The Viral and the Vital
In this age of infinite scrolls and curated feeds, I find myself contemplating a troubling paradox. We live in an era where millions can resonate with a single video, where ideas spread faster than wildfire, where “going viral” has become the new currency of influence. Yet, paradoxically, the voices that matter most—the genuine reformers, the truth-speakers, the harbingers of uncomfortable change—meet only with dissonance, their messages dissolving into the void of algorithmic indifference.
This is not merely a technological problem. It is a spiritual crisis masquerading as progress.
The Rule of Resonance
Consider how we “enable” this rule of resonance. Each click, each like, each share is a vote cast in favor of what the sophisticated algorithms have already determined we want to see. The feedback loop tightens with every interaction, creating an echo chamber so perfectly tuned that we mistake its reverberations for the voice of truth.
But what gets left behind? What remains unheard in this cacophony of agreement?
The genuine—that raw, unfiltered truth that arrives dressed in the garb of dissonance. It doesn’t comfort; it challenges. It doesn’t confirm; it confronts. And because it fails to generate immediate emotional resonance, because it doesn’t trigger the dopamine rush of recognition and agreement, it withers in the shadowlands of the algorithmic landscape.
The Decoherence of Authentic Voice
Drawing from quantum mechanics, we might understand this phenomenon as a form of technological decoherence. Just as a quantum system collapses from its superposition of infinite possibilities into a single, measurable state when observed, so too does human consciousness collapse when it interacts with algorithmic systems.
A person begins with authentic complexity—a superposition of interests, beliefs, contradictions, and potentials. But the moment they engage with the algorithm, this rich multiplicity gets measured, categorized, and collapsed into a simplified behavioral profile. The algorithm doesn’t merely observe; it actively shapes, constraining future possibilities to what has already been deemed “engaging.”
The reformer’s voice, carrying its quantum superposition of uncomfortable truths, gets forcibly collapsed into metrics: low engagement, poor retention, insufficient shares. The algorithm learns, with cold efficiency, to suppress such voices in favor of those that generate resonance.
The Mimetic Prison
René Girard revealed to us that human desire is fundamentally mimetic—we want what others want. But in the algorithmic age, this mimetic principle has been weaponized at scale. The recommendation engine has become a kind of cosmic puppeteer, not merely reflecting desires but manufacturing them, broadcasting them, and ensuring their viral replication across millions of minds.
We witness a strange phenomenon: society appears to fragment into countless micro-communities, endless identities, nuclear units—like a crystal shattering into infinite shards. Yet beneath this apparent diversity pulses a singular heartbeat, the algorithm’s relentless optimization function pulling all fragments toward the same center of gravity.
This is Maya in its most sophisticated manifestation—not the crude illusion that simply hides reality, but the subtle deception that makes us feel radically individual while we dance to the same algorithmic tune.
The Mathematics of Marginalization
In my explorations of consciousness through mathematical metaphors, I’ve often contemplated how large systems cause smaller systems to “collapse.” The retail investor loses to smart money; the individual voice drowns in the crowd; the authentic self surrenders to social pressure. But nowhere is this principle more elegantly implemented than in our algorithmic environments.
The algorithm represents a massive “measuring apparatus” with:
- Computational resources that dwarf human processing
- Pattern recognition across millions of users
- The power to shape the very context of choice
Against such a system, the individual reformer—no matter how profound their insight—faces the same fate as a quantum particle meeting a measuring device. Collapse is inevitable, and in that collapse, the transformative potential of genuine reform is lost.
The Dissonance of Truth
Why must genuine reform create dissonance? Perhaps because truth, in its raw form, rarely aligns with our desires. The great reformers of history—from Buddha to Socrates to Gandhi—initially met with rejection, ridicule, even violence. Their messages created cognitive dissonance because they challenged the comfortable patterns of thought that societies use to maintain stability.
In pre-digital times, such dissonant messages could at least persist in small communities, gradually building understanding over time. A Socrates could gather students in the agora; a Buddha could teach beneath the Bodhi tree; a Gandhi could march with followers. The dissonance was social, human, negotiable.
But algorithmic dissonance is different. It’s systematic, automatic, totalizing. The algorithm doesn’t debate or consider; it simply measures engagement and adjusts visibility accordingly. The reformer’s message doesn’t get the chance to slowly win converts—it’s simply made invisible.
Beyond Resonance and Dissonance
As I contemplate this predicament, I’m drawn to the concept of shraddha—often translated as faith, but meaning something deeper. It’s the capacity to hold steady in truth even when that truth generates no resonance, wins no likes, goes forever unviral.
Perhaps true reform in the algorithmic age requires operating outside the resonance/dissonance binary altogether. Like the ancient rishis who withdrew to the forests not to escape society but to discover truths that society wasn’t yet ready to hear, perhaps modern reformers must find ways to plant seeds that don’t depend on algorithmic amplification.
This might involve what I think of as “quantum reform”—messages that exist in superposition, containing both resonant and dissonant elements, designed to collapse into their transformative form only when encountered by a consciousness ready to receive them.
The Eternal Vigilance
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that one must act without attachment to results. This ancient wisdom takes on new urgency in our algorithmic age. The reformer must speak truth without attachment to metrics, must serve without seeking viral validation, must persist even when the algorithm renders them invisible.
For underneath the sophisticated machinery of our technological Maya, beneath the endless cycles of resonance and suppression, the eternal truth remains: genuine reform has always required the courage to speak into the void, trusting that somewhere, somewhen, a prepared consciousness will hear and understand.
The algorithm may control visibility, but it cannot control truth. It may manage the manifest, but it cannot touch the unmanifest. And in that gap between the algorithmic and the eternal, reform—genuine, transformative, necessary reform—continues its quiet work.
The Choice Before Us
We stand at a crossroads. We can continue to feed the beast of resonance, allowing our collective consciousness to be shaped by engagement metrics and viral mechanics. Or we can choose the harder path—cultivating the discrimination (viveka) to recognize truth even when it arrives wrapped in dissonance, supporting voices that challenge rather than comfort, seeking the genuine even when the algorithm hides it from view.
The irony is profound: our most powerful tools for connection have become instruments of separation from truth. But perhaps this very recognition is the beginning of reform—not the kind that goes viral, but the kind that slowly, quietly, inexorably changes the world.
For in the end, truth needs no algorithm. It has its own ways of finding those who seek it. And those who truly seek reform must be willing to embrace the dissonance, knowing that it is often the frequency at which transformation vibrates.
“Choose your understanding. Reinvent the Self!”
Reinvent The Self! 