Spark in a Cyber-Gnostic World

Gnosticism has taken many forms, but one of the elements common to most strains of the belief system is the idea that there is a good, spiritual, transcendent world underlying our corrupt, decaying, physical world. Depending on the theology, some or all people are endowed with a "divine spark" - that is, an underlying core of spiritual reality. They may have many layers of physical corruption on top of it, but beneath all of the chaff of our world there is a pearl of the divine. Some may not have this - they are simply lumps of physical material decaying while clumsily making their way among the true spiritual creatures that are stuck here with them.

In this world, a variation of Gnosticism holds true, but it's digital. All matter and physical things are comprised of mechanistic elements - atoms bouncing off of atoms, chemicals combining and recombining. Given enough computational power, all things can be predicted. Everything is logical, orderly, and rational. Everything, that is, except for that spark.

Think of Buridan's ass. A donkey which is equally hungry and thirsty is placed perfectly equidistant between a bale of hay and a bucket of water. The donkey, being a machine designed for survival and not an entity with free will, cannot make a rational choice and remains perfectly centered between the two. He eventually dies; because there is no rationally superior choice, he is unable to choose either. A person, by contrast, may choose either one. If the person chooses to drink, it is an irrational choice - there's no reason to choose water over food since both are equally necessary and both are equally attainable. The person just introduced an element of irrationality.

The divine spark adds irrationality to a mechanistic universe. It is the mote of dust that corrupts the disk drive, the magnet that warps the monitor. In these stories, we'll follow sparks, glitches, and externalities.