εὔδηλοςy/endilos = quite clear, manifest, e.g.:
εὔδηλός [ἐστι] ποιῶν = all may see him doing;
opposite to: κρυπτός/cryptos = hidden, secret

Here you are then,
thank you for allowing me to put this opportunity into your hands.

You see, it is just a little black box, nothing special about it on the outside. It looks craftily built, smooth edges, curiously heavy in your palm. No screw holes, no cable, no seams… just one little switch on the top. No labels though, no warning signs, so listen up!

Once you accept the box from me, it will all be up to you. You can press the switch, at any time, or you decide not to. But if you press it, the effects are irreversible. The little black box will do what it was designed for, immediately, effective globally and, indeed, irreversible.

From the moment you press the switch, everybody will be able to read everybody else’s thoughts. But not only read in the sense of listening into the current internal dialogue of the other person, but actually perceive all the more subtle thoughts and lineages of experiences that led up to those current thoughts and all the emotional references that come with them. All to a level of granularity, that the boundaries of the conscious and the unconscious will disappear. We will be able to understand each other, without words, without charades, without masks, without filters.

Now, don’t worry, you will not be overwhelmed by an onslaught of information. Not everybody’s thoughts will figure in your head all at once. Its more like sitting at a busy airport gate: You can see everybody around you and estimate the total numbers of passengers at a glance. But you do not perceive everybody’s facial features unless you turn your attention to them individually and actually look at them. And even then it is up to you to look as closely and observe as many details as you wish.

In the same way you will be able to just glance over somebody’s thoughts or really dive in. All the little black box will do, is enabling you – and everybody else – to go to whatever level of understanding and empathy you choose with your vis-à-vis. But mind, in case of conflicting thoughts between you two, the other will be also be able to perceive how closely you looked and tried to understand her point of view, because naturally this will now reflect in your own thoughts, directly and indirectly.

Obviously, if you choose to press the switch now, this all will take some getting used to and the first couple of moments or even days might be rather messy – there will be so much to learn and realise. But I really wonder, what the long-term effects of this might be…

So, here you are then.
Are you going to press the switch?

PS: This thought experiment of mine proofed helpful and fun, time and again. Recently also when discussing those new technologies misleadingly known as “crypto-currencies”: I deem their most innovative and least recognized attribute not to be their cryptography but the “endilo”-accounting inherent in the distributed ledger methodology.
I was enthused to find this endilo-principle being alluded to in the article “Occupy Wall Street: No demand is big enough” by Charles Eisenstein in which he says:

 “Let us allow nothing happening on earth to be hidden.”

 

This article is licensed as Creative Commons
(Attribution, Share Alike).
Learn more about the licence here.