On the Social Engineering of Emotions and its Origins
This is an transcript recorded from an public lecture at the State Commisary Library given in 2020. The record was found at a later date in the appartment of Professor …. after his sudden dissapearence from his laboratory at the University of …. City. further documentation regarding his work has been confiscated by the Commision until further notice. Or if the return of Professor …. can be verified by all involved parties.
State Commisary 20XX
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Host: Thank you all today for being at this lecture series on Social Welbeing that are hosted by the State Commisary Library. We are pleased to welcome Professor …. today for wanting to disclose and tell us about his exciting research in his laboratory at the University we all know the name of [audience laughter]. Professor …. has his background in biochemistry before pursuing an PhD in translational biology. Afterwards he started his own research group at the department of Welbeing, were he is the principal investigator. His presentation today is called: On the Engineering of Emotions and Its Origins, and what i’ve been told has never been published to the scientific community or the general public before. Sound exciting doesn’t it? [audience laughter]. I wont let you wait any longer, I hereby give you the floor Professor …. [loud clapping].
Professor: Thank you for your kind introduction. First, I wish to begin this lecture series by asking you a question. Albert Camus once wrote in his essay The myth of Sisyphus, and I quote, “There is but one serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide”. I want to ask you something similar. That there is but one serious societal problem, and that is Unhappiness, with an capital U. We all are inclined for unhappiness. The deep sorrow in us that creeps like a worm to the surface of our inner being. Man is not born for perfect happiness. One is not made for this machine life, waiting for the moment when he says enough is enough. And at that moment he finds out there is nothing he can do, no stopping and no way out. A modern or non-nomadic lifestyle becomes too much of him. This is apparant by the fact that we cannot function without anaesthesia: music, drugs and even knowledge. We all consume and come in contact with it every day, again and again. The feeling of derailment like a train that leads to nowhere. But, be not afraid, for it has also inflicted me or you [fingerpoints into audience]. As it is something we are never going to be immune of. It might sound contradictory, but I want to advocate today a new phenomenon and a solution against Unhappiness that was found in our laboratory last year. Something as small as our prosperity within this grim and brutal world.
Professor: First things first, before we dive deeper in my current work I want to take you to my past for a little while. When I was a little boy, and thats along time ago I can assure you [audience chuckles] I became fascinated by a book about a French doctor in a plague. I couldn’t comprehend it at first, people getting sick by some mysterious illness and dying. Bodies lying on the street and the hospitals overun with the mortally sick. It shooked me to the core. There was no reason that some random town in the middle of the dessert should be hit by some strange disease, yet it still happened. Boring! ‘falling ill is part of life’ you might think. Also, we all die at some point due to some other means. It is embeded in our lifes fibers as long humans have tried to get rid of it. However, and this was the part that scared me the most. It was not only the physical that was perishing, it was also the Soul that was slowly rotting away. What could be the reason I thought to myself, obviously people dying does not make for a good place to hotel [audience chuckles]. However It was not dread that began the decay, It was what I would later recognize as the Happiness seeping away from those all too well alive. I wondered could there be a way to stop this leak before it became an flood? Yes, you have an question?
Audience question: How can it be Professor that you believe in a soul and at the same time think that emotions are essential to our Welbeing, as this lecture series states? Surely you dont think Science might cure something as subjective as emotions? Or might it be that you are some Guru from a farway land coming to bring us salvation? [loud audience laughter].
Professor: Ah I see, you have read my paper on the the connection of certain neuro signalling chemicals being the driver for inducing emotions? However isn't the perception of these emotions, and the soul, something really unmeasurable and thus not malleable? Although I agree that it might sound more spiritual than scientific at this point. On that regard, let me fast forward a bit [The person asking sat down, and was later identified as Jennifer]. My career began with this idea you see that emotions can be artifically induced in humans. The concept was not new, because earlier scientist in the 20th century knew that chemicals such as cortisol was responsible for percieved stress. Or that fluctuations of serotonine and dopamine were responsible for regulating how we ‘feel’ our emotions. Although we now know that by supplementing these chemicals directly into the brain, certain areas would be more active or lit up during brain scans. This brings us back to the question that one of you asked. Yes, I think that Science can cure emotions, and there is evidence for it. [Professor opens PowerPoint presentation]
When we first started research on neurochemical supplementation, that was during my PhD period. We experimented with the idea of self regulation or in other words; the body responding to external factors by it self, for example inflicted pain or stress and compensating it biochemically. We knew that brain areas in mice percieving pain was similar to exhausted or bored mice. It was obvious by looking at the biochemical signatures. Everyone in the audience may know the feeling that when you are bored or in pain you search for something to relieve it. However when you wait long enough you might feel less bored and the pain subsides. This is self-regulation at play by searching a balance. The same was found in our studies of mice. Over time the mice would be self regulating. But contrary to what we thought it was not serotonine or dopmanine that was balancing, It was something completly new. An chemical or rather proteins that was instructing the whole biochemical cascade. We called this group of proteins Emotion Inducing Factors or EIFs for short. This was only the beginning for we… [Professor …. was interupted midspeech]
Host: Professor sorry to disturb you so sudden during the lecture, but I think most of audience tonight know already about this EIF that was rejected by Nature some time ago. As we understand it, there were some complications by research groups in several universities on the existence of EIFs and thus self regulation. Why couldn’t they measure the proteins similarly to what you did in mice? And what is this discovery of yours to proof this claim once and for all?
Professor: Im glad that you think that most people here tonight know of my research. You see we scientist are not the ones that like to boast about our research and knowledge. Perhaps… I believe now that some actually do [Professor …. looks angry at the host; audience chuckles]. So please let me explain why these other groups couldn’'t verify the existence of EIFs. Just to be clear with the audience. What we did was still published in Nature, but only after we replaced the EIF part by focussing on the neurochemical balancing that could be reproduced by others. The reason why is because they missed something quite essential. I confess that as of late we did not know why only in our mice EIFs were present, and what causes them to produce this fascinating process. I think this is the reason why you came today to this lecture. We now know that this protein is not released by the mice themselve, but are synthesised by something totally unknown [audience chuckles]. At first we thougth that it was an infection of some sort, we decided to investigate by injecting brain homogenate of the EIF mice. Thats brain milkshake. To the sterile mice with no prior microbiological contact. After some time we injected them again with cortisol or inflict pain to see if we got the same response. And we did! the mice were self regulating their emotions and we could detect EIFs in these new mice. We concluded from these first experiments that it was indeed something living or atleast propagating inside mice brains to release EIF. To verify this we repeated the experiment over several generation of sterile mice just to see if the effects would dissapear due to dilution. It did not subside. It was even increasing! We concluded that self regulation was not only chemical but also biological. However we still do not know what or how this phenomea is caused to happen.
Commisary note:
This slide was added by Professor …. during the presentation to emphasize the weight of his discovery to the audience.
Figure Classified
What we do know is that in the mice were we measured high levels of EIFs. The physiologcal reaction and biochemical signatures associated with pain was suspended or was even completly replaced. We suspect that this will also translate into a psychological state associated with extended bliss or simply said Happiness. In actuality:
The Unhappiness is replaced with True Happiness.
There migth be a reason for why we are Unhappy in our daily lifes. So why should we worry if our own body can cure this deep seated cancer? Unlike removing unwanted subcutaneous fat. Surgeons cannot operate on our souls. Atleast until now. What I plea for tonigth is an new way of percieving the world. Not thinking life is sorrowfull and cruel. What I need to know first to keep promise is if this Organism trully exist. And how we can use it as an advantage to elevate our meager lifes into newfound bliss. Therefore I will need your help someday. With this I want to end this lecture. Thank you for listening. [Audience falls in silence, some soft clapping and ‘boo’ sounds was heard]
End of transcript
Footnote: At the end of the lecture, an individual (later idenfified as Albert) was seen talking to the Professor about joining his laboratory. More information follows.
