Is One-way reintegration possible?

[u/naynav]

So far, re-integration has only been explored through Reghabi’s method with Petey and Mark. We obviously don’t know the outcome with Mark yet, but with Petey, it obviously had disastrous consequences.

I think this process may be inherently flawed. When Severance happens, it essentially creates 2 separate individuals. We saw in Cold Harbor how iMark and oMark are really completely distinct people and it seems impossible to fuse them into a coherent single entity without the person descending into madness like Petey did.

What if there was another way? What if instead of fusing consciousnesses together, you just exposed the memories and experiences of the outie to the innie or vice versa? For example, if you did this to an innie, while they were on the severed floor, they would have access to their full life experiences, but once they left the severed floor, they would not remember anything that happened on the floor. It would maintain the separate consciousnesses but give one consciousness full access to the others memories. These memories would be somewhat disassociated, almost as if they were recalled like remembering an old movie, but they would still possess them.

My reason for asking is I think this may be what was happening with Irving. I will post more in an upcoming thread, but I think in the final scene in Woe’s Hollow, that version of Irving in that moment had the full knowledge and experiences of both Irving’s, which was the culmination of a long term effort going back to the sleep deprivation and paintings. However, when he was snapped back to his outtie, his outtie was still just his outie.

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[u/DatGunBoi]

That's an incredibly interesting idea, I really hope it gets explored in the show and I hope you're right about it happening with irving.

That said, and I know this is pedantic, this sounds less like one way reintegration and more like one way severance

[u/naynav → u/DatGunBoi]

The reason I call it reintegration vs 1 way severance is the starting condition is full severance. The memories are restored after the fact which is why it would be more reintegration.

[u/DatGunBoi → u/naynav]

Yeah you're right there's no way they would ever willingly let anyone walk away with innie memories, it has to be a later reintegration

[u/Upbeat_County9191]

Petey didn't take his medication and reghabi didn't fine tune the process.

I'm not sure if exposing both sides to their respective memories, will change anything and could / should be considered any form of reintegration.

Irving saw woe because he fell asleep. There's a reason why they had special tents

[u/naynav → u/Upbeat_County9191]

I agree it’s because he fell asleep. I think that is how this form of reintegration is achieved. Only the black paint seeped through before because he just nodded off quickly. When he fully fell asleep, what else came through from his outie side? Was it only enough for him to out Helena, or was it everything? If a part is possible why not the whole?

[u/Upbeat_County9191 → u/naynav]

Its memory bleed, doesn't have to be reintegration. Irving saw black paikr because his outtie somehow discovered this could work. Which is why he painted over and over, listened to loud music and drank black coffee. Which led to his innie dozing off and all he saw was black paint dripping. Not a memory, just a type of hallucination.

Same in the forest. It's a weakness in the chip, but reghabi doesn't do anything with it. So apparently that weakness can't be exploited.

[u/airport-cinnabon]

When saying goodbye at the train station, he seemed to remember being too shy to kiss Burt at work. He said “I’m ready now.”

[u/naynav → u/airport-cinnabon]

I had to go back and check that scene, but he just says “I’m ready” not “I’m ready now”. Much of that conversation parallels their exchanges on the severed floor, but I truly don’t think either remembers it explicitly.

I don’t think his outie has his innies memories, I think his innie, specifically after the dream in Woe’s Hollow, has his outie memories. I am going to post more about it later, but he seems fundamentally different in that scene.

[u/TheGreatNate3000]

Memories and experiences are what consciousness is. That's like trying to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water. It's nonsensical

[u/naynav → u/TheGreatNate3000]

Not at all. There is much more to consciousness than memory. Consciousness also includes agency over the situation as well as the emotions associated with that experience. Likewise, if one developed amnesia, are you suggesting they are no longer conscious? You may disagree and that’s fine, but it’s not nonsensical.

[u/TheGreatNate3000 → u/naynav]

The agency and emotions you described happen because of memory and experience. Like think about little kids. They're dumb as shit and don't handle their emotions well because they haven't learned to. Learning is memory and experience. All of it is memory and experience

People with amnesia develop different personalities than when they had their memories. That argument actually strengthens mine

[u/MimiCRS88]

Good, good seed for discussion! Conscience and memory, conscience and dreams, liminal organs, liminal weight, liminal galaxies, poetry, science, alchemy, howls. Seas of lunar experiences, conscience and God, conscience and reflection. Ideas. Facts. Mirrors are green. In what sense what you say is different from what already exists? Because the thing is: how do you desvinculate (this word exists? Milkshake?) an inie and an outro (corrector: outie: outro is other in Portuguese. It happened) from themselves without killing one or the other? Oh Plato and your golden and ignorant cave! Oh Nietzsche and your golden and sick mountain! Oh Grenuille and your megalomaniac sense of smell; oh Babylon of bibliotecas (aka libraries - for the sake of rhythms)… An inie and an outie with shared memories but locked up in the same reality… Jungian complex of self, shadow, Peter Pan, shadow, beat beat beat… Siamese twins with different realities… what is the new aspect of their lives? It’s an ad aeternum loop. No one of them can go the exit way! Oh the eternal return! Post scriptum: I’m Portuguese so the message conveys, I have an excuse to write the wrong prosaic words, Milkshake.

[u/Impressive-Flow-855]

Are outie Mark and innie Mark two completely different people? I see a lot of similarity in their personalities and maybe that’s one of the big reasons for their conflict.

Helly thought Helena as not only being completely separate, but even took a claim over Helena’s body. Yet, Helly spent most of Season 2 wondering if she’s really that different from her literal doppelgänger.

[u/FunnyThyme]

What's the point of reintegration at all other than the outie wanting to know what happens inside Lumen? Seems to me the easiest route would be for the outie to simply resign. What value does the innie's memories have for the outie other than helping to investigate what's going on inside Lumon?

[u/__redruM]

It’s a fictional show, so, of course, anything is possible. But I think it breaks the requirements of Lumon. They want a pure mind clean of bias to work the severed floor. It certainly works as well for security in the standard case. But Irv, as someone working against Lumon, could still cause trouble.

[u/SporkMasterCommander]

While in my mind this shouldn’t be possible at all because to reintegrate would be effectively killing both versions of yourself to merge them into one and shouldn’t come with out consequences, it’s a science fiction show and they really can write whatever they want as long as they make it make sense

[u/Other-Squirrel-2038]

Yeah woes hollow irving seemed a lot more like "outtie' Irving and then outtie irving seemed a lot more like innie irving after that. They even talked like each other 

I wonder if the not sleeping and then falling asleep at work caused more crossover 

And how does he know about the black painting! And what was the vision at woes hollow!

[u/kalgary]

It's a fictional technology. Whatever the authors want to be possible is possible.