Does the BIP actually change who we *are*?

[LMNO]

I see.  I think I've had some sort of internal dialogue that explains BIP in terms of structure and limitation that I'm not sure I've fully voiced.

Putting aside that the Leary "imprint" is still a metaphor, or at least an unproven hypothesis, I have taken the BIP to a point where your cell is Everything That Makes You Act And React As You Currently Do.

This would naturally include the Circuits, as they are usually the fundamental bases for behavior.

If I remember correctly, RAW proposed:

Learning
Conditioning
Imprinting

As the foundations of behavior, building on each other.  But as my example above about the martial artist indicates, the effects trickle down.

First, the kid learns about karate [substitute whatever martial art you feel best represents what I'm going for here].
Then, the kid (through repetition) conditions his body in the behaviors and attitues of karate.
Finally, the imprints themselves change through the constant contitioning.



Parallel thoughts:

Imprinting would necessarily influence your reality grid.  As shown above, the reverse can also be true, if you don't know how to change it.  For example, someone who has imprinted neophilia can become neophobic if his filters suddenly and incessently pounded the idea home that anything new can kill you.  He would resist at first, but if he couldn't change his grid, it would change his imprint.


Where was I going with this?

Ah, the metaphor.  To use Cain's meme of "reconstruction", this could include things as simple as learning a new language, or getting into a new genre of music, which might change your perceptions, but not your imprints; or it could mean a massive undertaking to blast away your imprints and take on new ones.

In the end, your imprints are still limitations; you can't be dominant and submissive at the same time.*  In the end, you cannot escape your imprints (even if you strip one circuit, it still re-imprints).  In the end, your imprints still imprison you.






















*You can be either dominant or submissing in different situations, but not simultaneously.

[GlompChomp]

I think at a certain point, the BIP ceases to be a prison. When imprints are removed and we are stripped down to nothing but sensory reception, we are free to interpret what our senses perceive, but so long as they are one of or combinations of what the nervous system signals to the brain. When I see you guys talking about stripping away everything, I can only agree up to a certain point. In order to perceive anything at all, our senses need to make separations. Not exactly opposites, but different and limited angles of receiving information rather than perceiving everything free from the metaphorical bars. Acid in particular gives you a sense of what near total desensitization is like. In certain conditions, the world as you perceive it ceases to have distinctions and your senses meld together (usually recognized as synesthesia). At the very peak of this experience, distinction breaks into the two most basic functions of perception. There is a sense of vast (possibly endless) nothingness and a sense that all information is movement, something all human beings are capable of perceiving. So what do we have if we remove the distinction between stillness of energy (atomically or spiritually, whichever symbolism you prefer)?

There is no answer to that as of yet. To try and describe what being free from the BIP is like is quite literally impossible because describing it would make a distinction, another bar. Some of you have probably already explained this before, though. I think I'm just talking to myself here.

The point I'm trying to make, though, is that very basic distinctions shouldn't be seen as bars. They're what allows us to perceive things. Or maybe that's just another bar put in place by my five senses. There's obviously more than 5 separate ways to perceive reality.

I really envy schizophrenics.

[Coyote]

I really envy schizophrenics.

0_o

No...no you don't.

[Cainad (dec.)]

I really envy schizophrenics.

0_o

No...no you don't.

I was going to say that.

[Coyote]

 

[Cainad (dec.)]

CLEARLY YUO ARE READING MY THOUGHTS AND POSTING THEM ON PD.COM VIA A THOUGHT-STEALING THINGAMAJIG THAT THE DOCTORS IMPLANTED IN MY BRAYNE WHEN I WAS HAVING MY "APPENDECTOMY"!



See? Being a wannabe schizo makes you look 'tarded.

[Coyote]

Hey! I considered making a thought thieving crack.

[Verbal Mike]

Glomp, I generally agree but I think this is precisely what the BiP /is/, or at least its "ontological aspect". I mean, there is the "emotional/societal aspect" of the BiP which is "YUO ARE A MACHINE AND THE MACHINE (TM) CONTROLS YOU" (the pamphlet mainly focusses on this side of things), but then when you apply the BIP metaphor to the question "what is reality", well, the answer is something like "reality is just a collection of bars in your BIP". My impression is that we each have bars which serve to allow us to make a reality out of our sensual perception. I think these are the bars most difficult to remove, probably nigh on impossible - but they're bars nonetheless.

EDIT: And more to the point, these are the bars you probably don't really want to tear out, because being schizophrenic IS NOT TEH FUNz.

[LMNO]

Y'know, I do have to agree that there are parts of BIP 1.0 that sound very political.  I'm not sure how that happened.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I think the BiP is a metaphor, and like any metaphor exists in a limited fashion. I think it models some things really well and some things... not so well.

Don't eat the Black Iron Prison!

[Triple Zero]

the Pamphlet is not the Interior Design.

[GlompChomp]

Ah okay. Like applying Newtonian physics to zero gravity situations. Newton's laws are great to use, but they don't apply in certain situations. Not the greatest metaphor. I need to get over my pet idea of having a unified theory of everything. Better to be multilingual when using systems.

And though being a schizophrenic might not be fun all the time, what about something more like that autism inducing pill. Temporary schizophrenia can be fun as long as you can come back.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Ah okay. Like applying Newtonian physics to zero gravity situations. Newton's laws are great to use, but they don't apply in certain situations. Not the greatest metaphor. I need to get over my pet idea of having a unified theory of everything. Better to be multilingual when using systems.

And though being a schizophrenic might not be fun all the time, what about something more like that autism inducing pill. Temporary schizophrenia can be fun as long as you can come back.

"LSD"

[GlompChomp]

Not to be anal, but LSD doesn't really replicate schizophrenia. When it was first being used in psychotherapy, therapists thought it could be used to empathize with schizophrenics and share their experience. That proved to be ineffective as LSD doesn't cause prominent symptoms of endogenous psychoses (generally, schizophrenias and related psychoses) such as catatonia. Acid is fun, though.

[The Littlest Ubermensch]

That and, AFAIK, LSD is only capable of sorta-mimicing the positive symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, etc.), whereas negative symptoms like loss of emotion aren't.