From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: Torture and the mind: _Star Trek_ vs. _1984_. 
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 21:28:40 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.150633.9862@ac.dal.ca> hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:
>In article <1993Jan3.050831.26797@wam.umd.edu>, rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
>> In article <1993Jan2.233547.9837@ac.dal.ca> hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:
>>>In article <1993Jan3.015948.18450@wam.umd.edu>, rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:


>> 	I think that STTNG shows that he *would have* if the guards
>> 	hadn't come to fetch him as soon as they did. 
>
>Actually, unless I mis-heard Picard, his final response to the Kardassian
>interrgator is an almost incoherent yell: "There...are...four...lights!"
>The other Kardassians then take him away to send him home. This would
>seem to indicate that Picard holds firm despite the perceptual
>alterations induced by the torture. The "message" of the show is thus
>fundamentally opposed to Orwell's novel. Picard represents a triumph
>of soemthing one might call "the human spirit."  _1984_ fans know
>what O'Brien, the Thought Police man, thinks of that theory.


	Picard does not answer until he is told he is going to
	be returned to the enterprise.  At that point, knowing that
	the destruction of the enterprise (and who knows what more)
	was a lie, he answers four lights.


>> 	I also have a slight problem with both 1984 and STTNG's focal
>> 	point--the number that 2+2 equals and the number of lights.  I 
>> 	tend to feel that there is a hard-core biological system behind
>> 	human cognition that is, in some specific ways, immutable.  I would
>> 	think that mathematics would be one of these points. 
>
>I know what you mean, but on the other hand, I suspect the issue is not
>whether or not you _really_ think 2+2=5, but whether or not you  
>you are prepared to suppress your knowledge of your self-deceit.
>The idea of doublethink is that you hold an idea which you _know_
>is wrong, but you supress that knowledge so that you can assert the truth
>of the idea in question. 



	Perhaps we have a slightly differing view of what was implied.
	In my view, Orwell was saying that the innermost and only belief
	was the one that had been tortured into him--there was no other,
	not even underneath.  The self-defeat never cameinto play because
	the mid had learnedto avoid any and all thought along those lines.

	This is only subtly different. 

	My objection to math is mechanical in nature--one of the 
	non-voluntary cognitive functions (i.e. like retinal processing).


>Why suppress the recognition of self-deception? That's an interesting
>question, I think. Orwell answers it partly, perhaps: there is a struggle
>in the individual between the sense of integrity and other factors (desires,
>for example).  If the motivation towards the desire is stronger than the
>motivation to recognize one's sense of intergrity, doublethink becomes
>possible.  Torture, then, is one way to motivate you to renounce
>your sense of integrity.  What do you think?  


	In the case of 1984, I don't think "motivate" is the proper
	way to speak of what happened to Winston.  Rather, he had no
	choice whatsoever.  Nothing he could do--resisting was obviously
	not an effective option--could change what they were going to
	do to him.  It's rather like fixing a car--by changing the fan belt 
	I amnot motivating the engine to run better, I am _making_ the 
	engine run better.  It has no choice whatsoever.


>What do you mean, this stuff started to feel real? That's an interesting thing
>to say...!


	By real I mean that instead of just thinking about, say, those
	15 minutes at Tastee Diner looking out the window and watching
	the rain splatter against and sort of recalling to myself the
	conversations that I was engaged in (three, one about women,
	one about a new game, and another about computers [blah]),
	--instead of recalling them "Well, I said this and she said this"
	or watching them "me saying this her sayingthis waitress asking.."
	it was more like "I'm saying this and now he's waving his fork around
	and splattering bits of egg everywhere, and I know what he's going
	to say next, here it is, yes, now I nod"..

	In other words, limited.  My own experiances match but diverge from my 
	friends (all of whom weremore daring and went longer) or
	what I've read (same thing).

	This get's more into personal psychology, which I suspect varies
	a great deal from person to person.  I have an excellent memory--
	I remember taking the SAT's and simply recalling pages from 
	my vocabulary study book and looking to see what the proper answer
	was.  Reading a page and then putting the book down and reading 
	it again, from memory.  

	As a kid I would remember music and sit and listen to it--I
	remembered it as if it was coming from my ears (looking back,
	I would say that I was remembering the sensations that occurred
	*before* the ears process it for "me", but that's all speculation).
	
	My mother had the same talent, at least, according to her and
	her family.  My own ability to do so for text and such is much
	weaker--no more photographic memories of pages and such, but
	conversations, events, all of that are generally pretty clear
	if I found them interesting.

	A lot of it probably has to do with that--interest.  When I was
	a kid I remember that almost everyone I knew could reproduce
	almost the entire script to StarWars (and I've seen kids do it
	with others, now, watching).  Hear a song once and remember
	all of the lyrics (if you pause to consider how much information
	it is, even filtering for cues and repetition, it's still quite
	impressive).   People do great feats of memorization all of the
	time and then whine about having to memorize a few dates for history
	or equations.


>
>Thanks for the story about the sensory depriv. chamber, BTW. Fascinating!
>
>Sean Hartigan
>hartigan@ac.dal.ca
>
>"As private parts are we to the Gods: they play with us for their sport!"
>-- Blackadder


-- 
      Blaming "society" for your problems is like blaming clouds for rain.
 ---  boycott == coercion == censorship == closed mindedness == cowardice  ---
	      "Psalms 23:1  The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."  
		Shepherds are for sheep.   -----      Pain teaches.