"The first stop on our tour is the eyes. Please step forward until you are standing in front of the right eye, which will be the one on your left. There is a placard with the number one next to the eye. Press the play button when you are in front of the right eye."
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"The eyes have too often been called the windows to the soul. That is not the case here as the glasses coupled with the perpetually snarky expression make it difficult to judge anything but the most extreme mood swings. For anything else, the corners of the mouth and the eyebrows do much more to delineate any understanding of what is going on inside. However, the eyes do allow entry into the Mind. To get there, please duck under the lower rim of the glasses and slide into the lower eye lid. Once inside you will see the sign for stop two. Please press the play button when you have made it behind the eye."
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"Welcome inside the my head. During the trip down the eye lid, you have been transfered into a thought. You will note that this was a painless process. You will be returned to your corporeal form at the end of the tour. This recording did not warn you of the change in physical status so as not to alarm you. Please also note that you signed a disclaimer at the beginning of the tour that absolves me of any accidents or issues that arise during the tour, including matter-thought and thought-matter conversion issues.
"You are now standing in front of the Short-Term Memory Banks. In here, all sensory input is stored as the rest of the mind filters it and decides on any necessary actions. The different colored cables connected to it are feeds from the various senses. The Eyes have the two thick green cables, the Ears, the two less thick blue cables, the nose the single yellow cable, the tongue the single purple cable. All of the thin red cables are connected to various touch and temperature sensitive nerves.
"Next up is Central Processing. Please follow the white line to the sign marked with the three. Press play when you are at Central Processing."
[click]
"Central Processing is the area of the mind that takes the input from the senses stored in the Short-Term Memory Banks, combines them with commands from the Ego and outputs both action commands to the muscles as well as storage commands for Long-Term Memory. The two thick black cables in the back are the connections to the Ego: one feeds information to the Ego and the other brings commands back. Central Processing has a heuristic system that attempts to anticipate what the Ego will do and is continually updating itself based on how the actual commands differ from the anticipated commands.
"The Ego is our next stop. Please follow the white line along the black cables until you reach the sign with the four on it. When you reach the Ego, please press play."
[click]
"The large red thing inside the thick layer of cartilage is the Ego. The cartilage is armor designed to protect the Ego from outside attack. In this, my brain, the armor is generally considered to be thicker than is normal. This does not mean the Ego is less prone to attack, merely that it has learned over many years to shut itself up.
"The Ego's main function is not to tell the body what to do. Most of that is handled by Central Processing. Instead, the Ego ensures that the actions taken by Central Processing are consistent with the current Self-Image. This Self-Image is stored in a special cache memory inside the Ego and has been built up through trial and error from external feedback. It is an amalgam of what has been praised versus what has received more negative feedback. Each action that Central Processing takes is judged against this feedback model as either reinforcing it or countering it. Those that counter it are stopped or minimized, while those that reinforce are exaggerated.
"At the top and the bottom of the Ego's shell, you large sections of conduit. These connect to the Ego to its two advising co-processors: the Id and the Super-Ego. The Id helps the Ego ensure that basic survival and needs are met: hunger, pain, sex are all things that the Id highlights for the Ego and ensures that it will take care of them. The Super-Ego contains a more idealized version of the Self-Image. It helps the Ego understand the direction it should go to create a more pure version of me. Due to issues with continuity and pride, the tour no longer visits either of these two areas.
"Our final stop will be the Long-Term Memory Banks. Please follow the white line to the sign with the five on it. When you get to the Long-Term Memory Banks, please press play."
[click]
"These are the Long-Term Memory Banks. They extend beyond our ability to render them for your non-corporeal self. In them is all of the sensations and actions that I have deemed worthy of keeping beyond immediate sensation. The information that is stored here are memories of what I acted on an why. As the banks become full, priority is given to items that have had a strong or immediate influence. For instance, one of the earliest memories is from when I got my finger caught in a rat trap while at a play date at a friends house. Except that I don't remember that the phrase 'play date' was in use at the time. I was wearing that friend's cowboy outfit and was around the age of four. The pain from the trap created an impression strong enough to lock the other details into these banks. However, I do not remember the friend's name as he was not with me when the trap went off, but in another room. The space that may have held his name has been reallocated to more immediate memories that have helped to form both the Self-Image and the Idealized Self-Image.
"Please notice the red wires running back to the Ego. Those are connected to memories that are being re-analyzed against the Self-Image. What actions were taken and did they fit into the Self-Image or not? If not, why not? What actions need to be taken now to help that memory fit better, if any? How can this situation be improved on or avoided in the future? The Ego is continually re-remembering much of the Long-Term Memory and in the process reinforcing which memories should be stored the longest.
"You will notice some writing on the sides of the banks. These have been left by previous tour guests in the mistaken impression that they are in fact writing new memories or changing existing ones. This is not how the process works and writing on the banks merely annoys me. Please do not write on the sides of the banks.
"This concludes our tour. Please follow the white line out to the Nasal Passage where you will be reformed into your original self through a process of express exhalation, more commonly called a 'sneeze'. Thank you for taking this tour of my Mind. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the log after your re-incorporation."
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