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George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

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Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#11

Great to hear that science (neuroscience) here is catching up with Orwell. It is a great book, and Orwell was spot on with so much of what he wrote. How did he do it? I think I know. I don't think Orwell (Erik Blair) was writing a book about a dystopian future. No. I think he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of, and then projecting that a little into the future. From personal experience wi…

> he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of

Correct. After signing up with the left-wing forces in the Spanish Civil War, and getting betrayed by the Stalinists, he was one of the left-wing British writers who could see what Stalinism was and wrote about it. The whole "memory hole" business is a reference to the removal of Trotsky from photographs, for example.

This has nothing to do with anti-maskism and COVID denialism.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#12
post #7

Nineteen Eighty-Four, and most of Orwell's other works (including his essays) are freely available at: https://orwell.ru/ Edited to add direct link to the appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four, as referenced at the end of the article: https://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/en_app

Thank you for this, this is a wonderful resource!

I found the link to download an ASCII version of 1984 by reading the readme.txt file, the anchor link seemed broken.

Hope this helps another seeker:

https://orwell.ru/Download/1984/e84_asc.zip

One of the cool things I think about 1984 that occurred to me while re-reading the appendix now as suggested by the article is that in order for Orwell to say something very new about our civilization, or at least to say something old but to many new people, he needed to invent his own language to do it. In a sense there's mirror between what Orwell is doing with his book, in telling our society about itself, and what Ingsoc was doing to Oceania, in limiting thought to goodthink. They both invented a new language in order to relate a new meaning. I like that, and there's something...peculiar about books that invent a lot of new terms. Like LOTR and Harry Potter. There's something "generationally transformative" about such books, maybe. In a sense sci-fi is all-in on this sort of word coining, Matrix, Terminator, Star Trek.

Nineteen Eighty-four is sort of sci-fi. It's set in the future. And then the appendix, is set even further in the future talking in staid and "encycolpaedia"-like tone about the time of the events of the book as if it is in the past. What if Orwell was a time traveler, who wrote 1984 after a visit to a possible future, and was told that by writing this book, that future would not persist. Then on his second trip back to the future he verified he'd changed that timeline by writing his book, and lifted the appendix to 1984 from an encyclopedia on "the rise and fall of English socialism" from the future after the collapse of the political system his book had helped undo. Closed time like curves.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#13
post #11

Great to hear that science (neuroscience) here is catching up with Orwell. It is a great book, and Orwell was spot on with so much of what he wrote. How did he do it? I think I know. I don't think Orwell (Erik Blair) was writing a book about a dystopian future. No. I think he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of, and then projecting that a little into the future. From personal experience wi…

> he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of Correct. After signing up with the left-wing forces in the Spanish Civil War, and getting betrayed by the Stalinists, he was one of the left-wing British writers who could see what Stalinism was and wrote about it. The whole "memory hole" business is a reference to the removal of Trotsky from photographs, for example. This has nothing to do with ant…

If Big Brother hadn't told you about Covid, would you even know?

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#14

Great to hear that science (neuroscience) here is catching up with Orwell. It is a great book, and Orwell was spot on with so much of what he wrote. How did he do it? I think I know. I don't think Orwell (Erik Blair) was writing a book about a dystopian future. No. I think he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of, and then projecting that a little into the future. From personal experience wi…

> It is a great book, and Orwell was spot on with so much of what he wrote. How did he do it?

Not to diminish Orwell's prescience in any way, but Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel We precedes Orwell's work by almost 30 years. It contains all the same themes, and without a shadow of a doubt, had a massive influence on Orwell's work.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#15
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of Correct. After signing up with the left-wing forces in the Spanish Civil War, and getting betrayed by the Stalinists, he was one of the left-wing British writers who could see what Stalinism was and wrote about it. The whole "memory hole" business is a reference to the removal of Trotsky from photographs, for example. This has nothing to do with ant…

If Big Brother hadn't told you about Covid, would you even know?

If Big Brother hadn't published 1984 would you even know how they really operate?

(this comment is a tribute to https://xkcd.com/966/ )

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#16
post #14

Great to hear that science (neuroscience) here is catching up with Orwell. It is a great book, and Orwell was spot on with so much of what he wrote. How did he do it? I think I know. I don't think Orwell (Erik Blair) was writing a book about a dystopian future. No. I think he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of, and then projecting that a little into the future. From personal experience wi…

> It is a great book, and Orwell was spot on with so much of what he wrote. How did he do it? Not to diminish Orwell's prescience in any way, but Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel We precedes Orwell's work by almost 30 years. It contains all the same themes, and without a shadow of a doubt, had a massive influence on Orwell's work.

I would suspect that Yevgeny Zamyatin would also have been privy to the plan. Aldous Huxley too.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#17
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a great book, and Orwell was spot on with so much of what he wrote. How did he do it? Not to diminish Orwell's prescience in any way, but Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel We precedes Orwell's work by almost 30 years. It contains all the same themes, and without a shadow of a doubt, had a massive influence on Orwell's work.

I would suspect that Yevgeny Zamyatin would also have been privy to the plan. Aldous Huxley too.

And - to go further still - Orwell, Huxley (and perhaps Zamyatin) fulfil the 'Goldstein' role, IRL.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#18
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of Correct. After signing up with the left-wing forces in the Spanish Civil War, and getting betrayed by the Stalinists, he was one of the left-wing British writers who could see what Stalinism was and wrote about it. The whole "memory hole" business is a reference to the removal of Trotsky from photographs, for example. This has nothing to do with ant…

If Big Brother hadn't told you about Covid, would you even know?

I mean, my wife is a nurse in an ICU that has had to triple capacity in the last 6 weeks and still has less than 15% capacity remaining, so, yeah, I'd imagine I'd have some inkling.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#19
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Big Brother hadn't told you about Covid, would you even know?

If Big Brother hadn't published 1984 would you even know how they really operate? (this comment is a tribute to https://xkcd.com/966/ )

I'm not clear what your position is, but what does it say about one, in one can only see the tyranny in a book but not be able to see it in real life?

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens

#20
post #11

Great to hear that science (neuroscience) here is catching up with Orwell. It is a great book, and Orwell was spot on with so much of what he wrote. How did he do it? I think I know. I don't think Orwell (Erik Blair) was writing a book about a dystopian future. No. I think he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of, and then projecting that a little into the future. From personal experience wi…

> he was writing about the dystopian present he was already aware of Correct. After signing up with the left-wing forces in the Spanish Civil War, and getting betrayed by the Stalinists, he was one of the left-wing British writers who could see what Stalinism was and wrote about it. The whole "memory hole" business is a reference to the removal of Trotsky from photographs, for example. This has nothing to do with ant…

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