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Decline 10: New Blood for the Feast
- Thread starter noisenerd
- Start date
KoolNoodles
Arcane
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- Apr 28, 2012
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sqeecoo
Arcane
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- Dec 13, 2006
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...but I'm pretty sure it's Yaldabaoth.
sqeecoo
Arcane
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- Dec 13, 2006
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As in PKD got it wrong in VALIS or I misquoted? In any case I'm very impressed you know of this crazy stuff, you Gnostic Grammar Nazi :D
If you haven't read VALIS though, go read it, now. One of my few favorite books: an incredible mindfuck, completely hilarious, and heartbreakingly sincere.
If you haven't read VALIS though, go read it, now. One of my few favorite books: an incredible mindfuck, completely hilarious, and heartbreakingly sincere.
Nice find. Now I'll have to read VALIS.
The reality is quite bland. Samael was named in honor of actual Archangel Samael.
The reality is quite bland. Samael was named in honor of actual Archangel Samael.
Eh... I don't know. I actually never tried the book, hard to find in italian. Still, I know the books due to fame and I have a vague idea of what they're about... It's one of those things that I always delay to "next year" 
But I always found gnosticism and religions in general quite interesting. Forgive me for my rude correction, I actually don't know if Dick misspelled it, I'm pretty sure Yaldabaoth is the correct name/title of the Demiurge...
Edit:
But I always found gnosticism and religions in general quite interesting. Forgive me for my rude correction, I actually don't know if Dick misspelled it, I'm pretty sure Yaldabaoth is the correct name/title of the Demiurge...
Edit:
actually didn't notice this the first time I've seen your post. If I'd use signature, this would be signature material
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sqeecoo
Arcane
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- Dec 13, 2006
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- 2,622
You won't regret reading it. One of the most desperately depressing and true books ever, and also one of the very few that made me laugh out loud :D
The thing to realize however (took me a second reading) is that the story is real. PKD really believed that stuff, and was insane in the full sense of the word (semi-cured at time of writing). Real as in you can find youtube videos of Philip K. Dick, respected author, expounding this stuff at an SF conference with the audience reaction being pretty much like Maurice's from the quote above.
I didn't say "heartbreakingly sincere" lightly. As PKD put it,
The thing to realize however (took me a second reading) is that the story is real. PKD really believed that stuff, and was insane in the full sense of the word (semi-cured at time of writing). Real as in you can find youtube videos of Philip K. Dick, respected author, expounding this stuff at an SF conference with the audience reaction being pretty much like Maurice's from the quote above.
I didn't say "heartbreakingly sincere" lightly. As PKD put it,
That was one of the places where I laughed out loud :D
Eh, the hard truth is that mental illness isn't an illness per-se. Usually what is perceived as that is just a mind trying to cope with unexplainable/unbearable/unforgettable events... The results are usually quite funny to watch though, if you utterly lack empathy.
Then you have neurological damage which is a totally different beast but I've already shitposted enough and Decline 10 is too much fun to just derail the main thread like this
Then you have neurological damage which is a totally different beast but I've already shitposted enough and Decline 10 is too much fun to just derail the main thread like this
but I've already shitposted enough and Decline 10 is too much fun to just derail the main thread like this
Mental illness discussion is not a derailment at all. It's the essence of Decline 10.
sqeecoo
Arcane
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- Dec 13, 2006
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- 2,622
Indeed. In that spirit, I give you the very first page of VALIS cause I'm reading it again now and can't resist:
Horselover Fat's nervous breakdown began the day he got the phonecall
from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals. He asked her why she wanted
them and she said that she intended to kill herself. She was calling everyone
she knew. By now she had fifty of them, but she needed thirty or forty more,
to be on the safe side.
At once Horselover Fat leaped to the conclusion that this was her way of
asking for help. It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people.
His psychiatrist once told him that to get well he would have to do two
things: get off dope (which he hadn't done) and to stop trying to help people
(he still tried to help people).
As a matter of fact, he had no Nembutals. He had no sleeping pills of any
sort. He never did sleeping pills. He did uppers. So giving Gloria sleeping
pills by which she could kill herself was beyond his power. Anyhow, he
wouldn't have done it if he could.
"I have ten," he said. Because if he told her the truth she would hang up.
"Then I'll drive up to your place," Gloria said in a rational, calm voice,
the same tone in which she had asked for the pills.
He realized then that she was not asking for help. She was trying to die.
She was completely crazy. If she were sane she would realize that it was necessary
to veil her purpose, because this way she made him guilty of complicity.
For him to agree, he would need to want her dead. No motive existed for
him -- or anyone -- to want that. Gloria was gentle and civilized, but she
dropped a lot of acid. It was obvious that the acid, since he had last heard
from her six months ago, had wrecked her mind.
"What've you been doing?" Fat asked.
"I've been in Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. I tried suicide and
my mother committed me. They discharged me last week."
"Are you cured?" he said.
"Yes," she said.
That's when Fat began to go nuts.
from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals. He asked her why she wanted
them and she said that she intended to kill herself. She was calling everyone
she knew. By now she had fifty of them, but she needed thirty or forty more,
to be on the safe side.
At once Horselover Fat leaped to the conclusion that this was her way of
asking for help. It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people.
His psychiatrist once told him that to get well he would have to do two
things: get off dope (which he hadn't done) and to stop trying to help people
(he still tried to help people).
As a matter of fact, he had no Nembutals. He had no sleeping pills of any
sort. He never did sleeping pills. He did uppers. So giving Gloria sleeping
pills by which she could kill herself was beyond his power. Anyhow, he
wouldn't have done it if he could.
"I have ten," he said. Because if he told her the truth she would hang up.
"Then I'll drive up to your place," Gloria said in a rational, calm voice,
the same tone in which she had asked for the pills.
He realized then that she was not asking for help. She was trying to die.
She was completely crazy. If she were sane she would realize that it was necessary
to veil her purpose, because this way she made him guilty of complicity.
For him to agree, he would need to want her dead. No motive existed for
him -- or anyone -- to want that. Gloria was gentle and civilized, but she
dropped a lot of acid. It was obvious that the acid, since he had last heard
from her six months ago, had wrecked her mind.
"What've you been doing?" Fat asked.
"I've been in Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. I tried suicide and
my mother committed me. They discharged me last week."
"Are you cured?" he said.
"Yes," she said.
That's when Fat began to go nuts.
...I was playing Dragon's Dogma and after reading that I feel ashamed and 
KoolNoodles
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2012
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- 3,545
Do Codexians dream of electric Decline?
Lizzurd
Cipher
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2015
- Messages
- 566
I cannot agree with that. You see, the brain is regulated by the many types of neurotransmitters, and in most cases it is their disbalance. Even schizophrenia or depression almost always are caused by it, and the brain chemistry disbalance doesn't require any special circumstances to start. Anyone can be affected, even if you are the president.
Meanwhile neurological disorder is usually very painless. You just got the partial paralysis, or, if the cause wasn't treated, you slowly fade out.
We probably have a translation problem here. In Italian Mental Illness is a very broad term, comprising derangement and both Neurological dysfunction and damage. The first category, broadly speaking, is what I was talking about and you'll hardly find a clear case of the mythical "borderline" (the origin of the term comes from this concept) dividing a sane mind from a deranged one.
Derangements (eg: PTSD and Phobia but according to some authors even some forms of Addiction and intollerance ) are the results of the interaction between an (otherwise "sane") mind and extremely difficult "environmental" circumstances.
Unable to solve the situation using normal cogitation and instinct, a PTSD victim for example will react to otherwise harmelss stimuli just because that's how his mind learned to survive to those extreme circumstances...
Then you have neurological dysfunction or damage, the only difference between those two is the source. Usually we call dysfunctional a brain that was born with defects, while damage is subject to external sources. In any case, those are the situations where sections or whole structures of the brain ceased/reduced/altered their function, their chemistry. And this is another can of worms entirely, the brain is so complex that we can't even have a fucntioning model of it, that means in order to study a particular area of the brain or the differences between a functional area and the same are in a dysfucntional brain we need to wait for someone to show up with the right kind of damage/birth defect. (<-- ideally and morally)
Err.... yes and no. Disorders is a broad word that just means out-of-balance. If being out of balance is due to a birth defect or a damage at a very young age sure, you'll have little to no understanding of what's going on. But in the majority of cases a more mature "normal" mind is able to perceive the signs of degeneration if it happens gradually enough. And that's a fate I'd never wish upon my worse enemies, bro! I suppose you've never known someone who's been diagnosed Alzheimer at a relatively young age, I have and I assure you it's... horrible.
Shitposting aside, I'm a psychologist. My main field of work is development and learning (I mainly work as a teacher) but I know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately I also have some first hand experience, due to bad shit happening in my family. I personally saw the mental decline of my father before his death and I assure you, he knew what was happening and suffered a lot from knowing...
Sorry for typos, grammar and if I misused some terms. Writing from my phone and I don't know if some of the words I used to define neurological alterations carry the same meaning... Probably scientific magazine would use different terms but I hope you got the gist of it.
Derangements (eg: PTSD and Phobia but according to some authors even some forms of Addiction and intollerance ) are the results of the interaction between an (otherwise "sane") mind and extremely difficult "environmental" circumstances.
Unable to solve the situation using normal cogitation and instinct, a PTSD victim for example will react to otherwise harmelss stimuli just because that's how his mind learned to survive to those extreme circumstances...
Then you have neurological dysfunction or damage, the only difference between those two is the source. Usually we call dysfunctional a brain that was born with defects, while damage is subject to external sources. In any case, those are the situations where sections or whole structures of the brain ceased/reduced/altered their function, their chemistry. And this is another can of worms entirely, the brain is so complex that we can't even have a fucntioning model of it, that means in order to study a particular area of the brain or the differences between a functional area and the same are in a dysfucntional brain we need to wait for someone to show up with the right kind of damage/birth defect. (<-- ideally and morally)
Err.... yes and no. Disorders is a broad word that just means out-of-balance. If being out of balance is due to a birth defect or a damage at a very young age sure, you'll have little to no understanding of what's going on. But in the majority of cases a more mature "normal" mind is able to perceive the signs of degeneration if it happens gradually enough. And that's a fate I'd never wish upon my worse enemies, bro! I suppose you've never known someone who's been diagnosed Alzheimer at a relatively young age, I have and I assure you it's... horrible.
Shitposting aside, I'm a psychologist. My main field of work is development and learning (I mainly work as a teacher) but I know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately I also have some first hand experience, due to bad shit happening in my family. I personally saw the mental decline of my father before his death and I assure you, he knew what was happening and suffered a lot from knowing...
Sorry for typos, grammar and if I misused some terms. Writing from my phone and I don't know if some of the words I used to define neurological alterations carry the same meaning... Probably scientific magazine would use different terms but I hope you got the gist of it.
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Dayyālu
Arcane
Decline 10: Mental Illnesses, Italian-Russian Cultural Exchanges and Devils and Golems Punching Each Other
Why should you. We are simple, nerdish minds, after all.
Why should you. We are simple, nerdish minds, after all.
The Tower of the Elephant said:
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Lizzurd
Cipher
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2015
- Messages
- 566
Yeap, I am sure I got everything you wanted to tell.
Starting from the end, I have such opinion of neurological disorders because they usually keep you in clarity, so you well understand both what happens and still perceive the outer world naturally. Although it may (and will) be vary painful to watch your own decay, it mostly doesn't affect your consciousness. This thing in whole somewhat similar to old age, but strikes harder and in most cases very suddenly.
About the mental diseases, I guess we really thought about different things. You mentioned phobias and traumatic experience, while I meant schizophrenia, depression and OCD, which all are caused by the faulted disbalance of chemistry. And if your types of mental illness are nearly impossible to cure, the ones I mentioned are instead have to and must be treated with drugs. And the last diseases while not damaging your body, distort your perception and therefore heavily impact your clarity. In most, most cases the human even don't understand that he is mentally ill, and in most cases the treatment begins only after he tried to suicide.
So, subjectively, I prefer neurological disorders more of mental disorders, because, well, you can at least control yourself. The most causes of neurological disorders can be easily treated, while post traumatic experience is almost impossibly to cure and chemistry disorders require very heavy treatment, which in most cases impacts your clarity too (for example GABA-based drugs may cause amnesia and many other drugs dramatically reduce the will).
Starting from the end, I have such opinion of neurological disorders because they usually keep you in clarity, so you well understand both what happens and still perceive the outer world naturally. Although it may (and will) be vary painful to watch your own decay, it mostly doesn't affect your consciousness. This thing in whole somewhat similar to old age, but strikes harder and in most cases very suddenly.
About the mental diseases, I guess we really thought about different things. You mentioned phobias and traumatic experience, while I meant schizophrenia, depression and OCD, which all are caused by the faulted disbalance of chemistry. And if your types of mental illness are nearly impossible to cure, the ones I mentioned are instead have to and must be treated with drugs. And the last diseases while not damaging your body, distort your perception and therefore heavily impact your clarity. In most, most cases the human even don't understand that he is mentally ill, and in most cases the treatment begins only after he tried to suicide.
So, subjectively, I prefer neurological disorders more of mental disorders, because, well, you can at least control yourself. The most causes of neurological disorders can be easily treated, while post traumatic experience is almost impossibly to cure and chemistry disorders require very heavy treatment, which in most cases impacts your clarity too (for example GABA-based drugs may cause amnesia and many other drugs dramatically reduce the will).
This is a deliciously Lizzurdian way of seein' things
But I get your point and I agree, incredibly
. Better to be "special" than a chemical zombie.Edit: also thread reported for brofist harvesting Dreaad . I told you all to go back discussing wonderful Decline 10 some posts ago
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Zephyr Arsland
Learned
I'd like to all around. Also, I now have a new book to chase down. Thank you, everybody, for keeping this so deliciously and appropriately surreal.
all around. Also, I now have a new book to chase down. Thank you, everybody, for keeping this so deliciously and appropriately surreal.
Dayyālu
Arcane
In the merry basement of the Atlantean Capital....
So, how's the Great Plan for the Marignon Invasion going on?
What plan for the invasion of Marignon?
Are you insane? He has, like, tons of blood and summons, a N9 bless, double our income and a research that's kinda craz..
Yes, sure, those are the needs of the body. But what are we doing for the needs of the soul?
Playing computer games to fill the empty void that our stale, lifeless existence is? Play pool games? Beg for Death and release? Fight against the endless Slavic scourge? Read cheap fantasy novels?
No, my frog. Love. It's love. The greatest thing.
We already discussed this. The Queen of Ulm told you that you are a creep, plus Zephyr is a good guy and we had nice diplo talks and he's a new player, so only a monster would pl....
But the Lizards promised me that I could keep her!. Sure, they get the Cap and the Throne, but I get a wife. I'll dress her up and we will have the best ceremony ever! And then we can play games with her! Like, 1vs1vs1!
For the Blessings of the Destroyer of Cities, you are THE GREATEST creep. You sold an entire nation to slavery under cold-blooded lizards just because they promised you a hot, sexy vampire wife? YOU MONSTER, YOU MANIAC, YOU TREACHEROUS PIECE OF *
Zephyr Arsland
Learned
I'm not at home to post an appropriate in-character response. This is anything but surprising, though!
EDIT: Zartanna has been caught on-record promising a bloodbath. Tough words, but who knows. A full statement will follow tonight. Anyways, no hard feelings at all
EDIT: Zartanna has been caught on-record promising a bloodbath. Tough words, but who knows. A full statement will follow tonight. Anyways, no hard feelings at all
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“O friend and companion of night,
thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs and spilt blood,
who wanderest in the midst of shades among the tombs,
who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals,
Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon,
look favourably on our sacrifices!”
thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs and spilt blood,
who wanderest in the midst of shades among the tombs,
who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals,
Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon,
look favourably on our sacrifices!”
Stirred by an ebb in the flow of time, aroused by the fine traces of blood still lingering in the air. The door-that-must-not-open has been unsealed, the world will know our cold, timeless rage.
We march.
We march.
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KoolNoodles
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2012
- Messages
- 3,545
Poor Ulm.
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