14.Video Editing (Enhancing/controlling emotion)

Memory is automatically enhanced whenever emotion is enhanced and learning is always enhanced when there is greater emotional weighting. Emotional weighting can be increased by combining sensory motor, emotional and intellectual input into one 'trigger package' as described previously. You can thus decide the importance or lack of it, of any item or event. A single word can increase emotional weighting. Witnesses to an accident will under- or over-estimate speed depending on the wording of the question, "How fast was the vehicle going/coming/moving/speeding towards you?" Uncontrolled memory falls prey to error often because of this sort of thing. Usually, every single witness to an accident or unusual occurrence will remember something different, often widely different. If you ask Mrs. Jones, "How did Mr. Jones respond to the assault?" you will get a different answer than if you ask, "How did your husband react to the assault?" Consequently most eyewitness statements are completely unreliable on anything but major details. Memory is designed to be personal. It is this customization at the heart of memory that creates the ability to be conscious of ourselves as individuals and which creates (or possibly gives the illusion of) a 'separate self'.

Our ability to recognize a face at birth is hard wired in. Other animals have similar 'given' concepts; the ability to peck at seeds, grasp at fur, etc. Humans have a remarkably small number of them. This is significant, because we have an ability other animals lack which replaces the need for given concepts; we have the ability to create them (or at least, that is biology's plan.)

Two things, the personal nature of our memories and the ability to form new concepts, are at the core of our conscious awareness. We remember what we like and what we don't like, and begin to structure our personality from this basic. Gradually in childhood there is awareness of 'me', and 'not me', and episodic memories begin to be stored like a video, for now there is an observer apart from events. The emergence of individuality takes about seven years.R2 It starts to become apparent during the third or fourth year (the first functions of the CC begin in year two). After age seven our self awareness begins to specialize and localize; social self interactions begin to be handled by the LH, kinetic awareness is dealt with by the 'old' brain systems, and our 'overview' (how we fit in with things and how things fit together) by the RH. This can only happen if the brain has processed sufficient input to have already formed (a) thick enough connection lines and (b) an awareness of the basics of the material world through interaction with all senses. The CC has to be fully formed to allow communication between hemispheres, or this specialization cannot take place. The basis of personality has formed in the brain as a whole, and regardless of the degree of specialization later, the synergy of this basic personality will be the reference point for all thought and action, and all the video memories that you make.

(This is why people stuck in M2 cannot see the difference between themselves and the things they like. The separation of 'me' and 'not me' has never been made. If you criticize the things they like, you are criticizing them personally. They genuinely feel offended; it is not an act. Likewise, they cannot understand why, if they hate something, that everybody else doesn't hate it too. 'I don't like it' is synonymous with 'It's crap', to someone in M2. People stuck there never fully develop self-awareness, and are never fully sure what is, and what is not, a part of themselves (including their partners). Like most three-year-olds, they can speak and they have an opinion, but the problem is they may also have a driving license and access to firearms. (I find it ironic that so many cognitive scientists are busy trying to find out things about 'human consciousness', whilst failing to realize that a large percentage of the species they are studying may in fact not have a fully developed or functional one.)

It's important to control emotion because emotional arousal has such a strong effect upon all cognitive processing. Emotional weighting determines brain activity in every area.R6 Whatever you are consciously involved in from moment to moment will dictate the contents of your working memory, and emotions or feelings consciously felt will form a part of every memory made under their influence. Memories of past similar situations to your current one are all colored by the emotions you felt at the time, which in turn will affect your emotions in the here and now.

The interesting thing is, emotional pain activates some of the same brain regions as physical pain. The ventral Pre Frontal Cortex (PFC) and the Anterior Cingulate Gyrus (ACG) respond to distress just as if it were a fork stuck in the leg, and the amygdala is always on the case of anything that might be dangerous. This is why uncontrolled emotional pain is an express ticket to anxiety, and why emotion must be controlled and used for weighting intensity. Once you are able to control real emotion, the world is your console.

Emotion enhancement is dependent upon the fact that you are running COMP and using genuine emotion in the first place. You will find polarities in there and you can play them with opposing neurotransmitters. For now, you need to learn to recognize those basic polarities, and the main ones are Attraction and Repulsion, Inspiration and Relaxation, Happiness and Sorrow, Excitement and Calm. In a sense they are all linked; it is a single polar system based on Yes/No, On/Off, population voting and a set of glands to match, with the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous systems all tied in for good measure. We should expect no less from a system based upon intelligence. Once you are able to run emotion, without interference from sentiment, you'll find it a relatively easy task to keep control.

Cognition has four sources of input from imagination, all with emotional weighting; (a) what's going on now (b) what went on before, (c) chemicals currently in the brain, and (d) what might go on very soon. So, for example, even if you can see a wasp landing on your hand now, and a wasp landed on your hand last week and stung it, and you can imagine the probability of its happening again, your awareness and response can still be strongly affected by the chemicals currently in your brain, whether they be lager, caffeine or anesthetic.

Chemicals of course are also manufactured inside the brain and body. Cortisol is one, which in excess will make every experience seem more fearful. Cortisol changes neuronal transmission in various emotion/memory networks. The amygdala, when affected by a fear response, changes sensory-processing networks at all levels. Sensory perception is vital to working memory, and the sensory cortex is hard-wired in to the temporal lobe memory networks (these handle long-term memory and its access by working memory.) The amygdala also affects working memory in real-time, courtesy of the ACG and its networks, causing changes in processing of information and assessing what is beneficial or deleterious. An inability to assess this clearly is pretty crippling to the functioning of intelligence.

For an encore, the amygdala influences neurotransmitter efficiency, affecting levels of serotonin, dopamine, choline, noradrenaline and all of their related by-products.

This is how fear can rule the mind. Many of these transmitters are only able to act on already-active circuits. Which circuits are active depends entirely upon what you are thinking or doing, and every network you employ will attract the immediate attention of any unemployed transmitter molecules lurking around waiting for a chance to change your mind. Something which the world of psychopharmacology has to start taking notice of soon, hopefully, is the fact that some drugs will only work if the networks are active that enable them to work. We need to integrate drugs with psychological techniques and technology that will activate the networks we wish to affect. Until practitioners realize this, drug therapy for psychiatric and psychological problems will continue to be a mysterious hit-and-miss affair. Patients who get the input (deliberately or by accident) that activates the relevant networks will get better, those who don't, won't. It's that simple.

Emotion enhancement

Hormonal responses, and consequently emotional states, can be very easily conditioned. If you have an important event coming up and you want to be in the right mental state at the right time, you can pre-program your brain to produce the correct chemical balance for that state. We can physiologically control the mid brain with higher and lower brain functions, with chemicals, and with technology.

If you experiment with biofeedback, you will also probably discover the 'reciprocal' method of inducing emotion. Mimic the behavior that an emotion causes, and it fools your brain into releasing the chemicals associated with that emotion. Smiling, or even looking at someone else smiling, really will brighten your mood. Frowning will darken it.R38 The way in which this is most obvious is the fact that physical stimulation can cause mental sexual arousal in a person who was not feeling that way to begin with.

Enhancement is most easily achieved in the short term with drugs. Using drugs for long-term enhancement is fraught with problems, dependence, addiction and tolerance being three of them. I'm going to use this as an example of how complex neurohacking can get, if you go right in there, because if there is a sequel to this book that's where it will be going...I'll keep it as simple as I can...

Addiction results from changes in brain function in response to the drug or drugs. The reinforcing effects of many drugs are due to actions in the midbrain. Various areas, including the amygdala, hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex send glutamatergic projections to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens sends GABAergic projections to the ventral pallidium and ventral tegmental area. Both of these network with the medial dorsal thalamus, extending major GABAergic efferents to it. The network is closed via glutaminergic projections from the thalamus back to the medial prefrontal cortex. (It's a loop. You got that, right?) So here's your map for using and choosing drugs for basic control/enhancement neurohacking:

The activation of mesolimbic dopamine projections underlies the reinforcing properties of most popular 'recreational' drugs:

Nicotine activates nicotenic acetylcholine receptors located on dopaminergic cells in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which results in dopamine release in limbic nuclei. In short, it's an acetylcholine receptor agonist. Nicotenic acetylcholine receptors are ionotropic channels that, when stimulated, become permeable to sodium and calcium. This results in depolarisation and excitation. Stimulation of nicotenic receptors in the VTA excites dopaminergic neurons and enhances dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. Nicotine is useful for: Attention and concentration enhancement, anxiety reduction, reflex enhancement, controlling constipation. Nicotine is not a good idea long term because (a) it is highly addictive and difficult to use sparingly, (b) ever-larger amounts are necessary to avoid the withdrawal symptoms of craving, irritability, anxiety, dysphoria, restlessness and increased appetite.

Alcohol (ethanol) and Benzodiazepines increase the firing rate of dopaminergic neurons in the VTA via disinhibition. Alcohol has varied and diverse effects on the nervous system, including influences on membranes, ion channels and multiple neurotransmitters. It is mainly important because it increases the firing rate of mesolimbic dopamine neurons through positive modulation of GABA receptors located on GABAergic cells in the VTA. So do benzodiazepines. Alcohol is useful for: anxiety reduction, controlling memory, emotion enhancement, confidence, euphoria. Benzodiazepines (including chlordiazepoxide and diazepam) are useful for: anxiety reduction, controlling memory, sedation, reducing the effects of alcohol withdrawal. They can enhance the effects of other drugs, particularly alcohol. This is not surprising, given that barbiturates, benzodiazepines and alcohol are all positive allosteric modulators of GABA receptors. Alcohol and/or benzodiazepines are not a good idea for long term use because: (a) it results in down-regulation of GABA receptors. (b) Together, they're a good combination for death.

Lay off sleeping tablets except in an emergency. They are bad, bad news, for your mind.

Cannabinoids increase the firing rate of dopaminergic neurons, and dopaminergic transmission in the nucleus accumbens, partly by inhibition of GABA release following stimulation of presynaptic CB1 cannabinoid receptors in the VTA.2

Cannabinoids are useful for: Controlling memory, euphoria, giddiness, relaxation, sedation and pain-relief. For some people they are also useful for anxiety relief. Cannabinoids are not a good idea for long term, heavy use because (a) you cannot remember anything, (b) the resulting neurochemical imbalance will lead to paranoia and lack of confidence, and finally neurosis or worse.

Psychostimulants (speed, cocaine, ecstasy), increase extracellular dopamine levels in the midbrain by inhibiting the dopamine transporter (DAT), which is supposed to be removing dopamine from the synapse. Psychostimulants are useful for: euphoria, elation, alertness, attention focusing, mood-elevation, appetite suppression and fatigue reduction. They produce their physiological effects by interacting with biogenic amine transporters. Cocaine blocks them. Most amphetamines promote their release through reverse transport. Both cocaine and amphetamines result in increases in extracellular levels of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. The reinforcing effects of psychostimulants are mainly due to increases in dopaminergic transmission in the midbrain. Psychostimulants are not good long term or regularly because: they can cause unwanted permanent changes in dopaminergic and glutamatergic transmission in the midbrain.

Opiates (morphine, heroin, codeine) stimulate a type of opoid receptors on VTA GABAergic neurons, which synapse on dopaminergic cells. Heroin is more lipophilic than morphine and produces its psychoactive effects more rapidly. Because both opiates and GABA are inhibitory neurotransmitters, opiates activate dopaminergic neurons in the VTA through disinhibition. Opiates are useful for: Pain relief, cough suppressants, controlling diarrhea, bronchio-dilatory, relaxation, imagination enhancement, emotion enhancement, and creativity. Opiates are not a good idea long term because: Chronic opium administration increases activation of the cyclic AMP-PKA-CREB system in the locus coeruleus and nucleus accumbens.

So, if the war were over tomorrow, the mesolimbic dopamine system is certainly where the party would be. But looking at the changes in neural function resulting from long-term use is essential when choosing your chemical candidates for neurohacking. Activation of the mesolimbic dopamine system is the cause of the euphoria initially produced by many drugs, but the increases in serotonin and norepinephrine transmission caused by some also contribute to the elevated mood. Choose wisely, and use with care.

You can use much more than drugs to enhance emotion. At the psychological end of the scale you can use music, movies, books or pictures. At the tech end of the scale you can use biofeedback, TMS, and neuro-stimulation. You can use aversion therapy if you want to. You can put various techniques together and go for a hard take off, or use one at a time to go step by step.

Let's hack. (Please read through this whole section before doing this in real time, as timing is important. The hack is designed so that the bits of text to be read, in between directions, last just long enough to allow an effect, which would be ruined if you went for a sandwich halfway, for example.)

Let's hack our emotion networks and change the way we feel about our own intelligence. Okay?

The simplest, most natural (and cheapest) way to start doing this is with lower brain functions as a part of Neuro Muscular Training. Most basic emotions, e.g. happiness/sadness, attraction/repulsion, cause very noticeable changes, not only in the mood but also in the physical behavior. There is a natural biofeedback loop in this system which feeds back the muscular movements and body language as the brain continues to interpret what is going on. We can hack this by modeling our own facial and body muscles to send that feedback to the brain, and the brain will quite happily produce the hormones associated with those movements. So, recall the facial expressions of someone in love. Don't use a mirror, but try to copy them as though you were an actor playing a role. Think of some good dialogue, which that actor might say...if they were playing a person who is in love with you. They are probably going to see all the best things about you and express attraction and delight in your company. Allow yourself to be 'wooed'. Appreciate it, and be well aware that you deserve it. That's the part you start off playing.

One step up, we can amplify emotional responses with biofeedback tech, enabling us to achieve any base emotional state reasonably quickly. We can also affect others with this; fMRI scans show an increased perception of attractiveness when we view a smiling face. The face of someone we like a lot lights up our medial orbitofrontal cortex with a firework display of reward-associated networks.

So if you're sure enough of yourself, enhance that now with biofeedback, and spray some Oxytocin up your nose...one blast of nasal spray if you're female, two if you're male. (I'll explain why in a moment, but timing is important here, so don't go off to put the kettle on, or anything; I'm doing this in real time so keep reading.) The medial insular circuit triggers an immediate response, and you may feel like you have an urgent need to communicate, yet nervous somehow about doing so...but whatever it is it seems important. You start paying more attention. As we pay more attention, the anterior cingulate gyrus, caudate nucleus and putamen join in the firework display. (Or should). Bring in the higher functions...And stay in that captain's chair...we have time now for a little more background info.

Why the sexist doses? -Oxytocin is present in both male and female brains, but estrogen and vasopressin regulate it. Girls get more out of it, boys get less. Both have their advantages, but we can bypass this biological prejudice by altering the doses for males/females. People with more oxytocin manage stress better; avoiding it's turning into anxiety. It is necessary for bonding, and you can't physically bond without it. For bonding, oxytocin receptors and dopamine receptors must be plentiful enough to overlap, in the nucleus accumbens particularly and several other dopamine-rich regions. Oxytocin itself, though, does not produce a set pattern of behavior or response. It's only part of the hormone cocktail we need to match that neurochemical state we call love.R37

Bonding is a central part of love, although it need not necessarily be physical, it must, currently, be chemical. Bonding rewires whole networks of brain. The pattern of activity in our cortex is different when we view pictures of people to whom we are bonded. This 'paying more attention' is not only a key part in the process of 'falling in love', but also a hacker's master key for learning. Because we can use the bonding circuit for acquiring any new skill.

COMP does this already, if it's working aright. In most people, it isn't, and this is a shortcut to getting it to work. You fall in love. In this case, deliberately and in a preferred sequence. (Did I forget to mention that? Ah well, having got this far, it seems a pity to waste it.)

First of all you fall in love with your own mind. Oh my. That sounds sooooo egotistical, doesn't it? It is. It's ultimate egotism. Here's the catch. You fall in love with what you really are, not what you have been pretending to be in the past. And you can do that now because you know the truth.

You already know you are quite fantastic, if you are currently sane and happy. It does not matter how you have achieved this, or even if you only manage to achieve it 20% of the time, bolstered by drugs or vodka, the thing is, your intelligence has fought and won many battles, to get you where you are today. You've had to experience some horrible things, that truly shouldn't happen to anyone; maybe a drugged-up birth, nasty school, boring family; -the way society is alone is enough to depress all but the strongest souls...and here you are, still using your mind and navigating your way through life as best you can.

Maybe you've been seeking; searching for answers for yourself, looking here and there to see what fits...maybe you've tried to speak the truth through your own creativity somehow...maybe you think none of it makes sense so you might as well just have a good time, or maybe you want to save the world...whatever it is, here you are, and that's a great achievement for intelligence and a tribute to your own intelligence. A splendid and wise old lady I knew said to me once, "If you're alive and sane, then you have an advantage. -Use it." I would say more. I would say, appreciate it. Know what a great and rare thing is your kind of a mind. Discover the true meaning of 'self esteem'.

Self-esteem is not arrogance. It is not about being loud and dictatorial and 'I'm here now, time to talk about me' behavior.... Real love is not arrogance and assumption, but joy. Esteem. So enjoy, you deserve that pleasure, as we all do. It is the pleasure of intelligence recognizing itself, and you will feel exactly the same way about any other intelligence that you ever esteem so highly.

Now...(remember, we're still in the middle of a hack here -where were you?)...Add a small dose of your favorite Adenylyl Cyclase inhibitor...anandamide will do, or cannabis, the dose varies for different people; start with 0.25g as a first attempt. (You are not doing this to get high; you are aiming for a specific chemistry, so start out straight and stick to the amounts specified). Sit back for a while and watch the oxytocin/dopamine party commence. Now take active control of your input. Watch, listen to and observe things that remind you of your best times; consider some of the times you have avoided unpleasantness because you were intelligent. Stupid arguments you have avoided joining in, problems you have solved, and difficulties you have overcome. Your mind is the real you; the you that no one else can ever truly appreciate as much as you, because they don't know the whole story.

...Relax and do a GSR slowdown and get on with appreciating yourself. Begin to think about your potential now that you know so much more. Imagine some of the things you'll be able to explore, if you're no longer stuck in a matrix...You can go as far as you like, and linger along the way. Time will no longer be a problem, because you won't have to keep trying to catch up. Fear will no longer be a problem, because anxieties can be resolved. You'll have everything you need. Right there between your ears, safe and strong.

This is quite a sexy concept, so don't worry if you feel that way. For some people the experience is more like awe. Feel free to express yourself, as you see fit. (You can see why you need a private workspace now, no?)

Next...Add 0.1g of your favorite MAOI. Selegiline seems to get most votes. There now, have a chain reaction...Concentrations of 2-phenylethylamine (PEA) will start to rise...catecholamine activity gets interfered with...dopamine slowly falling, serotonin on the rise, you crest the hill into the land of feeling really groovy. Now add in biofeedback as a real-time cycle, and amplify it.

Now consider: it's your mind that's enabling you to feel this good. Appreciate that. Recognize your own intelligence.

...You can come here and have fun with it anytime you want to. It's saved your life many times. It's the thing that cares about you more than anything else in the world, and it will strive to keep you alive against all odds, for as long as it is able. By your intelligence, you are cherished. Listen to your biofeedback, and enjoy. Roll in it.

...Let everything wear off naturally, and try to sleep for at least three or four hours before doing anything else.

Once you have had this experience and seen the result, you will really start to understand bonding.

You can bond to any new skill or task, for the length of time it takes to learn it, by using exactly the same hacks, but altering the subject of input. You can do this with machinery, surroundings, other people, and most certainly computers. You'll go through a beneficial physiological change, every time you're in a 'bonded space'. You'll pay more attention. You'll recognize detail, sights, sounds, which others will not recognize because you'll be attuned to your environment. This is the function of bonding in learning. The unknown becomes the known, as we bond to it, and assimilate it into the known. Once you can do that, you won't have to go looking for real emotion; you'll be experiencing it. A major part of all learning is a chemical act of 'love'. Absolutely successful learning will bring absolute pleasure. You may have to endure that.

It's starting to look a little more fun now, isn't it? You can do the equivalent of writing your own video and editing your own reality, because you can control how you feel about things. As soon as you've got the hang of doing this to yourself, you may wonder about the possibilities for doing it for other people...beware.

Cruel to be kind

We've all seen or heard of incidents in life that have what we call 'poetic justice'...The violent macho man who's wife ran off with another woman... the homophobe bully who discovers his new boss is a 6'6" raving queen... the cruel kid who picks on the wrong animal to torment and ends up getting badly bitten... such incidents we call the 'lessons' of life. Some people learn from them, some don't. In cases of chronic stupidity, some actually get worse after such an incident, but for most people the result is an improvement, often to a large degree.

In order to help intelligence grow, we sometimes need to be cruel to be kind in this way. We can guide people into glimpsing reality, in order that their intelligence can recognize it and aim towards it more efficiently.

Nature teaches like this, practically and without sentiment. Tribal kids deal with fire competently from a very early age, because they've been allowed to play with it (supervised, but not interfered with unless seriously in trouble) and they've had minor burns and blisters...they know the nature of fire with a full-body knowing, and they will never be careless with it again. On the other hand, give a western child of eight or nine a box of matches and s/he could well burn the house down. No experience of the nature of fire has been had. (This is why tribes don't need fireguards, safety gates, etc. and still manage the lowest rates of injuries to children around.) Awareness of reality is always the best security because that is how we are designed to keep ourselves safe. Once we are free of a matrix, it's automatic. We can see truly where the dangers lie, and circumnavigate them.

Now here is a great dilemma: if we cannot escape the problems of sentiment in a relationship with another, or their intelligence has potential but sentiment is present, we can be tempted to try and give that other person glimpses of reality, in order to help them grow a little and make them less likely to damage us, as well as themselves. How can we know when it's right to do this and when it isn't?

If the situation is simple and an obvious choice must be made about who gets hurt, you must base it on your own personal assessment. You must know how much dodgy input you can take before it starts to affect you deleteriously. If you catch yourself feeling bad, as in, anxious, for more than ten minutes at a time, chances are you're sustaining damage. Sometimes it can be better to cut contact with a person altogether in order to avoid harming either of you. Beware the 'altruistic trap'...because one thing you must not do is pander to people's insecurities. You need to know when to be kind...and when to be cruel to be kind.

Example: Brian tells Ann he's going to see a skiing tournament at the weekend...he didn't book a ticket for Ann because she hates skiing, gets too cold, and there's no restaurant or anywhere else to do anything...plus he knows that Ann has a project to finish for work. Ann, however, is attached. She can't bear the thought of being away from Brian all weekend so she asks to go along. Brian, baffled, says he doesn't see the point. Ann bursts into tears, and accuses Brian of not wanting her around and not loving her any more.

Confused, Brian does the worst possible thing he could do; he gives Ann a cuddle and 'cheers her up', saying what nonsense this is and of course he loves her and he'll book her a ticket. Ann, however, doesn't actually want to go, so she'll respond with something like "I don't actually want to go, but you could have asked! You just don't want me around!" At this stage, Brian cancels the trip. He pacifies Ann's anxiety... There, there, don't cry... of course you can have your lollipop. They end up having sex. (She rewards him.)

Ann learns by association all that she can learn...whenever you get anxious, all you have to do is burst into tears and accuse people of not caring. They'll be sorry! They will then step in to pacify your anxiety and everything will be okay...Ann stays dependent on others for her happiness and peace of mind, and cannot really communicate except by the long-range 'baby' method of crying or the retarded child method of throwing a mood...We are supposed to grow out of this emergency behavior as soon as we are able to replace it with speech and body language...When we can say, 'I want food', or point and say, 'my toe hurts', we no longer have to yell and scream to get assistance. If our yells are paid attention to when we are that small, we do indeed grow out of it as soon as we are able to better articulate our desires. If Ann was healthy, she would have said, 'Ah, I know I hate skiing...but I really enjoy being with you and that makes it worth the hassle...book me a ticket; I'll stay at a hotel in the town, work on my laptop, you can watch your boring old skiing and you & I can get together in the evenings for other kinds of groovy fun." (Which would, incidentally, have made it more fun for Brian as well). That's interaction.

Sadly, Ann is still trying to communicate as a baby would, because that need of nature was never fulfilled. Instead of thinking rationally through the problem, she panics. Ann's body may be in the here and now, but Ann's mind is back there screaming it's head off in a cot somewhere, waiting and waiting for the comfort that never came. Ann's bloodstream is still full of stress hormones, because she never stopped producing them since then. Whenever the anxiety becomes too much, Ann will pick on anything to get upset about, to get comfort. She can't tell the truth quite simply because she doesn't know what it is. Ann will pick on the skiing tournament today, the TV program Brian doesn't want to watch tomorrow, the fact that he can't afford a dishwasher the day after that...he didn't fancy sex when she did...he did fancy sex when she didn't...he changed his mind about going out...or staying in... and it will never end. Ann will never become independent, free and happy because she is utterly at the mercy of her own insecurity. As she starts running out of things to get upset about she'll pick on sillier and more trivial things, or start creating conflict because she needs it to throw the wobble-out she thinks is necessary to get her comfort...She cannot interact sensibly because she panics. She uses the baby's emergency communication system to voice her distress, because that part of her brain did not develop since babyhood. Sitting in a bath full of stress hormones, how could it? Ann is not an adult human; Ann is an augmented baby in an adult costume.

We mistake people stuck in a matrix for adults because they look like them. They're big, they're over twenty years old, and we expect them to be mature. Their bodies have obviously grown as intended, and we expect their brains to have done the same. Indeed, despite great improvements in scanning techniques, we still do not notice the problem because almost everybody has it. The occasional healthy brain scan will look like an anomaly, just as the guy with vision in the land of the blind would seem like a weirdo, if everyone thought blindness was natural. We are surrounded by infant mentalities in giant bodies and we get confused whenever we expect them to behave like adults, because they can't. Their bodies have matured, but their brains have not. They are, and I mean this quite literally, children.

...And the greatest gift you can give to any child is independence. Show them how to do it for themselves. Give them that self-esteem. Make it clear they don't have to cry for a sandwich; they can just ask for one or better still get it themselves... If they ask, they will not be ignored or laughed at. The appropriate response will be made.

Taking out the emotional charge and reverting to plain common sense, whilst making sure they see the way to achieve their aims themselves, helps people get the courage to be honest; to risk rejection or misunderstanding, because they are enabled to communicate. They can interact. They have a sense of self-esteem and they know their worth.

If you care about someone, this should be your aim. To help them set themselves free.

The golden rule is, always go halfway. Build your half of the bridge for interaction. If the other party cannot build their half, there is probably little you can do. Slightly more than halfway is permissible, any further is not. Remember you are striving for the autonomy of intelligence. Don't try to pull or push people through the door; just let them know where it is by going in and out of it yourself. They'll decide whether or not they dare go through it. If someone's consciously trying, by all means help them, but never act to pacify someone's insecurities because if you do you are just making them more dependent, and ultimately, less intelligent. You are reinforcing the bars of the cages of fear that hold them.

You cannot and should not try to 'help' like this until you are no longer stuck in a matrix yourself. It's a razor's edge to walk with no margin for error because you run the risk of harming intelligence unless you are running COMP. Even when you are, you don't go contriving situations where you can 'teach' this kind of thing on purpose. That's interfering without consent. Instead, you recognize the way things are going anyway and you work with that. You do not try to create the opportunities, but when they are there, you take them.

This is why you can really trip up if your values are not based in reality. You have to recognize what is going on, and only COMP can do that. Basically your intelligence recognizes a healthy learning pattern and prompts you to provide whatever input is required from the part of the environment that is you. It makes you be the right person in the right place at the right time, because it can tell what's going on. It provides the correct ideas for triggers of the correct hormonal set; the keys are right there in your hands and you just hand them over...they are keys to mental places the other person has not so far been, and up until now didn't know existed. Suddenly them being handed the key decrypts something that seemed just nonsense before... When you work in synergy with a situation, you are an intelligence communicating with an intelligence, -not with the virus, not with what the infected person thinks is their personality, but with their intelligence; the part of them that you respect as the real McCoy. Your job is to help it repair the person. It can, given a chance. A nudge in the right direction can save years of wasted effort caught in anxiety. But remember: You do not try to push people through doors, you merely point out their existence. And you will only ever do that when the opportunity arises. Without the overview of being outside a matrix, this is an extremely hit-and-miss procedure and should not be approached without sufficient knowledge, much like open-heart surgery. If it's attempted from within a matrix it will backfire on you. If you cannot predict, you should not try to control. You need your ACG running on full whack to pull it off. I insert it here as a glimpse of the goal, a taster of hyperreality. Enjoy the concept; it's where you're headed, sooner than you think.

Useful LinksR39