Yeah, I’m also glad to have someone to talk to about this shit, thanks for engaging
Well then, let’s move to the distortion now. I realize that the definition of self-awareness that you provided is the one which pops up when you google it, and it’s good to use in daily life, but these things start to make less sense when you look closer into them! (appropriate to the topic). What is “conscious knowledge” then? What is “conscious”? There’s no fixed answer to that actually, we’d have first to come up with some (that does not reference any undefined terms), which is not as fun as talking about distortion. Same with “self” – good luck defining this shit. What is “identity”? I honestly love this particular can of worms, but that’s for another day. Point is, I wouldn’t necessarily take at face value everything distortion says, not even because it may be lying, but because the text definitely does not take all of the above into account. So, this should be kept in mind. Though I believe when it talks about such vague subjects, we still may analyze the *way* it talks about things – for example, even the fact that it says “I” is worth something.
That being said, I’m not going to come up with any definitions here! Instead, I’m going to simply describe the type of consciousness-related phenomena I’m talking about when I talk about them, which will eradicate some of the vagueness, but unfortunately not all…
So, let’s dig into this more now. Interesting that you mention a body. I actually would claim that the body does not exist anymore, and if post-Michael and post-Helen distrortion sometimes looks like them – it’s because it was now infected by their idea of how they (it) looks. It’s doesn’t always look like anything human-like, after all. And it claims to also “be” corridors instead of owning them or something. I don’t think there will be anything in the text to prove that the body is preserved or not, so, not saying that your interpretation is wrong, I just don’t vibe with it.
For the rest of what you said: ok, maybe, or maybe not, but let’s try to think of how and why in more detail. In what follows I do not come to any conclusion, though the large part of it sounds compatible with “The distortion doesn’t have its own sense of self, but when in the avatars, I think it does through the other persons sense of self.” I had more to say, but maybe let’s limit it for now…
So, in what sense can distortion be aware of its state, and how would we be able to judge? A reaction to one’s state does not necessarily mean awareness in any sense, so the mere fact that distortion reacts to the environment is not enough. The distortion claims that it liked its existence better before it was Michael’ed, so it’s tempting to say that this is the evidence of the kind of awareness very similar to our own – it makes so much sense to us! It remembered a pre-Michael state, and it can compare it to post-Michael! Though at other points the distortions claims to be a part of a whole and lack an identity, which, vague as it is, rather makes it sound like it couldn’t possibly have the facilities to know anything on its own, without the rest of the spiral (does your hand think that you’re a sick fuck for biting your nails?).
Maybe you have a fresher memory of it: is there evidence of distortion using language (like, to speak original sentences) before Michael? I think it would be funny if it wasn’t even capable of speech. One of the theories of self/identity is narrative self, and this one is often associated with the development of language. So, like, a point to pre-Michael distortion indeed having no identity, as opposed to Michael and Helen?
I also had this crazy theory that pre-Michael distortion doesn’t have memories about its inner state as a separate spiral manifestation – but that was before the full podcast aired, there very well may be something in the text at this point that proves me wrong.
How does it tell its story in ep 101 then, where it seems to reminisce on its wonderful existence before, and in a way which suggests that it thought of itself as something separate? Well, some of it can be based on Michael’s personal memories and statements he read, but recontextualized in this newly created… mind, or whatever this is. And I don’t claim with this theory that there are no memories of distortion’s existence at all – just that the distortion itself is not “someone who holds them” and that there is no experience “inner” to the distortion. This is indeed something that could be described as having no identity. The memories may be in a spiral as a whole, continuing the hand analogy - *you* know what is going on with your hand and what it feels, *you* remember that you were typing an essay on distortion, but it’s not information “inner” to your hand. But after getting Michael’ed, the distortion reframes these memories as “something that I remember happening to me”. It probably invents memories of how it felt back then based on what it experiences now.
Why the hell would this reframing happen? Human mind is known to just make shit up to make something make more sense without raising any alarms. If this mechanism is preserved from Michael’s mind – maybe that’s how and why recontextualization can happen without Michael distortion realizing it.
If the distortion doesn’t remember what it felt like to be it before, then how does it know that it was better? Idk really. Maybe it doesn’t? Maybe since the merge with Michael was bad news to both Michael and the Spiral, it makes sense for newborn distortion-with-identity to assume that it was a downgrade. Maybe that’s why when it invents memories of experiencing that previous state, it makes it seem better. But in reality an experience of previous inner state simply does not exists.
Ok maybe that’s enough for now. So in this last theory it seems that I'm assuming that the Michael/Helen distortion is rather similar to a human in terms of consciousness/identity/self-awareness stuff. Do you think we can construct an argument for the opposite?
I do think we can construct an argument for the opposite. It would be easy technically speaking to put that idea onto something like the distortion because of what it represents as well.
I like how you brought up the distortions ‘opinion’ of the time before Michael, and the complexity’s of how it affected it. On one hand, I could argue that maybe the distortion didn’t have some of the knowledge or comprehension of man and their complexity until having the avatars. I could argue a full statement for this, but I don’t really like this answer myself. If you do I’ll be sure to explain this more.
One the other, the distortions sense of self could both come in later, and also be fighting with the part of it that does not have an identity. When studying humans and how they evolve, I assume it would be a bit hard not to start thinking a bit like them. In terms of the distortion, maybe its base fear was the fear of the lack of an identity. After all, it is said that many feared this during the apex of when humans started normalizing the idea of personalized identity.
Then, as the fear evolved, it could have shifted to dislikes about their identity, fractures in their sense of self that made them vulnerable to the distortion. Things like insecurity’s that lead to bigger phycological problems. ‘I don’t work as hard as everyone else’ for an example.
I don’t know if this would solve every plot hole, and I don’t know my full opinion of how it fits into the story, but I thought it was worth talking about.
Entering the body of something that was previously occupied by something as complex as a human mind, might be a little jarring, especially when you have no sense of self, and little to no knowledge on the ideas that humans find to be second nature.
That’s all for now, but I’m interested in talking about this more.
