Your paperclip is equivalent to Einstein's table, re: "Tagore : Science has proved that the table as a solid object is an appearance and therefore that which the human mind perceives as a table would not exist if that mind were naught."
I think they are talking about any 4D perceptually oriented self-consciousness, and not just human consciousness. The Europans are just caught up in the same Maya.

...But I'm still thinking about this.
~samwik

Pyrolysis creates reduced carbon! ...Time for the next step in our evolutionary symbiosis with fire.