17. ЯR
REALITY
You can call me whatever name you like. “Hammer man” would be just as fine as any other. So, let see what you get in your everyday life? Let’s look at everything that is coming into your mind day by day.
As far as I can see it, everything that you get from the “outside” depends entirely on your own wishes and your own desires. You do not agree? Oh, I see, you agree but you want more! The fact is that you only want to eat, fuck, dominate, and explore the things and places. However, these are your basic instincts and their consequences, no matter who you are and where you are, and regardless of what you have inside of your beautiful mind. This is also true about your wishes and desires. You can call them your needs and that is also fine with me.
You send your desires to this ‘brave new world’ from your ‘beautiful mind’ and then you receive your feedback, the feedback you want. That everyday feedback is something entirely mystical and it thrills you to continue your existence in this circle of sending desires and getting rewards. Even if you want something else, you still need these things everyday to feel just OK and to believe in your future.
This feedback from the “outside” is simply telling you: “Yep, you have a chance to get that food which is reasonably close to your hands… yep you can try to fuck that chick, chances are good… yep, you can keep control on this stuff… and on that stuff too… and yep, seems like you are safe here for a while and you can explore some new risky surfaces… and, yep, you can get that amount of money if you are fast enough… and yep again, if you’ll get the money that fast, you may get everything else that we just mentioned.”
Uuuu, that is what the feedback is telling you. That is what your external brave new world is telling to your amazing mind. This is what happens in the optimal case of course, the way that is supposed to make you feel happy. This feedback that you are receiving everyday is a simple reflection of your own wishes and desires. I do not see anything else here, just a reflex and as far as I can see it is still active. That external world is telling you only the things that you want to hear. It is telling you only about the things that you want and think about everyday. It is a little bit more complex but looks like you are getting my point!
Well, yes, you are metaphorically standing in a front of a mirror and, whatever is reflected in that mirror from the external world in front of your eyes, that is you. Yes, there is nothing inside of the mirror. Mirror is just to reflect and this mirror was designed just like you – there is nothing inside of it, just like in you beautiful mind – nothing is inside, just a reflection. Just an ability to reflect and copy, that in fact mind and mirror are one and the same.
That feedback to your mind looks so complex because is not only your own reflection but also the reflections of many others like you. You may not believe that it is so simple because you always trying to find infinite worlds inside of you but in fact it is a pretty simple world where you are just a little part. You always see not just your own reflection but reflections of many others, you can just process these reflections which are similar to what you think and to what you want to. Altogether, that is very similar to who you are.
The point that I am trying to make can be described by a simple concept of “reflectory arc”. What we are talking about is a simple reflex where your beautiful mind is just a part. That reflex is simple by itself but it is a part of the complex network that you call “Society”. Your mind has been designed from the first steps of your development to maintain this reflex and, in its turn, your mind helped to strengthen the design of the system around you. Still your mind is just a part of this reflex, just a single neuron that is a part in a very simple reflectory arc.
As you already know it doesn’t really matter what you think about yourself. For your social system you’re just a neuron responsible for sending signals to the other cells, other minds and for receiving responses from them as well. However, the general work of that whole system is far beyond the ability of one neuron to understand how the whole system works and what it is doing, that work which you cannot see from your position.
Sounds complex? Wait a little, it is very simple and you’ll see it. It is as simple as a reflex.
REFLEX
You see this hammer in my hand? Do you remember how this thing works? Yes, it is striking your knee and, then, your knee automatically, without your control, suddenly jumps. That is reflex, the simplest reflex which has only one neuron involved in this sudden response. You got stimulus from the hammer and a single neuron in your spinal cord got activated and pushed the quadriceps muscle to move your leg toward this guy with a hammer in his hand whom you apparently want to kick out of your life. Yes, it is me and I am here for you.
This response is simple because it goes across only one neuron in your spinal cord and all your brain activity and all your great amazing thoughts do not influence this response. Well, I have to say almost not influence. In fact, your brain can control this reflex in many indirect ways but you do not see that control and you cannot recognize it, as it is unconscious act, an unconscious response to a stimulus that you are receiving from the external world, in this particular case from me.
Your whole brain works similarly to that simple one neuron reflex. To perform even extremely complex acts such as when you use enormous amounts of neurons, you still use reflexes based on stimuli which you are receiving and from which you are sending your responses to communicate with the world to get what you want, such as your wishes and desires, or you reject what you do not want, like a guy with a hammer.
Just like in your spinal cord where single cell activates your muscle, in your social system you represent a single cell that receives signals from the outside to activate other cells in that social net. Quantitatively your social system is different from your brain. Qualitatively it is just the same – the same reflex of which you are just a little part. Your social system was developed from the same units, how could this be any different?
Sounds too simple?
ЯR
Why am I telling you this? I want to share with you these little things that have been designed a long time ago to lead you out of this nice little sniff box. Not only that, you know, I also need your response. I want to see if you can process my message, the work I am doing with my hammer and can return your response back to me. That is the only way I can assess you and find out what is going on with you. That is the only way that I can consider you as a real subject. When I am testing your reflexes, I expect to see your response otherwise I have to worry about your health. If you do not produce feedback who are you in this net that is surrounding you?
You want to say – you a part of that net and a part of that big social reflex even if you are silent? I see your point, you have not always been like that, no? Do you remember when you where young. Do you remember how it felt to be young? When you were in love your first time and for a second time or one of those other times, do you remember? It was a reflex? Why not? It was a part of your social reflex as well. It is all about what you would call your reaction to the external stimuli, but at that time you were also starting to build your new social reflectory arc, your brave new world! Do you remember?
It was not just about your feelings it was actually the beginning of your path to build a new system around you. Now you have this system, your system is ready. Yes, you have it pretty much completed and now you use it as much as you can. You want to say – do not like it now? Really? You want to say that what you have was already here before you came to this world, that you didn’t have a choice to build something new? Well, of course, you got what you had around you and yes in some way you just continued to build what others started before you. If you really do not like what you have, you can blame them or blame yourself, either way it will be correct. Still, you can build something new, something else on top of what you already have. You know that, so why you are not so positive about your ability to make this something else? You do not know how to make something else, and you feel bad about it? Well, I know how that feels!
Listen, your brave new world is responding to you no matter what you are doing. It happens just the same as you were asking him about your needs and wishes. This world gives you just what you want and you receive nothing new because you never ask him for something new. You have never been outside of your routine tasks, your circle, your reflectory arc. You repeat the same activities, the same circles of the same things endlessly, until this arc starts to break. That will happen and you will know when. You remember who said: “If you always do what you always done you will always get what you always got”? That is what you have, what we all have until we start to do something else, something new, something different.
I am sure you know that the real magic happens only once. When it is happens for the first time it is magic, after that, each next time when you have to repeat it, it is just a routine. After it is done once, then, anyone can do it and it is not a magic anymore as it works for anyone now. That is the only magic we have in this life. I know, you do not believe in magic, that is why you call it science, and in science each discovery happens only once.
What do you think about that process of your life? You enjoy it now because it is your nature to perform purposeless forward-backward movements multiple times until something good will happens. Then, when it is happening, you have no idea what it is, you just feel so good! What is that, your reflex? Enjoyment, to stay active, to feel just like you feel? You maintain all these forward-backward movements all the time and on all levels of your performance, on all levels of your existence in your social net. So, how does that feel, still good?
Tell me then what is the difference between what you are getting from your social system everyday and what you are receiving here while you are reading this? What are you getting from this reading, something different? Is it your option to get out of “your circle”, out of your routine, out of your “reflectory arc” and get something different, something new? Because you still want something else that will have more sense to you.
No? Then what else?
What is the difference between what you are getting from your external world and what you are getting here right now? What is more real for you – that world outside of your head or what we have here with you inside of your mind? I will leave this question with you for now but let me ask you just one more question. Do you have something in your real life, whatever is real life means to you, that could be more important to you than your reflexes you perform in your social system everyday?
Are you sure that it is all which makes sense in your existence? That is it? If yes, then does it really matter what you have during your whole life – “Reality of reflex” or “Reflex of reality”.
NEXT U-STORY: ‘CODE’
