They are not "discoveries" they are "ideas." People get to discuss ideas without taking them seriously.
The battle between the ECCO faction and the SSE faction is a representation of our own, individual, biological drives and conflicts. We will certainly evolve some kind of super-powerful system and it will be an extension of biological characteristics we currently posses. The point of the idea is to realize both possibilities exist within us at this very moment and to understand our choices can influence the thing that is created that will out-pace us. It's just about which genes will be expressed into the super-system, which is the same old story since genetics begat itself.
Those are not just ideas, man, have you ever even floated? I have done mad edibles in a float tank and I got to tell you, the Solid State Entity is real. Open your mind brother.
Your bad program incited you to derail this discussion!
Why would you trust the ideas of a person who willingly incapacitated himself?
Oh my. Brilliant scientist takes drugs to explore the nature of consciousness, and square reader squirms: "Incapacitation! Invalid!"