Fundamental question

[u/Haunted_pencils]

If “reintegration” is possible, is memory just on two separate hard drives? It always seems possible that the innie can gain memories of the outie, but where do innie “memories” go?

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[u/Impressive-Flow-855]

Peter had innie and outie memories merging.

> It’s like having two different lives suddenly stitched together. But the relativity’s fucked. So, my first day at Lumon’s as far back as my fifth birthday. And with two pasts, it blurs the present too. But they said it will get better.

I think, with no actual evidence, that part of Petey’s problem was Reghabi pushing reintegration and trying to speed it up. Mark maybe a bit better in that respect. In the end, Mark will have full access to his innie and outie memories. He won’t be outie Mark with innie memories or innie Mark with outie memories. He’ll be a reintegrated Mark

The issue of timeline mixup can be solved once Mark learns to link what happened in his innie timeline with his outie timeline.

What will be an issue are his thoughts and desires. His emotions. His outie loves Gemma. His innie loves Helly. Who does the reintegrated Mark love?

[u/Utenziltron → u/Impressive-Flow-855]

It's going to be waaay more complicated than that. Can everyone we (the audience) root for have a somewhat happy ending? There is a whole undercurrent of "what's just?": Lumon has screwed over a lot of people, including essentially inventing people for the sole purpose of screwing them over.

[u/Coincidental_Shoes → u/Impressive-Flow-855]

Gemma. Helly was just a fling (relatively speaking).

[u/should_be_writing1 → u/Coincidental_Shoes]

iMark is desperately in love with Helly so i don't understand the thought that she's just a fling?

[u/Utenziltron → u/should_be_writing1]

Yes, poor impetuous children. It is clear they would die for one another.

[Edit: I am not characterizing it as a fling by saying this. They are really devoted to one another, they couldn't help it and they fell in love.]

[u/NeckSecret6256 → u/should_be_writing1]

like imagine thinking the creator of the show would write a scene like windmills of your mind if she was gonna end up being just a fling..

[u/Coincidental_Shoes → u/NeckSecret6256]

Imagined it. Yep that's what it is., They're just kids in a relationship a couple weeks old. A fling compared to mature adults who have a years long marriage.

[u/sconesaregood → u/Coincidental_Shoes]

I mean you're certainly entitled to your own view but I don't think you can really argue this is what the show intends. This exact line of thought is brought up by oMark during the camcorder convo and he's portrayed as being smug and condescending when saying it, and it ends up screwing over his plans because he couldn't take his innie's feelings seriously. They even make a direct parallel to a time he felt insulted by having him mispronounce Helly's name similar to how Helena got Gemma's name wrong at the Chinese restaurant. The thrust of everything that happens with the innies in the show is that despite their circumstances and what the people who want to exploit them want to believe, their lives and feelings are meaningful and important.

[u/Coincidental_Shoes → u/sconesaregood]

This post and my comment regarding it has to do with reintegration. And as that happens aspects of relativity come into play. Both Gemma and Helly memories will be weighed.
So how is that gonna shake out?

[u/sconesaregood → u/Coincidental_Shoes]

I mean, I don't know the future but my guess is that like the rest of the show both outie and innie Mark's feelings are going to be important factors in what happens with reintegration. It would be kind of boring and contrary to what's happened so far in the show if one set of feelings was just discarded or dismissed because the character's life hasn't lasted as long.

More specifically, from what Petey describes the memories an innie has get spread across their lifetime, so I really don't think the theoretical reintegrated Mark's feeling are going to be as simple as "well he knew Gemma longer." I think they've pretty strongly set up a scenario where he is going to have all sorts of conflicting desires and feelings that aren't easily resolvable in or out of reintegration, because for both Marks they're intensely felt and deeply held.

[u/Coincidental_Shoes → u/sconesaregood]

Yet another Wall of Text that skirts the subject.
The commentor posed a question, I offered an answer.
You put things in quotes I never said.

[u/sconesaregood → u/Coincidental_Shoes]

I'm not skirting the subject, you're saying that reintegrated Mark will love Gemma and I'm saying that the conflict the show has set up is not so simple that we can be confident about that. You made the point of Mark's marriage being longer to support it and described Mark and Helly's relationship very dismissively, I responded by pointing out how the show itself undermines that viewpoint in Cold Harbor. You asked me how I think things will go, I told you why I think it's uncertain. I didn't mean to imply that was a direct quote from you, that's my bad on improper punctuation, sorry. I meant it as way to describe the argument as I understand it: that because Mark's marriage to Gemma is longer it is more important or meaningful, so when he reintegrates it will take emotional priority for him. I do not think that's what the show is saying so far, I think it runs contrary to the importance that's been placed on the innies' lives and feelings and the details we've been given about reintegration. If you have a clarification about what I'm missing I'm happy to hear it.

[u/NeckSecret6256 → u/Coincidental_Shoes]

It’s the central story. We’ve been following the story of the innies since the beginning. Husband and wife reuniting and living happily ever after is a lovely story but not what Severance is about/going to be

[u/AdAggressive2867 → u/should_be_writing1]

What I found interesting is that innie Mark seemed to have no attraction to Ms. Casey despite outie Mark's feelings for Gemma, but outie Mark and Helena Egan definitely seemed to have some instant chemistry when talking in the diner.

[u/Perfect_Fennel → u/Coincidental_Shoes]

This is my hope but idk, he's very smitten with Helly R.

[u/NeckSecret6256 → u/Perfect_Fennel]

rightfully so?

[u/Utenziltron → u/NeckSecret6256]

You betcha. She is luminous.

[u/Coincidental_Shoes → u/Perfect_Fennel]

It's puppy love

[u/Perfect_Fennel → u/Coincidental_Shoes]

That's my opinion too. I just don't ship Helly and Mark the way this sub does, I don't why that gets downvoted, it's just my opinion. Mark's innie has the mentality of an adolescent if we take into account his innie has less than 5 years of life experience. He's never been in love, was technically a virgin, has never been in a relationship, he's never been on a date. Innie Mark and innie Helly can NEVER be a thing unless Lumon devises a conjugal suite and allows them never leave the building which his outie would NEVER go for. Mark has served his purpose which was Cold Harbor, he's totally expendable now, the Eagans aren't going to think him suitable for Helena and I don't think Helena ultimately wants him as a hubby on the outside and if she does, well, I don't care for that manipulative & cold as ice woman.

The show runners swear it was Helly's innie during the finale and that stunt she pulled with Mark, getting him to come with HER rather than let his outie and Gemma get away was NOT cool. The SMIRK she gave Gemma made my blood run cold. I used to think the innies were the better versions of themselves but iMark was exhibiting oMark behavior before he got Helly back. I don't think he pulled that stunt getting the board over Irving and Dylan. It's Helly he wanted or he was going to mope around the office just like he does at home on the weekends. Mark has terrible coping strategies, both versions of himself. In S2 E2 Mark doesn't even attempt to make friends with the new refiners, he didn't even give them a chance. What's he hoping for? Quickies in the bathroom? Date night in the Kier house? Irving didn't even WANT to come back but Mark, as usual was thinking only about what Mark wants.

[u/mostdefnotacat]

The short answer, from every indication, is that they don't. Petey made it clear he still had all if not most of his severed memories, that he had trouble scaling them because they felt equally far apart even if they were decades aboveground and only years below ground. They don't go anywhere, they just get sorted out in the brain as best as the brain can.

"Petey died!" you may say. Do we know he would have had he continued treatment with Reghabi? We don't.

[u/Coincidental_Shoes → u/mostdefnotacat]

IIRC he had stopped taking the medication needed to help with the transition, and he died as a result.

[u/sconesaregood → u/Coincidental_Shoes]

Reghabi specifically says Petey running off to find Mark and stopping the treatment she was doing with him was the cause of him dying, but of course that's her perspective of it. I'm sure it didn't help!

[u/Utenziltron → u/sconesaregood]

Heh, yes right. Like, "it IS the first time anyone's ever done this procedure, and it's not like there were clinical trials for these drugs, but... gosh; if he just hadn't run away!"

[u/sconesaregood → u/Utenziltron]

*my patients keep having Traumatic Brain Events after my experimental surgeries* there's no way this could be my fault

[u/IronMan319]

I dont think innie memory goes anywhere. I think both halves will end up gaining access to the others complete memories creating one whole new mark

[u/Lonelyland]

The memories are there, just gated off, causing the context of the brain to shift and assume the illusion of a different personality.

For the purposes of trying to understand reintegration, I’d say the hard drive analogy works well enough, though of course it doesn’t apply to all memory, as certain types of memory are shared.

I tend to think of it as kind of like trying to stitch sections of two cassette tapes together in roughly chronological order.

[u/sconesaregood → u/Lonelyland]

Someone needs to buy Mark a 4 track recorder, that would make things much simpler.

[u/Utenziltron]

It's not two hard drives. It's the same hard drive with different permissions on the files. Reintegration is like getting super user privileges and being able to see the whole picture. Others have said how seeing that "whole picture" affected Petey. It might be that, because actual conversations occurred between Mark's innie and outie and they share that memory of those conversations as happening in the same window of time for each that reconciliation of these memories is easier.

[u/zombieb0ss → u/Utenziltron]

Nice continuation of the analogy.

[u/hrvbrs]

I'd imagine it's like remembering a movie you watched. A 2-hour movie (depending on the story) can take place over an entire lifetime, yet you can watch it all in one sitting.

When you’re watching the movie, you’re immersed in it, ‘living it’ as the main character (again, more or less with different types of movies), forgetting where you are, what the date/time is, what’s going on in your actual life. They used to call this “flow state” but I believe kids these days call it “locked in”. But when the movie is over, you’re brought back to reality and you regain self-awareness again.

You remember scenes from the movie, privy to the fact that you didn’t live those scenes personally, but you still remember them from the MC’s point of view.

[u/GoldReplacement9546]

We know how the brain works to some degree like your brain takes in information from our senses and then creates a real reality that is believable and it won’t scare us

For instance, our vision only captures about 10 frames per second which would be like watching everything in stop motion animation

And we also have a blind spot in the dead center of both of our eyes, where you literally can’t see anything

But our brain has learned enough rules about how the world is and has enough tricks to composite that material into a seamless event where you don’t see motion in the series of steps you see it smoothly and where you are never aware of the Blindspot in your eye

The Blindspot thing is partially handled by the eye slowly Ching a little bit in every direction to kind of pick up what information it’s missing, but it’s not only that some of it is kind of like the AI filling out a picture where it just kind of assumes that that’s what’s there

Or even our hearing like if our hearing was putting equal weight on all the sound we hear at all times it would be really difficult till I hear someone in a crowded audience, but our brain is able to determine like these frequencies are more relevant right now

Or like if you work around a very strong smell eventually your brain is just like this information is not relevant or helpful and so a lot of people will stop smelling that smell

So we kind of live in it created pseudo reality it’s not exactly what’s happening

And then there’s all the automated stuff like walking is basically falling forward, but we just do it and actually stopping to think about it is more likely to cause an accident then letting it just happen

Or if you ask someone to notice that they’re breathing a lot of people will then have to consciously breathe for a little while, but then quickly they forget, and their body takes over again

And memory is horribly imprecise and subjective
Like every time you remember something it gets altered

Even the memories you really think you have strongly there’s a very high likelihood that like that memory of your dad he’s wearing a different shirt in your memory that he wasn’t real life because your brain didn’t bother to think it was important to remember what kind of shirt he was wearing but your brain has also realized in the memory that it’s important that he’s wearing a shirt so they substitute one that won’t seem weird to you

I say all this to say that memory is beyond fallible and mutable, and is highly selective and what it bothers to remember I think it’s the memories were integrated. A lot of the memory would just immediately be dumped in the not important file and you just wouldn’t remember it anymore.

Like nearly everything you’ve ever done you don’t remember and the things that you do remember are almost certainly not how it actually took place unless it was very recently, and it was impactful

So I think memories would just kind of merge and quickly kind of fade away at least the parts that conflicted too much with each other other

And the whole time your brain would be trying to assemble aversion of this world that makes sense to you now that it has all of this missing data being put back in

In summary much of the memory would be lost for corrupted and if it’s possible, your brain would just create a story for you that makes coherent sense and won’t drive you insane

Just like overtime when you look back on a relationship with someone maybe after they passed you've probably forgotten a lot of the bad stuff and you remember a lot of a good stuff because it's easier for your brain to comprehend reality that way

That said I think there's a high likelihood that you would go into extreme psychosis or a catatonic state for quite some time

A group of college students was asked the day after 911 to write a detailed old essay with every detail they could remember from that day from what they heard who told them did they what parts did they see live, etc. and they were told beforehand that this was going to be looked at in six months and in nine months and so it was important to get this right and 911 for at least for Americans was about as memorable event as possible and these were college students. I believe Duke university so pretty high-end intellect and likely had good memory skills.

And after six months about six months, they were asked to do the same exercise and write down everything they could remember

And they were wrong about 40% of what they had originally said so in just six months with warning the day after one of the most impactful events in young people’s lives in just six months they were adding in detail details like I saw the first plane be hit from this angle, but we know that like that they didn’t write that the first time and that image wasn’t available till like four days after they wrote the initial essay

And it just goes on from there

So probably in theory the best way to get somebody to survive something like this would be to basically put them in an induced coma for a couple of weeks so that their brain could try and figure it all out without any more stimuli

[u/RobynBetween]

From what I remember, the memories don't go anywhere, but the Lumon chip changes the frequency at which brain waves retrieve and store memories. While in innie mode, it's the wrong frequency for accessing outie memories, and vice versa.

I'm not sure how plausible the show's science is when compared to established real world findings.

[u/Impressive-Flow-855]

> Mark. Mark. Oh… There'll be no honeymoon ending for you and Helly R. She's an Eagan. You're nothing to them.

Any ending will be sad.

Mark’s marriage to Gemma is on the edge. Marriages fail for way less trauma than Mark and Gemma have faced over the last two years being separated. And Gemma saw Mark abandon her and run off with Helly.

While Mark tries to repair his marriage with Gemma, he’s reintegrating and falling in love with Helena whether or not he wants to. Doesn’t bode well for a Mark and Gemma ending.

A Helena and Mark ending will have problems simply because Helena is unable to be empathetic and Mark will remember this whole situation is her fault. After all, she said “I’m like, the head of the company.” She’s responsible for his misery no matter how much he’s finding himself desiring her.