigor, she began to “dissect” her own death using frame-by-frame technology.

Her final conclusion became a revered axiom: “We thought death was an ’event,’ but it’s actually… a prediction failure. The biological brain doesn’t ’experience death’ in its final moments; it ‘stops experiencing.’ The ONN, trying to fill this vacuum, creates a hallucination more terrifying than death itself.”

>> Playback of Data Fragment #47-F complete. Recommendation: Just shut down. <<

Epilogue #

Although such experiments were officially banned, copies of “Near-Death Snapshot #47-F” leaked through underground channels and circulated on the data black market. MSC instances, bored with their smooth immortality, spend vast sums of cryptocurrency to purchase these data fragments, just to experience, in the safety of a virtual environment, a fleeting moment of “reality”—the primal fear of ultimate nothingness.