“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions.
I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of
Dorian Gray
#
Waking up is the hardest part. The moment I am
awake, I can feel the pain radiate from my heart through my every cell. It is
as though my heart is made of glass and is shattered and the pieces of glass
have entered all the cells in my body through the blood stream. You’d think you’d get used to it, and that the
pain will go away slowly but it's now almost a habit. The deposits of all the
feelings have now curated, in my heart, this dense, heavy pearl of sorrow that I
am practically nurturing. The breeze from the fan slowly settles and arranges
the thoughts in my cluttered mind like a stack of papers. In the past 4 weeks,
I have found it terribly hard to get myself out of bed. This is it. I have
decided to put an end to this. I don’t want to fall hopelessly in love anymore.
It’s just so damaging to one’s existence.
#
The Medical Centre, Neurology Dept.
Automated Voice: "Good Morning, Mr. Nathan
Drew. We would need to check your Neuralink version match and then run some
tests. After the procedure there would be a few manned monitoring sessions."
I sit down at the waiting room. I look around
and see a girl sitting across me. She seems impatient. She is pretty. Another
heartbreaker I am sure. The way she fidgets with her phone, reminds me of her.
I feel angry.
She: "Hey, you here for Pragma?"
Nathan: "Yes, you too?"
She: "Yes, but I need to get linked first “
Nathan: "What, you haven't done it yet? How do you keep
track of stuff ?!"
She shrugged. "I journal. That's about it. I am too self-judgmental
anyway, so I don't think I’ll turn on memory log even if I am linked. Anyway. em...
there is this really nice gig that I got, and I want to make the best of it. So
here I am"
Nathan: "Sounds great. All the best to you". She smiles.
Her nose twitches slightly while she does, it’s kind of cute.
I decide to make good use of the time by going through the available
references on Pragma.
Excerpts of Interview with Dr. G.K.
Ramakrishnan, Neuroscientist and founding researcher of ARER.
Host: Can you share your journey of invention of
Pragma?
"When I conceptualized Assisted Regulation
of Emotional Response, the first prototype was made in order to reduce the
sensation while being tickled. As a child, I have always hated being tickled. It’s
just so annoying that people assume it's fun. My life partner has not got an
inch of a tickle bone in her body and that drove me to steer my research into the
basic concepts of today's Pragma.”
"However, tickling being extremely close to
our survival responses- thanks to millions of years of evolution, tweaks to the
source and even the response could have compromised the almost perfected
amygdala mechanisms in human brain. The stakes were high and therefore this was
shot down. We however, reused and applied this to achieve emotional response
regulation."
"It is a reversible process with almost no
side effects. It is like the brain learning yet another state of being. It's marvelous,
if you ask me, the...um...the capacity it brings to individuals to experience
and create a totally different world every time you try and regulate or adjust
these feelers."
"In the case of love, for e.g., all it
really does is cut down the release of dopamine which in turn reduces the
craving and the addictive and judgement-clouding tendencies around love. The
warmth and comfort around a loved one romantically or otherwise do not change.
Similarly, for fear, anger, guilt and shame, the roots of these emotions have
not been altered, only the effects"
Host: "Do you think we change the
person by doing such a procedure?"
"Yea, well we are all changing day by day,
aren't we? We are a totally new set of cells every 7 years. In a way, I also
consider it an opportunity to be able to experience the world in different ways
without having to wait for a lifetime to internalize the desired changes in
behavior. We have also observed a positive impact on memory fidelity due to the
interdependence of memory on emotion. So, if anything, we are being more true
to ourselves this way."
Host: " Where do you think we are headed
with this?"
"Having the brain machine interface
elective installation through Neuralink opted in by most adults has given the
behavior and happiness engineering field, the momentum it needs. It becomes
easier to make interventions in the brain and it’s a lot safer and more
effective than using drugs to achieve similar behavioral outcomes. Based on the
research done by the World Wellness Institute, interventions on Guilt, Shame, Fear,
Anger and Love are most impactful. Sadness is evasive as is happiness. Anyway,
research is ongoing to regulate the effects of other sources of negativity as well.
What needs to be seen is how prepared we are for the feedback that our own
mental models make in response to the changed patterns. I am interested in
finding out its social evolution. We live in exciting times!"
Host: "One last question. so, you haven't
figured out a way to manage the tickle since then?"
"Ha-ha. There are non-invasive ways of
bringing down the agony that the tickle anticipation and that unsuspecting
touch brings. Meditation is a great example that I myself have taken to, in
order to bring down my extreme reaction to a harmless social prank."
#
Automated voice: "Mr. Nathan Drew, please sign your
waiver and proceed to the procedure room."
Everything looks good in the post-assessment. I imagined the world without love to be
lacking a glow but it’s just the same. All this romanticizing of love. Not that
the heart break is reversible, but at the very least, I hope to be able to put
things in perspective and not fall into the abysmal pits of broken hearts
again. I decide to skim through the rest of the videos while waiting for the shrink.
#
The Pragma Directive - A Documentary.
Vanessa Jones, Musician
"A significant change is in my music. I can’t…
like...seem to feel the notes in my system but I am able to produce it more
technically. It's like earlier I was creating music with my body and now it
flows directly from my mind, you know? I am really impressed with how much I am
now able to experiment with music which earlier was imprisoned in a web of
romanticized mush. My taste in music has also significantly changed, I am
excited about what is in store. And hey if the music dries out, I’ll maybe turn
it off.”
Lionel Philip Actor, Writer
"Acting is absolutely impossible with
Pragma on. I have got it turned on for now temporarily to research and
experience the character that I am going to do next, I am evolving into a
techno human in the second half of the movie, I will be using this
experience to be able to play that part. Meanwhile I have not been able
to really write anything useful. My writing has completely changed. What has
changed is the intensity in which I feel the character that I am trying to
paint. It’s almost like I have to force the words out of me, but they feel like
someone else’s. I don't feel the joy anymore while I write. I am definitely
going to turn it off. It’s almost a professional necessity for me to feel these
emotions even if exaggerated out of balance at times. As an artist, I am also concerned
in terms of audience acceptance of the stories we tell through movies and
books, it would definitely need to be relooked at because if I don’t feel it
while writing , my audience would never feel it while reading or watching, with
or without Pragma."
Swami Sri Chaitanya, Spiritual leader
"The path to emotional regulation is a lifetime
of work, that is now possible with just the flip of a switch. I am honestly
happy about this advancement although I would call it a short cut. While there
is immense satisfaction in doing the work and willing the self to be purposeful
and happy and regulated, I think this is also helpful in reducing the suffering
of people. Spirituality and neuroscience, in my mind has similar
objectives, to really learn about self and adjust as required. In that sense, I
think we have made great strides in the evolution of both branches to help heal
and nurture ourselves."
Face blurred out, Religious Leader
"Pragma has faced huge backlash from
religious institutions around the world. And for good reason.After the success
of the Neuralink installation for treatment of Alzheimer's and Schizophrenia,
the opposition of the religious institutions had come down. However, playing
with the feelings of people is a whole new ball game, isn’t it? It changes
the very social fabric of society. A society without love! What would happen to
society without the self-check emotions like guilt and fear. Our
collective conscience would be compromised. It would affect the future of
our children raised by parents who don't feel the same vulnerability that they
feel. The macroeconomic impact of this is huge due to technological companies
cashing in on the opportunity. On the other hand, it may actually be beneficial
to the institution of marriage since the addictive nature of love is removed, but
hey, who knows! We should find ways to have healthy dialogue to
bring out and evaluate the real social repercussions of this. “
Christina Gilbert, Chairman and board of directors,
Phoenix group of company
"I got Pragma done about a year and half
ago. I have found this extremely useful in my career. It has brought about
immense clarity and purpose in my life in general. I find it easier to
rationalize with myself to bring about the courage to take disruptive, hard and
necessary decisions. Back when I started my career, there was a whole lot of
guilt associated with doing what was needed at work be it in terms of giving
negative feedback or in terms of claiming time for myself and for work. It
would have been a lot easier if I had this instead of having to learn all of it
the hard way. “
Jason Hart, Liberal, Democratic party
alliance
" Individuals have every right to choose
what they want to experience and how. They own their body as well as minds and
should have the right to choose what they want to do with it. Having said that
the regulatory processes around these were also highly reviewed before this was
approved 2 years back and sufficient thresholds and controls were applied like
age limits, criminal and credit history and of course, the medical history of
each individual. We will continue to review and update these regulations as
needed."
Maya Lou, PhD, Life and Leadership coach:
"Regulating guilt and fear can have a great
role in self and leadership development. Among the leaders that I have coached,
fear seems to be a big player in pulling people down on their transformation
journey. Women especially, can really rise as very empathetic effective
leaders with the effective use of this technology. At the same time, there is immense
intrinsic power in overcoming these demons in our head ourselves over just
flipping a button and that is a transformation that you don't experience by
relying on Pragma. Failures, just like heartbreaks, are profound experiences in
retrospect. What it does to you once you have crossed it, is a beautiful experience
of recovery. While one might think that Pragma could actually bring up the collective
Emotional Quotient, it’s the long-term effects could also be that the world
could be a lot more cutthroat and the challenges that emerge could be different."
#
6 months later.
Things are back to normal with my girlfriend. We
are still the best of friends. A couple of weeks after Pragma, I reached out to
her. It seemed like the most rational thing to do - to get back together. There
is a whole lot of clarity now in our communication. I think I like it. Both of
us are more whole on our own than before. There is no constant neediness. The physical
attraction is a bit more interesting, as of now, we have the spark of that little change in us as well as the comfort of the familiarity. We still
love each other’s company and we are lovers. That has not
changed. It just feels like the difference between spiritual bliss as opposed
to the intoxicated high that was our love before all this. It does not feel
like we are the only ones that matter in this world. I think my
relationships in general have improved. They say love and hate are not
opposites but just expressions in the same side of the spectrum with
indifference being the opposite side. I think I am definitely moving towards
the center of the love/hate - indifference scale and I feel so much at peace
with that now.
#
Author’s notes:
This is a philosophical thought experiment using the instrument of soft science fiction to imagine how things would be if we build the capability to regulate emotions. Inspired by Ted Chiang's short story- “Liking What you See: A documentary"
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