They replace it with something else, per Narbonic. (I tried to find an example that said this, but I got distracted, so here’s the week that first set up the reality blindness rules: http://narbonic.com/comic/july-5-10-2004/ )
It’s official, Narbonic is my TV tropes. Go to link, see basic rules, 15 minutes later realize I’ve gone past that point already and got wrapped up in another storyline.
Didn’t even find it ’til it was already done. Funnily enough. Binged the whole archive in four days. Was -exhausted- for two work days.
I do that every couple weeks. But at least I made it easy on myself… I downloaded all the strips so I can view them without all that tedious mucking about with loading webpages. I usually read through the whole thing in three days now. …Less than that if I have trouble sleeping.
The terminology seems to be derived from the notion that the actual world is “truly irrational”, and people need to protect themselves from that irrationality, and thus they deny it or “blind” themselves to it.
Yet, I personally (and seemingly most of the rest of the readership) have come to understand the concept as “Reality Blindness”, because while the world may be irrational or beyond comprehension, it’s still quite real. People are being blind to reality and living in a delusional unreality of their own making – not the other way around.
There’s also last month when the woman in the town rejected Jonah’s unconvincing cover story but replaced his talk about the sea monster with, I think, the idea that he was there to fix the cable.
Are we sure Dr. Lee isn’t mad? I personally think she went mad roughly the same way the demon Crowley from Good Omens fell (he didn’t fall so much as saunter vaguely downwards).
I seem to recall there have been some… rather heated discussions of that in the past. Officially she *technically* *does not* have the mental disorder responsible for mad genius. But I’m not sure I buy that she’s not a latent or rare variant Mad, since making a mad science project scientifically comprehensible and mass-producible (“turning madness sane” as it were) sounds like the sort of thing that would actually break more laws of physics than just turning a set of coat hangers into a teleport as a one-shot. “Sauntering vaguely downwards” is as good a hypothesis as any, until confirmed otherwise.
I remain convinced that she’s a latent madwoman who has yet to finish snapping, but we do, in fact, have an official authorial statement that she is not Mad in the official sense of the term.
Also, I should reiterate something I mentioned in earlier discussions, that many of the geeks I know would probably behave exactly like Dr. Lee does. You simply don’t have to be Mad to do what she does.
I think she’s not mad in a very similar sense to the Tinaskey Subject. And someone has been able to maintain that delicate not mad/mad balance even better than Dr Tinaskey was capable of. Even the Tinaskey Subject broke through.
Seems I was right on Saturday… she was just messing with Sweetheart.
As for the question of whether she’s mad, it’s my own hypothesis that she really is mad now, but in her case, the process was so gradual that she didn’t suffer the unpleasant trauma commonly associated with “going” mad. She’s been studying mad science for so long, she probably couldn’t say for sure when she went over the edge, but I suspect that merging with Unity may have been a significant event. And she probably finds that being mad makes her job of “turning mad science sane” much easier.
Nobody picked this up but I think it would be better for Sweatheart if she piloted an IOS drone, not an Android one (panel 1). However, then she might have a craving for apples.
Maybe nobody mentioned that because she’s talking about an android (lower case), not the Android OS.
Frankly, I think neither Android nor iOS would be a good platform for controlling a cyborg humanoid. They both continue to have far too many bugs for such an application. Obviously, Virginia was quite successful with her own system, which has served very well in both Nick and Bubbles for years.
I LOLed at Sweetheart’s last line! And it’s a good question. As to whether Dr. Lee is Mad… she might just be pre-mad — there’s a lot of overlap between her behavior and Dave’s. Or she might be an induced case: “(s)He who battles monsters risks becoming one” or somesuch. This may in fact be the reason for reality-blindness in general, it’s a natural defense mechanism.
Virginia’s occupation is reverse engineering mad science. Her knowledge, abilities, and lack of moral judgement make her extremely capable and not necessarily mad. But her passion, what really turns her on, is putting brains into inanimate objects in order to create life, which is the quintessential oeuvre of a mad scientist.
Dr. Lee has always been mad, but has suppressed it because, what would her parents think. I pray for the day that she accepts and embraces her madness and comes fully into her own.
Incidentally, is there a reason why Dr. Lee isn’t reality blind? Anasigma protecting their own, or is it really the case that just spending too much time exposed to the weird grants you immunity?
Explains Tip, too. His fashion sense is unconventional, but we have no reason to believe he’s either Mad or the product of Mad Science. My guess would be that current reality blindness depends on prior level of reality blindness – what used to be mild reality blindness becomes absolute, etc, whereas Our Heroes are exposed to the weird enough that they’re not reality blind at all. (Explains Nera too, come to think of it.)
True, Tip has been dealing with the weird for so long that for him it is normal. However, that on its own may not be enough to prevent the reality blindness, otherwise the people in Rhodey’s village should still be able to see and interact with him. On the other hand, Tip was infected in Alaska with the werewolf venom, which was indeed the product of mad science. And then he was inoculated against the werewolf venom by being injected with a byproduct of Unity. At this point, he surely qualifies as a product of mad science.
Incidentally, since Dr. Lee was also injected with straight Unity, so even if she weren’t mad (which I firmly believe she is), she also qualifies as a product of mad science.
As for Nera, who knows what all she was actually exposed to while they were trapped at Anasigma? Not to mention what she may have been subjected to by her own mother.
A lot of people thinking Dr. Lee is mad around here. And I would agree but i think it was confirmed by creators she wasn’t? Even so, her brand of “sanity” is one I can get behind!
Who are you to deny Dr. Lee the pleasure of brain extraction, Captain Fancy?
Ah yes, there’s the Dr. Lee we all know and love (and occasionally hide from in sheer terror.)
Yeah. People think Unity is scary, but Dr. Lee can be terrifying.
I am actually wondering if people with reality blindness can actually hear her or if they replace it with something else
It’s probably much the same thing where people’s eyes glaze over when someone starts speaking in too much technobabble and occupation jargon.
They replace it with something else, per Narbonic. (I tried to find an example that said this, but I got distracted, so here’s the week that first set up the reality blindness rules: http://narbonic.com/comic/july-5-10-2004/ )
It’s official, Narbonic is my TV tropes. Go to link, see basic rules, 15 minutes later realize I’ve gone past that point already and got wrapped up in another storyline.
Didn’t even find it ’til it was already done. Funnily enough. Binged the whole archive in four days. Was -exhausted- for two work days.
I do that every couple weeks. But at least I made it easy on myself… I downloaded all the strips so I can view them without all that tedious mucking about with loading webpages. I usually read through the whole thing in three days now. …Less than that if I have trouble sleeping.
It’s interesting to note – it seems like early on, the strip referred to the phenomenon as “Unreality Denial” and “Unreality Blindness”.
http://narbonic.com/comic/august-16-21-2004/
http://narbonic.com/comic/august-30-september-4-2004/
The terminology seems to be derived from the notion that the actual world is “truly irrational”, and people need to protect themselves from that irrationality, and thus they deny it or “blind” themselves to it.
Yet, I personally (and seemingly most of the rest of the readership) have come to understand the concept as “Reality Blindness”, because while the world may be irrational or beyond comprehension, it’s still quite real. People are being blind to reality and living in a delusional unreality of their own making – not the other way around.
There’s also last month when the woman in the town rejected Jonah’s unconvincing cover story but replaced his talk about the sea monster with, I think, the idea that he was there to fix the cable.
Brains, brains, brains brains!
Lovely brains! Wonderful brains!
Lovely brains! Wonderful brains!
Well…that was an easy filk.
Now what am I going to do in the morning?
Are we sure Dr. Lee isn’t mad? I personally think she went mad roughly the same way the demon Crowley from Good Omens fell (he didn’t fall so much as saunter vaguely downwards).
I seem to recall there have been some… rather heated discussions of that in the past. Officially she *technically* *does not* have the mental disorder responsible for mad genius. But I’m not sure I buy that she’s not a latent or rare variant Mad, since making a mad science project scientifically comprehensible and mass-producible (“turning madness sane” as it were) sounds like the sort of thing that would actually break more laws of physics than just turning a set of coat hangers into a teleport as a one-shot. “Sauntering vaguely downwards” is as good a hypothesis as any, until confirmed otherwise.
I remain convinced that she’s a latent madwoman who has yet to finish snapping, but we do, in fact, have an official authorial statement that she is not Mad in the official sense of the term.
But when did we last have that statement? It’s been a few years, she may have gotten worse.
Dr. Lee: “Worse? Or -better-?”
In other words, sometimes the coin lands on its edge.
She’s a loony, but not Mad. In this universe, there’s a difference.
Also, I should reiterate something I mentioned in earlier discussions, that many of the geeks I know would probably behave exactly like Dr. Lee does. You simply don’t have to be Mad to do what she does.
I think she’s not mad in a very similar sense to the Tinaskey Subject. And someone has been able to maintain that delicate not mad/mad balance even better than Dr Tinaskey was capable of. Even the Tinaskey Subject broke through.
Seems I was right on Saturday… she was just messing with Sweetheart.
As for the question of whether she’s mad, it’s my own hypothesis that she really is mad now, but in her case, the process was so gradual that she didn’t suffer the unpleasant trauma commonly associated with “going” mad. She’s been studying mad science for so long, she probably couldn’t say for sure when she went over the edge, but I suspect that merging with Unity may have been a significant event. And she probably finds that being mad makes her job of “turning mad science sane” much easier.
I was utterly taken aback with “extracted” as I so expected “schlorped out.”
I prefer “schlorped out”, too, but I’ll let Jeff and Shaenon edit their own story.
She probably would have said “schlorped out”, but she was responding to Sweetheart saying “extracting”.
Nobody picked this up but I think it would be better for Sweatheart if she piloted an IOS drone, not an Android one (panel 1). However, then she might have a craving for apples.
I’m sure there are some Anasigma programmed platforms for cyborgs and the like that will serve.
Maybe nobody mentioned that because she’s talking about an android (lower case), not the Android OS.
Frankly, I think neither Android nor iOS would be a good platform for controlling a cyborg humanoid. They both continue to have far too many bugs for such an application. Obviously, Virginia was quite successful with her own system, which has served very well in both Nick and Bubbles for years.
Also, you really do need a RTOS, which neither are.
I LOLed at Sweetheart’s last line! And it’s a good question. As to whether Dr. Lee is Mad… she might just be pre-mad — there’s a lot of overlap between her behavior and Dave’s. Or she might be an induced case: “(s)He who battles monsters risks becoming one” or somesuch. This may in fact be the reason for reality-blindness in general, it’s a natural defense mechanism.
Virginia’s occupation is reverse engineering mad science. Her knowledge, abilities, and lack of moral judgement make her extremely capable and not necessarily mad. But her passion, what really turns her on, is putting brains into inanimate objects in order to create life, which is the quintessential oeuvre of a mad scientist.
Dr. Lee has always been mad, but has suppressed it because, what would her parents think. I pray for the day that she accepts and embraces her madness and comes fully into her own.
Incidentally, is there a reason why Dr. Lee isn’t reality blind? Anasigma protecting their own, or is it really the case that just spending too much time exposed to the weird grants you immunity?
Explains Tip, too. His fashion sense is unconventional, but we have no reason to believe he’s either Mad or the product of Mad Science. My guess would be that current reality blindness depends on prior level of reality blindness – what used to be mild reality blindness becomes absolute, etc, whereas Our Heroes are exposed to the weird enough that they’re not reality blind at all. (Explains Nera too, come to think of it.)
True, Tip has been dealing with the weird for so long that for him it is normal. However, that on its own may not be enough to prevent the reality blindness, otherwise the people in Rhodey’s village should still be able to see and interact with him. On the other hand, Tip was infected in Alaska with the werewolf venom, which was indeed the product of mad science. And then he was inoculated against the werewolf venom by being injected with a byproduct of Unity. At this point, he surely qualifies as a product of mad science.
Incidentally, since Dr. Lee was also injected with straight Unity, so even if she weren’t mad (which I firmly believe she is), she also qualifies as a product of mad science.
As for Nera, who knows what all she was actually exposed to while they were trapped at Anasigma? Not to mention what she may have been subjected to by her own mother.
For some brain fun,
I get inside the heads.
I’m lucky if they’re dead.
For some brain fun.
For some brain fun.
It’s a fun time,
With my neurologic blades.
And I carve out unafraid.
It’s a fun time.
It’s a fun time.
Brains…who would mind?
Fine…I’ll cut their spines.
I can tell you,
Then when it comes to brains,
Everything’s a game.
I can tell you.
I can tell you.
Brains…who would mind?
Fine…I’ll cut their spines
Do you fear me,
Removing brains and spines?
I’m not the mastermind.
Do you fear me?
Do you fear me?
dnim dluow ohw…sniarb…
—from, yeah, “Rain,” The Beatles.
psshht! Took me three readings of the last line before I got it.
Thanks for reminding me about that oldie, including that last line.
A lot of people thinking Dr. Lee is mad around here. And I would agree but i think it was confirmed by creators she wasn’t? Even so, her brand of “sanity” is one I can get behind!
Mr. Green, head of Anasigma, says she’s “unique”, which makes me think she’s her own bizarre thing.
I think she was sane at that time. Now, not so much. They never said she’d ALWAYS be sane…
I think Dr. Lee is an evil genius, not a mad genius.
Well, amoral anyway.
According to Narbonic, mads are mostly evil anyway, and the good ones are disturbing.
http://narbonic.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2004/12/041202.jpg
SHE IS MAD. WHY CAN’T YOU PEOPLE BELIEVE ME?! WHAT IS THE STRAIGHTJACKET FOR? WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME!?!
Panel 4 is the reason why Dr. Lee is not invited to more parties – and why A-Sig had to hide the evidence of the last one she was at.