Okay... your brain. Talking to the brain as if it were an entirely separate entity just was too much to take seriously, even in the context of the sci-fi silliness of the rest of Old World Blues.

Your brain is the physical vessel of your mind. Your mind is, basically, the core essence that makes up You. The body is the means to support the mind and interact with the world. Dog/God may have seemed "separate", but as their "best" ending shows, they were just two shards of a shattered mind; still ultimately one entity. But in OWB, somehow we walk about Big MT with no mind; they say "remote control" but the attitude that Player's Brain shows towards the Player Char conclusively indicates it was not. Without the mind, the body is just an effectively vegetative biomass. How the body could be walking around Big MT without a mind to control it boggles mine.

So... talking to your brain just makes zero sense, and shattered my suspension of disbelief. How "my brain" could somehow be upset with "me" as if the two were entirely separate entities and not part of a whole just sat very poorly with me. And after the whole lobotomy bit in FO3's Point Lookout, I'd really hope that we're done with the horribly squicky brain damage caused to the player character.

I swear, you people will look for ANY excuse to complain. :shakehead:

Don't think much. Don't.

Your talking as if you have never played fallout...but i understand your point. i too agree with you, but in my own opinion, the converstaion you have with your own brain, was one of the funniest experiences i have had playing and while it is asking a lot of people to "believe" such things are possible, even in the fallout universe, they did a good job of making it "seem" feasible.

You're taking it seriously. Stop doing that. It's just internal dialogue ...outsourced :hehe:

But while taking it seriously, that is true. It makes no sense whatsoever. However, the brains does mention "Synthetic Thinking Machine" in it's dialogue, so maybe the TESLA COIL!! remote control explanation isn't true, but there some sort of synthetic clone of the brains in the couriers head?

I would like to present a counter-argument to your disbelief. Now, this is just a theory, as I would not consider myself an expert on the alternate earth that comprises the Fallout universe. But, consider the possibility that human physiology is different in the Fallout universe, just as radiation behaves differently than in our own world. For example, the fact that some parts of the capital wasteland in both Fallout 3 and New Vegas (especially nuclear dump-sites in Fallout 3) remain irradiated after 200 years of complete silence and lack of further irradiation is very unlikely, given the half-lives of known non-weaponized nuclear materials. Now, if one were to assume that all nuclear material encountered is weaponized, this would make irradiated pockets feasible, given the obnoxiously long half-lives of weaponized nuclear materials. The existence of ghouls also shows evidence of a difference in behavior, as any biological material exposed to the kind of mass-irradiation needed to convert a human into a ghoul has very little chance of staying solid, let alone retaining the same general molecular composition. Evidence is shown in Fallout 3 with Moira Brown, when

But, I digress. Again, human physiology might be different. Or maybe you're supposed to have a 'soul' of sorts, and the somehow allowed a separation of brain and 'spirit'... a possible implication of logic-versus-impulse.

My apologies for the lengthy reply.

If we're not supposed to, then what's with the social/political/psychological commentary that's rife throughout the main game? Or in each of the DLCs?

I must admit I also rather struggled with the concept: it was amusing and all, but as much as I enjoyed the overall silliness a lot, this was a little too much.

How do we know it couldn't happen? :biggrin: Nobody has been able to hook up a brain to that kind of machine so it might as well be plasusible.

All those Stealth Boys are making you go crazy.

/thread.

Dude, its just....a game.....

I thought it was a bit over the top, as well, but I took it for what it was. A goofy scene in a goofy DLC in game that has a tendency to be goofy at times.

There is a thread discussing this in the spoiler section too, some interesting hypotheses there.

To give a more detailed thought.

I think the problem here is the people here are to realistic and lacking in philisophic ideals. I think it's mainly a very physical representation of metaphysical thought.

I mean think about it. Do we KNOW our bodies and our brains are truly one or two working as one?

The Courier is his conscious mind, while the brain is his sub-conscious.

Edit
"I mean think about it. Do we KNOW our bodies and our brains are truly one or two working as one?" - Colonel Martyr. < This

Hang on...correct me if im wrong, Your body was able to function because your body's base impluses sent signels to the tesla coils in your head...that makes sense? Doesn't it? Yes, no?

Propably. When talking it realistically i have to fully agree with MadCat, there's no way that makes any sense since what we are is really our brains. The rest is just tool to allow the brains survive and make more of them :hehe:

However, i take it as internal dialogue. Conversation one has with oneself, but in these extraordinary circumstances voiced. A debate on whether to undo the procedure or not. And the brains makes a good point, it is safer for it in the glass tube, and if the body can work without issues, then why not leave it in the tube?

After all the signals propably travel at light speed, so lag is not an issue as long as the body stays on this planet

That's right, hell I could even get behind that as SCIENCE! But the brain being a concious entity? I agree with MadCat, it was too much for me to cope with.

Then you will not survive Metaphysical readings/discussions without your head exploding :laugh:

I suppose you have to constantly question your surroundings to understand your surroundings.

Eh, yeah, I found it a little too much. I'm more a fan of gritty, realistic post apocalyptic stuff, so some of Old World Blues was just too over the top.

But it's not like it matters, really. I'm playing a game where I fight romans, robots, giant annoying bugs and fungus people while talking with floating brains in jars. Talking to my own brain kind of just...fits, I guess.

I liken the OWB situation to the brain being forced to run two threaded processes at once. Normally it only runs one thread - Courier.exe. But when you remove it, the brain also starts running DoucheBrain.exe alongside it. That's why you get a new perk when you put your brain back in, even though theoretically you're just returning to your pre-OWB state of existence except with a few extra cybernetic implants.

At least that's what I'm thinking.

Edit: There is some precedent for this theory in real life too. Split brain patients, who had the corpus callosum severed in order to deal with seizures, developed multiple subconscious personalities. The case study that comes to mind was a guy who had one arm grab for a blue shirt while the other one grabbed for a red one, and being quite confused. See, half his brain wanted a blue shirt and the other half wanted a red shirt. Normally you don't even see this sort of decisionmaking process behind the curtain that is normal brain functioning.

Yes, there are fat strings of yarn hanging out in this DLC. If you pull on them, everything can unravel.

But where's the fun in that? Personally, i'd rather enjoy the large, comfy sweater than destroy it.

Who cares? We get to talk to ourselves and not be called crazy for once enjoy it :ahhh:

How could you not like it!? It was hilarious, original, and was a cool way to end out the DLC.

You say that about MadCat? You clearly havn't been here long enough.


I have to agree with MadCat. I was put under the impression that my brain was still controlling my actions via the Tesla coils in my head. Upon talking with my brain, it threw that all out as the brain played it off as though it was the "silent poking" in my mind. If that were true, then my brain could have just stopped communicating with the body and then it could have been left in the tank.

Talking with your brain, sure. Funny, interesting, yeah. But giving it a personality of its own? interesting but silly even in the realm of "SCIENCE!"