The Ethics of Peter Parker in Insomniac Games Spider-Man

“All data are filtered, observation is necessarily theory-laden.” ~ Norwood Russel Hanson

Let us begin with a quick look at the title, “Axiom Verge.” An Axiom, meaning that which is turned around, is an idea that cannot itself be proven, but lays the foundation for a functional evaluation of other information and drawing further conclusions to be considered true within a system of thought. 

The most famous example of this is Euclid’s “The Elements.” Euclid established five postulates, five axioms, extrapolating them one by one, and in doing so laid the foundation for all geometry and physics until the 20th century when new, conflicting observations lead to the creation of Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Quantum Physics, which required new axioms to be created to work. New Math.

And the word “Verge,” meaning the edge or bending toward.

The title suggests a reality in which we are moving towards the fundamental principle by which by which we understand things, by which we understand the world. This story begins the way any good science fiction story does, with an unexpected lab explosion that thrusts us, a character named Trace, into a dark and bloody world like no one has ever seen. The world of Sudra.

As we explored this world, we encounter beings called Rusalki, God-like technological entities left by a now deceased race called Sudrans. They have been broken down by a being called Athetos, an invader from another world. As we explore this infected planet we learn more about its history, somewhat from Elsenova and the other Rusalki, but mostly from little notes and messages we find around the world. Elsenova, in a proper Hero’s Journey-esque set up, informs us that we possess what is called a Patter-Mind, a special and nearly inexplicable gift. The closest explanation we get is that a Pattern-Mind is someone with the ability to manipulate matter. This trait will be necessary to defeat the wicked Athetos, who also possesses this Pattern-Mind characteristic.

The second clue we get to understanding how we came to this alien world comes after we reactivate the Rusalki’s power filter and repair drones, and Elsenova becomes conscious enough to speak in complete sentences, she tells us of a duality of existence in this setting: the “world stream” in which the planet Sudra lies, and the “Breach.”

The Breach is hinted to be some dangerous, external space that used to be adjacent to the planet, but now surrounds the planet due to Athetos’s “Breach-Attractor” machine. We also learnt hat another Rusalki named Opheliea had entered the breach to pull Trace into their world. This simplifies the goal of defeating Athetos into two steps: find and repair Ophelia, and destroy Athetos’s Breach-Attractor.

Our third clue comes from the Rusaki named Veruska, who once repaired speaks cryptically about being a “carnivore” to us. Ophelia politely dismisses this weirdo among weirdos, and explains that Veruska’s function as a machine was to create “Mind Worlds.” To which Veruska retorts, “We all make min worlds.” Trace basically ignores this in favor of shooting more monsters and finding more cool upgrades.

Out fourth clue comes from the world and notes explaining the fall of this planet. They detail a world that advanced in science and technology to such a rapid extent that the pendulum of progress swung violently in the other direction. First the Sudrans feared and abandoned their creations, then forgot that they were the creators, and eventually came to worship the Rusalki as their gods. The only Sudrans to survive were the followers of Athetos, who are now mutant monstrosities that ramble like madmen about loving Athetos, distrusting Athetos, becoming Athetos, and, most confusing of all, accusing us of being Athetos.

So let us review: first, we and Athetos possess a Pattern-Mind, the ability to manipulate matter; second, the Rusalki fished us from the Breach and Athetos is entrapping the world of Sudra by attracting the breach; third, Veruska tells us that everyone is creating Mind-Worlds; fourth, the planet of Sudra culturally abandoned technology and experienced biological devastation and mass extinction after Athetos arrived.

Yet none of these pieces connect until we stumble across the most important note in the game, “Axiom 1.” It reads as such:

(A)    All algorithms are universal and valid regardless of whether they are executed

(B)    Cognition is a sub algorithm whose behavior is to perceive properties of the parent algorithm describing it

(C)    Any algorithm giving rise to cognitive entities will be perceived as reality by the entities described.

In this note, the word “algorithm” essentially acts as a catch-all term for a fundamental physical law presented from a mathematical lens. This presents physical laws not as absolutes, but as mere functions among many others. With the first axiom stating that all algorithms, all physical laws, are true, only distinguished by if they happen to be operational, firmly establishes a unique take on the Many-Worlds theory of Ontology.

The Many-Worlds theory came about in the early days of Quantum theory before it firmed up as a true science, and basically stated that any possibility does in face become actuality, and all those infinitely-other universes exist separately ad in parallel to the one we experience. The second axiom states that observation and abstract thought are also an algorithm, a fundamental physical law, the function of which is to identify whatever physical laws are in place. By asserting that cognition is a “sub-algorithm,” the axiom is stating that cognition is not guaranteed, while also asserting that consciousness is omnipresent in the physical world. Such an axiom would firmly establish a take on Panpsychism, the idea that consciousness is present in all matter and that self-awareness would thus be emergent in any sufficiently complex system, as true.

Furthermore, this part of the axiom asserts that, because the universe is panpsychic and self-perceiving, the cognitive theory of Douglas Hofstadter’s “I Am A Strange Loop” is not merely true of individuals but of the universe as a whole.

Moving on tot the third part of the axiom, initially it seems harmless, like a logical conclusion of the second part of the axiom. But it reveals a radical extrapolation. By adding here the concept of “reality” as cognition confirming the algorithm, the physical laws that gave rise to it, the axiom must admit that should a cognitive entity somehow perceive some other, non-executed physical law, that physical law becomes real. It becomes executed. This asserts a specific version of Sollipsism, the idea that there is no reality outside a person’s cognitive experience acting as creator of that reality, but centering the observer of Sollipsism as a relationship between an individual cognitive entity, a person, and the self-aware (panpsychic) universe. In other words, the universe comes into existence by perceiving itself, and individual perceivers are an entire universe themselves.

But what sort of person could actually accomplish such a perceptive feat? The answer is a scientist. After all what is a scientist if not someone who can manipulate matter, a Pattern-Mind, Athetos, who perceived the change in algorithms just enough to reach Sudra, a world just on the edge of the boundary between worlds.

Thanks just to the information we gained about the world, combined with the assertions of the axioms, what follows in the story is less of a surprise and more of a foregone conclusion. That is the attitude that Trace adopts when Ophelia reveals to us that we are Athetos. Just a younger version, before the struggle of facing a world that refused to change made Athetos bitter, jaded, and resentful.

But why would Athetos have been rejected so vehemently? Well that comes down to the nature of Axioms, and why we accept the ones that we do.

As we discussed at the start, axioms are not able to be proven. They are necessary to ground any rational system so that ideas within the system can be evaluated, but are never themselves provable even if it was empirical evidence that causes us to create a new system. See Kurt Godel’s “Incompleteness Theorum” for more on why that is the case. So I must repeat the question, why do we accept the axioms that we do?

Because the axioms are useful. And by useful I do not mean convenient, self-confirming, or ethically more comfortable. I mean that doing so allows humanity to realize some kind of progress, to solve problems, and then create new questions. It empowers us to do more with what is as hand. There is a problem in this too. How then do we determine usefulness? That progress was made? That is gets us closer to understanding the truth of reality?

Well the answer is not going to be satisfying, but the progress is determined by its own fundamental axiom. That axiom is this: an axiom can only be useful if it is an accurate depiction of reality. New axioms can only be more useful if they more accurately reflect the universe. It is this fundamental postulate of human thinking that shows why these ideas of the Many-Worlds Theory, Panpsychism, and Sollipsism are so ridiculed and rejected. Yes, they are interesting as thought experiments. Their conclusions are sometimes very convenient as explanations to our current questions. However their axioms are not useful; they do not solve problems or enable action in our reality, because the axioms only serve to establish belief in things inherently external from our ability to see it. External to our ability to evaluate it.

So imagine Athetos’s frustration, his anger, when after an entire career of ridicule despite public notoriety, he finally achieves a functional way to demonstrate the usefulness of his axioms. The world of Sudra, existing in a state of liminality that enables one to breach into these other worlds. What he finds instead is a society that has abandoned this potential out of fear, precisely because it was dangerous is was too useful. Nothing could have been more slighting.

Still, committing total, biological genocide by weaponizing your won cells into a mutating virus just so he can say, “I told you so” to the nerds who bullied him is a little heavy handed. The person message to take away from this story: pursue your goals without being consumed by ego.