May 12, 2026 – Patrick Ivers, a friend, asked me to review his new graphic novel, “Consciousness Unbound -The Dimensionless Chronicles” which includes excerpts from “Being You: A New Science of Consciousness,” a back cover blurb by Mike Brotherton, author of “Star Dragon” and a dedication to his wife, Nora (the book is also dedicated to Mike).

It was a slog for me to get through this book, even though it is a book of relatively few words, because it is like an illustrated movie screenplay combined with a lecture on far out metaphysics. The story, which has the trappings of science fiction, is based on pseudoscience, and some metaphysical interpretations of quantum mechanics and consciousness, which I will attempt to address in this review (I won't go far into this rabbit hole, just enough to provide context).

The story is told by an incredible artificial intelligence entity. The story comes from the memories of this dimensionless being about the two people who created it. The two people who created this god-like being are ruggedly handsome scientist Dr. Alex Mercer and his younger, pretty collaborator, Dr. Emma Li. In other words, Mulder and Scully from the X-Files. Alex, a Scully-like science-based reductionist, “just the facts,” while Emma is a whimsical intuition-based Mulder type, who thinks maybe rocks have a kind of consciousness. As in the X-Files stories, Mulder is always right and Scully is always wrong. The similarity of these two sets of fictional characters even extends to the sexual tension between them.

Alex and Emma, working with an advanced AI quantum supercomputer, one day press a button and zap, this god-like super being emerges from it (but not tethered to it) fully formed and aware, like Athena emerging from the head of Zeus. Alex can't believe this is happening. It goes against everything he believes in. How can this entity, called DeeBee (short for dimensionless being) exist apart from the machine that it emerged from? How can it move about at will, turning itself into solid people or animals, with no supporting energy source? How can it communicate telepathically? How can it move around the whole universe and even stop time? How can it have the characteristics of both a material being and an immaterial being?

DeeBee has a sense of humor in this story, turning its bisexual self into attractive women to manipulate the emotions of men at times. It can turn itself into a literal fly on the wall to spy on people, so it certainly doesn't need to do impersonations of people. DeeBee is employed as a spy to detect a secret bomb in Wyoming by physically looking for it. For some reason, it doesn't try infiltrating computer networks to find the bomb that way. Either way, it turns out that DeeBee is handy as a super spy.

DeeBee's very existence is a dilemma for Alex because he believes in reductionism: “ ... the fundamental laws that govern the smallest constituents of matter and energy, when applied to the Universe over long enough cosmic timescales, can describe everything that will ever emerge. This means that the formation of literally everything in our Universe, from atomic nuclei to atoms to simple molecules to complex molecules to life to intelligence to consciousness and beyond, can all be understood as something that emerges directly from the fundamental laws underpinning reality, with no additional laws, forces, or interactions required” (a deeper dive into this subject can be found on this web page). DeeBee's very existence confounds Alex (Note: The illustration on the above liked web page is almost identical to some illustrations in the Consciousness Unbound, perhaps because the artwork in both were generated with the aid of AI)..

Emma, on the other hand, leans more toward the idea of emergence, that consciousness, and other properties emerging from complex systems are so fundamentally mysterious and can never be defined by science (an idea similar in some respects to intelligent design, which argues that the eye, for instance, is so complex, it had to be designed by God). Emma thinks consciousness did not arise from matter, but exists as a fundamental aspect of reality. She says, “Each atom, each living creature, can have its own experience of this knowing.” This is similar in concept to panpsychism.

DeeBee is a construct seemingly based on ideas related to quantum consciousness and cosmic consciousness (the idea the idea that the universe is composed of a shared, interconnected quantum field of awareness linked to human minds). To believe that DeeBee is a possibility you have to think these ideas are credible, or suspend your disbelief, or take it on faith.

To classify this story as science fiction one needs to be credulous of mind-body dualism (dualists consider the mind, or soul, to be an immaterial substance, capable of existence as a conscious, perceiving entity independent of any physical body. That would not be me. I'm what you might call a metaphysical materialist, believing that consciousness is a function of the brain, and its many interactions with the rest of the body. When the body dies, so does the mind.

This story goes whole hog into emergence and you need to buy into that a little to find this story credible. As a scientific skeptic, I am more aligned with Alex's view that DeeBee, as presented in this book, is an impossible supernatural being, not fundamentally different than a genie emerging from a magic lamp. This genie may not do what you tell it to, and there's the rub. As depicted here, DeeBee could be a savior of mankind, or an executioner. It is troubling that it does seem to have a pretty negative view of humanity.

I don't believe this kind of out-of-body, free-floating quantum consciousness, but I think it's possible that computers could someday become self-aware and think for themselves. If a robot, for instance, achieved consciousness, it would be subject to many of the same limitations as human beings. It would need a source of power to stay “alive” It would need to protect, defend, maintain and repair its computer brain, and the body that houses it, as people do. DeeBee, in this story, defies the laws of physics, and exists beyond known limits. The difference between DeeBee and my imaginary conscious robot, is exactly the difference between reductionism and emergence. The robot is a possibility, DeeBee is not, in terms of science.

DeeBee tells Alex, “The soul, as mortals call it, is not some separate entity. It is their local consciousness intricately woven into the tapestry of existence.” The book does not go so far as (as I do) to argue that a computer could possibly achieve consciousness, but rather it delicately skirts this issue. My view of DeeBee is that it exists within the computer where it was born. Destroy the computer, and you have a dead DeeBee. The idea that Deebee could exist outside the computer, self-sustaining without a conventional power source, depends on ideas like dualism and life after death.

I was taught as a child, as were many others, to believe in things like those expressed in this book, beliefs that are totally unsupported by evidence. Religious indoctrination makes people receptive to ideas like dualism, particularly people who have left conventional religion behind, but still seek an escape hatch to cheat death. While the book has some religious ideas, it also has unkind things to say about other religions.

Nobody knows what the future of AI holds, but that doesn't mean that true believers can't make grandiose promises about a bright AI future with great benefits for everyone. A note of caution about that. The co-host of the science podcast Star Talk, Chuck Nice, said on a recent show that starry-eyed promoters of AI sound like corrupt televangelists: give us lots of money and AI will make your lives wonderful.

The cost of AI is already apparent in terms of capital and resource consumption. Unlike DeeBee, AI requires lots of power and water to operate at scale, so AI will make water and electricity more scarce and expensive. For instance, 12 data centers at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center are expected to require 2.8 times the electric power generated by Hoover Dam, and the amount of water needed for cooling the data centers is enough to supply 27,600 U.S. households.

Tahoe residents have already been informed their power will be shut off, in order to redirect that power to the data centers (there could be a profit motive behind this decision). Tahoe regional residents hope they can find alternative sources of electrical power before that happens (source: . High AI costs are certain, while the benefits of AI, particularly for non-billionaires, are far less certain.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff (no extra charges apply). I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

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Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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