"Once solely the province of science fiction writers, it was the theories of Volokhov, combined with the military use of cortical implants, that first paved the way for the intentional alteration of human and AI consciousness. [Today, the military routinely performs prodigious feats of mind-bending, ranging from the subtle expansion of awareness that comes from military-grade tactical computers, to the mental combat gestalt of Maximal Command Mode, within which the AIs and commanders of a military task force partially fuse their mental states, in order to ensure optimal command and control.]"

"It is Governance that performs the most complicated mental gymnastics, integrating as a matter of course the operations of thousands of individual Representative minds into a greater super-Representative whole, forming a hierarchical pyramid of sentiences representing greater and greater numbers of lesser sentiences, while still allowing these lesser sentiences independence of thought, action, and will. Directorate-level Representatives each represent the opinions of hundreds of thousands of lower-level Representatives, which at the lowest level reflect the opinions and beliefs of actual constituents. It is disturbing, perhaps, to consider the state of human representatives—or indeed, the AIs—installed at any level of the hierarchy. Seemingly enslaved to the opinions of so many others, they still seem resolutely independent."

"The illusion of free will, then, is preserved. Looking at the mathematics, it is easy to see how this is possible, but remove the goggles of theory, and the intuition boggles."

[…]

"According to the equations of Volokhov, consciousness is less of a discrete entity, and more of a fluid, existing across a vast spectrum of possible strengths, and, with the proper tweaking, capable of mergers, splitting, and other feats that are not typically thought of in conjunction with the idea of 'mind'."

"Where the theory runs into perplexity is not within its own edifice, which stands refreshingly paradox-free, but in contact with a truly alien, unexpected development: the idea of souls, introduced by the Incubators. The idea of soul gems carrying "souls"—minds, even, perhaps—as discrete entities runs counter to the grain of the consensus established by Volokhov, and the intersection of the two technologies introduces a host of unsettling questions. What happens to the "soul" of a magical girl installed within the Governance hierarchy? Does her "soul" expand to cover the underground processing cores that offload computational load? Does it remain distinct somehow? Can the symbiotic advisory AI, fused so directly into the mind of the Representative, influence this "soul"? What of the magical girl's mysterious powers?

[Similar questions apply, of course, to the military.]

Instead of sweeping these issues under the rug, as has been done so far, I think humanity would be better served to study these issues closely, and develop an understanding, before the contradictions introduced by them arise to plague the current system.

—Excerpt, "Volokhov and Soul Gems: What we must study." opinion post to IntSci networked science platform, written for popular consumption. Joanne Valentin, DS Physics, 2445. [] indicates content redacted to those without security clearance.