True enlightenment is realizing that variables don't exist, it's all just a sequence of bits in RAM that we assign meaning to as desired.

Ascension is realizing that bits don't exist, it's all just trapped electrons in transistors which we imagine to be bits.

Transcendence is realizing that transistors or code doesn't exist, and it's just some quarks and electrons attracted and repulsed by weird forces, vibrating and convulsing in a soup with entropy constantly rising until the heat death of the universe, of which we make futile attempts to make sense or purpose.