Victor Pelevin - Helmet of Horror

My helmet of horror’s about to overheat. Let me put the question a different way. If Asterisk, perception and everything else are produced in the separator labyrinth, then why do we say that it’s Asterisk who perceives them?

Ariadne

The dwarf said that is simply his specific quality as a product. In other words, the idea that he perceives everything is produced in the separator labyrinth together with everything else.

Nutscracker

Produced from what?

Ariadne

From nothing. You haven’t been listening properly.

Nutscracker

All right. Then I have a question as well. You say Asterisk appears in the separator labyrinth.

Ariadne

That’s right.

Nutscracker

And instead of a head he has the helmet of horror?

Ariadne

Yes.

Nutscracker

But then that means the helmet of horror appears in the separator labyrinth, which is located inside the helmet itself?

Ariadne

Yes, it does.

Nutscracker

But the helmet has to be bigger than one of its parts. How can it be located inside one of its own components?

Ariadne

The dwarf said ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ only exist in the horns of plenty. The same thing applies to ‘bigger’ and ‘smaller’. The horns contain absolutely everything you could possibly imagine and everything else as well.

Nutscracker

But in that case even the helmet only exists in these horns of plenty?

Ariadne

Yes, I think so.

Nutscracker

Whichever way you look at it, that means the helmet of horror arises inside one of its own component parts. But it exists inside a different one. Where’s the sense in that?

Ariadne

Where? In the horns of plenty, of course.

Nutscracker

Ariadne, are you serious?

Ariadne

Yes, probably. Or perhaps not. To be quite honest, I’m tired. If I meet the dwarf, I’ll make sure I ask him about everything. You think up some questions.

Monstradamus

Hang on a moment. How did the dream end?

Ariadne

After the lecture I went out into the corridor. There was no one there, just a big mirror in a semicircular frame on the wall. I went over and looked into it and woke up.

Monstradamus

What did you see in it?

Ariadne

Myself.

Monstradamus

And nothing unusual?

Ariadne

I was wearing a straw hat with a round crown and two little bunches of lilies-of-the-valley pinned to the brim at the back. The hat had a veil of thick lace with round holes, so I couldn’t see my face behind it at all. It all looked very beautiful, but something made me feel nervous. I couldn’t work out what was wrong until suddenly I recognised that bronze mask in my reflection and that frightened me, and then the dream suddenly ended. That’s all. I’m going.

Organizm(-:

I thought from the very beginning that goon must be wearing a virtual reality helmet. Honest I did.

Nutscracker

That’s not any kind of virtual reality helmet; it’s some kind of fancy pressure cooker. Games for children. I ought to know how a virtual reality helmet works when grown-ups put one together, and this is nothing like it.

Organizm(-:

And how does it work?

Nutscracker

Maybe I don’t understand too well which way the current flows and what it’s transformed into and all, but I do know perfectly well what someone in one of those helmets sees and thinks, because I’ve dealt with it as a professional, by studying the problem of choice in an interactive environment. We worked with those helmets all the time.

Organizm(-:

I’ve never heard of that problem. What is it?

Nutscracker

Well, imagine you decide for yourself who’s going to shoot who when you’re watching an action movie. If you decide the main hero gets killed in the first shootout, then what happens to the rest of the plot? If you had genuinely free choice, the results could be pretty miserable. But art is supposed to make us happy, not miserable.

Monstradamus

That’s for sure. And even when it does make us miserable, we should feel happy in our misery.

Nutscracker

That’s right! So there never is any genuine interactivity, only the appearance of it. Or rather, it is permitted, but only within a narrow range where no choice you make can change the fundamental situation. The main problem is to eliminate freedom of choice so that the subject is led unerringly to make the decision required, while at the same time maintaining his firm belief that his choice is free. In scientific terms it’s known as coercive orientation.

UGLI 666

What’s that?

Nutscracker

That’s a long story.

Organizm(-:

We don’t have much else to occupy ourselves with.

Monstradamus

That’s right. Tell us about it, Nutcracker. Let’s give our brains a break.

Nutscracker

I suppose there’s no need to explain what the Helmholtz sees?

Organizm(-:

Who?

Nutscracker

In professional jargon that’s what they call the guy in the helmet. A Helmholtz is someone who’s located in an artificial dimension that totally isolates him from the real world and moves around in it, or rather, thinks he moves around in it. Let’s assume this dimension takes the form of a flat area with three identical marble vases standing on it. And what we have to do to keep the action moving in the right direction is to lead the Helmholtz to the middle vase.

Organizm(-:

Three identical marble vases. Hardly makes it worth bothering to put the helmet on.

Nutscracker

Instead of vases they could be doors, turns at a road junction, any kind of choice at all in fact. It’s not important. Everything you see in the helmet is computed by a special program and the program can be set up so that, every time, the Helmholtz makes the same choice we made for him earlier.

Organizm(-:

Sure, you can fix the program, but not the experimental subject. He’s got his own programming.

Nutscracker

That’s the whole point. When the helmet and the Helmholtz fuse into a single whole, you can edit the reader as well as the book, if you get my meaning. That’s why we say editing technology can be external or internal. Although there’s no clear boundary between them, of course.

Organizm(-:

Come again?

Nutscracker

External technologies affect what we see, internal technologies affect what we think.

Organizm(-:

How about an example?

Nutscracker

The simplest external editing program is ‘Sticky Eye’. That’s when, as you turn your head, one of the vases gets stuck in the field of vision and lingers there longer than it should.

Monstradamus

But what about the two other vases? They’re standing next to it. According to the laws of perspective …

Nutscracker

How perspective operates inside the helmet is decided by us and our client. Another method is called ‘The Weight’. When the Helmholtz tries to move away from our vase, the program slows down his movement. And when he approaches, it speeds his movement up. As though we’ve tied a mathematical weight to his foot and it keeps disappearing and reappearing again. That makes it easier to move towards the chosen vase than in any other direction, and disorganised series of random displacements will bring the Helmholtz to it pretty quickly.