WHAT IS MIND? - Bergotte (best ebook reader ubuntu txt) 📗

I've been watching some dvds of a popular TV series that rhymes with Film Unfurls. The significant point is that all the male characters are completely normal, except for the man who permanently wears a baseball cap, backwards, on his head, looking as if he has escaped.

All the female characters are decidedly odd. There is a teenage girl, about seventeen years of age, called Rory. I thought this was a boy's name. Her mother, with the unlikely name of Lorelei, seems to be just a few years older than Rory. Rory and Lorelei appear to have a sisterly relationship with each other, rather than the usual parent/child set-up, which the writers probably think is too conventional.

Lorelei's mother is a sort of caricature of a maternal head of the family, whilst her husband, Richard, is quite normal.

Imagine Rory, or someone like her, meeting a nineteen year old boy, James say, who invites her to a dance. Of course, you would expect her to be accompanied by her mother, but on this occasion, you will have to make an imaginative leap and pretend that Rory goes alone. James does not even pick her up in his convertible, but arrives on his own, meeting her inside the dance hall.

I should point out at this juncture, that women are often regarded as the weaker sex. This however, does not refer to the fact that they can't do weightlifting, but they are morally weaker. If Rory is not driven to the dance, she runs the risk of being murdered by a homicidal maniac, or worse, running off with a sailor, whom she meets on the way.

In the dance hall, James immediately starts dancing. He does not say 'Hi' to the girl. He does not buy her a drink, popcorn, or a ticket. Without saying a word, he starts to dance frantically, on his own, in front of her and round about her. The music is recorded Trance music. The movements he makes, to the sounds he is hearing, are decidedly robotic.

At one point Rory tries to join in, but her attempts at robotic movements are desultory, to say the least. She stops after a few seconds, withdraws from the pulsating crowds of equally frenetic teenage automatons, and makes a quick exit from the room.

We next see her on the sofa at home, cuddling up to her mother, trying to get over this horrible 'dance' ordeal. Rory explains that she thought James was a 'regular guy', but now she thinks he might be a robot. "I don't think he's metallic underneath," says Rory. This is a family show and there will be no disrobing to see if James has a normal 'flesh and blood' body.
"That's good news," comments Lorelei.
"But, you know, a lot of people have spare part surgery, hip replacements, breast enhancement and other work done on them, to improve their looks and their well-being."
"So, is there anything wrong with that?"
"No, but it reminds me of Luke's bike," she explains. He is the man, you remember, with the baseball cap. "Every part of Luke's bike has now been replaced. He has had new wheels, new pedals, new frame, new brakes and so on."
"What is your point?" asks Lorelei.
"If every part of his bike has changed, how do we know that it is still Luke's bike?"
"It doesn't matter if it's new, or old, or in between, a sort of transitional bike. It's still Luke's bike," retorts her mother.
"Well, what if James has undergone a similar process and has actually become a robot?"
"He behaves and speaks like a human being," says Lorelei.
"He only appears to behave and speak like a human being," replies Rory, "whilst in reality, he might be something else."
"In which case he will have had a brain transplant."
"Yes, he might have had a brain transplant," explains the extremely patient Rory.
"And become another type of person, like someone from another planet? Like grandma?" queries Lorelei.
"This is serious. Why can it not already have happened? Brain surgeons, working in secret, have perfected a technique of brain transplants. How about that?"
"It's not possible," says Lorelei, decisively.
"Well, in the future, perhaps it will be," pleads Rory.
"It's not possible, in principle. What is mind?"
"No matter. But what is matter?"
"Never mind."

Publication Date: 06-16-2011

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