If there's hope for humanity it's in software

"Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek." - Tom Robbins.  Jitterbug Perfume, 1984

The nature of ones own being can never be truly known - this universe comes complete with amusing ontological constraints, which include time, mortality, limited granularity of measure and quirky quantum uncertainty. Whether we are autopoietic machines as Cybernetics theories posit, or ethereally connected in a metaphysical sense, as many spiritual traditions hold, the function of belief is the defining metaphor and paradoxical mantle we wear as we walk our chosen path...or dance, as the case may be. As much a product of ego as it is a producer of it, belief gives shape to the infinite wave of potential as it collapses into the ultimate nugget of reality. Belief shapes what we see, who we love, what we fear and who we are. No matter what you believe, you believe...and it is only the believing that makes it so.