The Labyrinth

A simple labyrinth. It has appeared in human society since the first myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. It bedecked Cretan coins and has been known throughout society to be a maze, easy to get lost in. But are they? Really, labyrinth is just a meandering path to the same conclusion. No matter what it appears to be, everyone who walks the path will take the exact same route, and end up in the same spot. So, in reality, the labyrinth can be reduced into a straight line

Best read up on Brain in a vat theory before you proceed, it's about to get very complicated.

Imagine the scenario I am about to describe. For the sake of the argument, let's say we're all wearing virtual reality helmets in which you can make any decision you want, chose which way to turn at a junction, etc. and the world will compensate for your decision. Now, in this scenario, there are two identical weevil's (not one is lesser or greater) You are forced to make a decision to proceed in the world. Which one will you pick? The choice of course, is random, and if an infinite number of people pick, half will pick one and half the other. Now, going back to our labyrinth example, we know that there are no choices, and they all lead to the same path, how can the "helmet" direct us to make the proper "decision." The trick is to eliminate the freedom of choice so that the target to led unerringly to the required ending, while at the same time maintaining his firm belief that his choice is free. In techno-babble it's known as coercive orientation. So the "helmet" uses a variety of techniques to ensure that the correct path is chosen each time. Such as a simple one, by having say, happy music playing when you look at the correct path, or a more complex one, such as when you look at the path we don't want you to choose, you get a sudden inexplicable sense of horror. Now, on their own, the subject will easily realize he is being manipulated into choosing a certain path. However, when they are combined in subtle varieties, and applied at a sufficient rotation at a level of intensity just on the edge of perception then you get 100% manipulation and zero chance of detection. It's like when gambling on the streets, you think the gambler is the one who's going to cheat you, when in fact everyone is in on it, so all they do is just a way of cheating you, while the whole time you're focused on the gambler.

Now what becomes really clever, and what ties back into Brain in a vat (you never read it did you, and now you're confused? Well, you were warned) is that while you can program the "helmet" to produce the stimuli to make sure the subject picks the correct road, what if we could program the subject to respond favourably to more specific stimuli, such as the fact that there is a stick in the middle of the correct path, or anything else we can think of. Now, we can edit the book, and what the subject is going to read, and also edit the subject, and how the subject will read it. Editing the "helmet" is external editing, where it edits what the subject "sees", while editing the subject is internal editing, where it edits what the subject "thinks". Sneaky huh? Now how do we fuse the book and the reader into one entity, so that they can both be programmed together with no need for cross-referencing? Easy, with a Helmet of Horror .

You will most likely be confused, so be ready to fire away with comments, but I'll try to clarify a few more points. To help make the subject walk down one path instead of the other, we endow positive stimuli to the correct path, and negative stimuli to the incorrect one by using the helmet to project the stimuli upon what the subject is seeing. In doing so, we have also programmed the subject to see what it wants to see, which is the stimuli prescribed to it by the helmet. In life, what you're looking at depends on where you're looking, as opposed to when you're wearing the helmet, where you're looking depends on what you see. In the real world, you see what is in front of your eyes, no matter which way your rear is facing, but when you're wearing the helmet, you see what the program want you to see, no matter which way you point your head. The subject has no independent source of co-ordinates either, so he cannot suspect anything. The world isn't what it is, it is only what the helmet decides to let you see. You "believe" you are looking around in a normal matter, when instead your eyes keep moving over the path the helmet wants you to take.

So who holds the real power? The helmet? The wearer? The editor? Or is the editor just wearing his own helmet, and the only one with the real power is the world itself?