“See what I mean?”
“Ok. So you had a dream about this place. Tell me.”
“Well, [ahem] it’s the second one I’ve had. But they’re both the same. They start out that I’m in here. But it’s not day or night. It’s kinda half night, y’know? But it looks like this except for the light. And I’m scared like I can’t tell ya. Of all people, you’re standing right over there, by that counter. You’re in both dreams and you’re scared. I get even more frightened when I see how afraid you are, and then I realize what it is. Behind this place, there’s a group. It’s the Dorset Reality Group. They’re the ones who are doing it. I can see them through the wall. I can see their faces. I hope that I never see their faces outside a dream.”
“You know that Townsend is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dorset Reality Group. It’s like their showroom. The FIELD, any simulations, it’s all courtesy of them.”
“Holy shit. No wonder everything is so fucked-up.”
“You’re telling me. Here, I’ll show you. Look at this. I have a copy of one o’their contracts.”
“How’d you get that?”
“Don’t worry bout it. See? They’ve been around since 1975.”
“Whoa. That’s so weird.”
“I know. What were they doing back then?”
“Research and development?”
“I guess so.”


Investment Services and Management
We have earned an enviable reputation for providing quality and effective asset management, commercial marketing, and investment services. Dorset Reality networks with many professional associations in related industries to enhance and expand both our information and services, for the benefit of our clients. Our proven ability and high level of service will enhance your long term operations and performance.

A. Dorset Reality adheres to the Professional Code of Ethics of the Reality Board.

B. Dorset Reality prides itself with its attention to proper maintenance. We oversee staff, contractors, and service trades to ensure that they are conducting their work properly. We can provide preventative and long-term maintenance programs which will be monitored and followed-up by our managers. Our managers and professionals utilize all of the sophisticated technical tools available in order to provide effective reporting, and to enhance our marketing strategies.

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D. We shall assist in preparing an Annual Operating Budget with realistic objectives for required operations.

E. We will assist the client(s) in obtaining comprehensive insurance coverage. The cost of the coverage shall be discussed in detail along with other general insurance issues. We are able to obtain very competitive Insurance Coverage Programs from the insurance firms with which we deal.

F. The management fees for our services are very reasonable. Our management fees are usually based either upon a percentage of the income to be earned by the client, or are set as part of a projected Annual Budget.



“Ethics of the Reality Board my ass.”
“Yeah, they’re probably like, ‘A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.’”
“Right. ‘A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.’”
“HAHHAHAHaaaa. Heh.”

-a broad study concerning the character structure of modern humans and the problems of the interaction between psychological and sociological factors

I want to inhabit a reality that does not exist. Where are the smoke-filled rooms brimming with intrigue? No simulation can cure these symptoms of absence. My life is meaningless. Perhaps others can see meaning in it, but I cannot. It’s funny in a way because I wouldn want JMac to kill himself. In fact, I’m constantly havin to talk him out of it. From a third-person perspective, suicide is horrible. It’s horrible to think that someone you know couldn’t find a reason to stay alive any longer. If he completes the act then one can’t help wonderin, “Was there something I could’ve said or done to change his mind?” I truly do want JMac to stay alive. He’s livin proof of rehabilitation. If JMac can stay good then any human can. I feel better bout the world jus knowin that he’s in it now.
But from a first person perspective, life feels awful. I mean it. I never feel whole. I always have Davidson’s theory of truth, which requires a theory of reference in order to get at meaning.
“Yes, yes, gentlemen, the damn libido,” he said.
Henry Corbin replies, “It is a matter of perceiving the same SIGNS together; it is a matter of each one of us on each occasion interpreting them according to the meaning of his own being, but it is also a matter of constituting a harmonious hermeneutics of signs.”
The Builidng-Block method isn’t helpful because it blurs the distinction between the meaning of a word and the meaning of a sentence.
“The whole affair is great sport for you, of course - it doesn’t matter to you.”
Henry Corbin again, “And this, at bottom, is only opening the living spring of unconditioned SYMPATHY, the sympathy that, existing before our deliberate and conscious purpose, causes the grouping of human beings.”
Is Davidson defending a kind of instrumentalism regarding satisfaction?
“Vesicular.”
Corbin, “The result of the response to that sign was the meeting of acting, autonomous individualities, each in complete freedom revealing and expressing his original and personal way of thinking and being, outside of all dogmatism and all academicism; a constellation of those wills, and a constellation of the worlds that they bring with them, that they have taken in charge by putting them into the present...”
Davidson interrupts, “What we can observe is the sentence, not the individual references.”
I say, “How do you separate the word from the sentence?”
“But the director gets a noseful, believe you - muffled - believe you me.”
Corbin is still going on, “... A composite whole, a structure, not a result conditioned by the laws of the period or by fashionable crazes, but a whole made strong by its one inner and central norm: a woman’s generous, energetic, tenacious will, that of Mme Olga Froebe-Kapteyn, every year propounding a new theme and thus inviting to a new creation.”
We understand the whole in terms of the parts but this doesn’t mean that the parts get their meaning independently of sentences.
“Can I help it if phthisis is accompanied by increased concupiscence?”
Referential relationships do not stand on their own independently of the sentence.
“Slight roughness?”
Fodor takes the atomistic view that words get their meaning independently of sentences.
“I didn’t arrange things this way, but before you know what’s happened you’re running a cathouse.”
Does Davidson’s view lead to anti-realism?
“Diminished under the left shoulder.”
Davidson agrees with Quine that reference is inscrutable, though for different reasons.
“We provide analysis, a chance to talk things out - and a hell of a lot of good it does.”
Kretschmar has entered the examining room without anyone noticing.
“I advocate mathematics. Better here, the old sound is gone. Keeping onself occupied with mathematics. Better here, the old sound is gone. Keeping oneself occupied with mathemateics, I say, is the best medicine for cupidity.”
Kretschmar’s presence has not affected the attending physician’s countenance in the slightest.
“A bath, Room 117- private - and post a guard,” orders Kretschmar while putting on her glasses.
“The more the rhonchial pack talks things out the more lecherous they become. Prosecutor Paravant, who was severely afflicted, threw himself into math - he’s busy squaring the circle these days, and it has greatly eased his problem. But most of them are too dull-witted or too lazy for that, God help them. Vesicular. You see, I’m quite aware that young folks go to the dogs all too easily here, and I used to attempt to take occasional measures against their debauchery. But then one day some lad or lover looked me straight in the eye and asked what business it was of mine. And since then I’ve been only a doctor. Weak rattling, top right.”

We will be exploring several topics related to language and health, including a very close examination of depression and language. We will be looking for linguistic markers of depression that occur before the individual is aware of the depression. Also, we will be examining gender differences in daily writing and the implications of those differences in working memory.

“Say that again.”
“The research reported in this paper... it shows promise...”
“And will be described next?”
“It doesn’t matter... and then in parentheses ‘Chapter Two’. The problem is when I read Chapter Two, I don’t have a clue. But it’s an empty title. Write a new one: Preliminary, Initial Study, My Follow-up.”
“But I can’t have that many titles. I want the title to be the title of the manuscript. But the whole damn paragraph is telling you.”
“If yer telling me in Table 1... But Table 1 is not a meaningful title. That’s it. “
“Alright, well lets just figure out... Cut out all that preamble... across the studies and things like that.”
“That might help. Yeah, that’s not bad. Yeah, just step back.”
“What? Step back? I try to... Didn’t think about my dissertation at all... contaminate... it actually worked out really nicely... If they make it here... Ohmygod it’s ridiculous... I didn’t see that before... be in the same orientation.”
“The landscape page... This is the portrait. Is it this way or this way?”
“Yeah, that’s how I did it. My concern is... the amount of time... section one... preliminary section where we analyse. So there’s that whole section.”
“When’s this due?”
“A week. I need a plan. I need a plan. The problem that I see with it... remembering prior actions and the next paragraph is saying specifically, retrospective memory has never been tested. We’re gonna show the results as we did before... Prospective memory is usually like this... measured... the new data... Data revamped? Recycled? Who’s doing it? This is what I mean. This paper is in your hands.”
“Still working on it. And I hope I’m gonna be feeling good enough to do some work. As soon as I have that discussion part I’ll send it to you. Then there’s only the introduction.”
“Polish that up. And I’m absolutely right on the ball and go from there.”
“I’m thinking to really get this done... over the weekend.”
“You’re not allowed to be sick! Not right now.”
“And so... yeah...”
“Doctor’s apartment.”
“So tell me... conference call. That one, 1:30?”
“Yeah, tentatively.:.”
“Yeah, remember this is the new deal.”

“HOW could you have put Carey on the moon?”
“I believed that she needed a different environment.”
Kretschmar really is yellin at me. I’s funny, cuz she never yells, like, never. She’s always in complete control of her emotions.
“You put her on Earth’s moon, at least, right? You didn’t put her way out in Jupiter’s orbit or something, did you?”
“I fail to see how it would really make a difference.”
“Right. Right. You really do fail to SEE don’t you. Just happened to choose one of our most heavily sponsored female subjects for orbit. Do you have any idea what kind of risk factors go along with that sort of thing?! You do, don’t you! I know that you do. What were you thinking?”
“It’s only a simulation.”
“It doesn’t MATTER. You know why? Because CAREY won’t know the difference. CAREY doesn’t know the difference between simulation and reality. That’s why she’s here in the first place!”
“Exactly.”
“What do you mean? This is going to screw up ALL of her levels. All of our studies with her are fucking ruined now. What could you possibly mean?! Are you trying to fuck with me, Dr. X? Are you? Because let me tell you something: the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. Just keep that in mind. Keep that in your strange fucking mind for as long as you can.”
First she walks away. And then she runs away. The smell of her sweater hits me suddenly like ape-scent gloriola.