INFINITE JEST ( DAVID FOSTER WALLACE) AND THE OWN STIMULATION OF THE REWARD CIRCUIT

 

His head immobilized with some straps, the test Subject had viewed the Entertainment

twice at gratis, without the application of any motivational inquiry. For inquiry

into the degree of motivation the cartridge will induce, M. Broullîme had

rolled himself blindfolded into the room of storage holding an orthopedic saw

and informed the Subject of the test that, as of beginning now, each subsequent

reviewing of the Entertainment now would have the price of one digit from the

Subject’s extremities. And handed the Subject the orthopedic saw in question,

also. Broullîme’s explanation to Fortier was that thus a matrix could be created

to compute the statistical relation between (n) the number of times the Subject

replayed the Entertainment and (t) the amount of time he took to decide and

remove a digit for each subsequent (n+I) viewing. The goal was to conrm with

statistical assurance the Subject’s desire for viewing and reviewing as incapable

of satiation There could be no index of diminishing satisfaction as in the

econometrics of normal U.S.A. commodities. For the samizdat Entertainment’s

allure to be macro-politically lethal, the ninth digit of extremities had to come

o as quickly and willingly as the second. Broullîme, personally he had some

skepticism about this. But this was Broullîme’s function in his role in the cell:

expertise in combination with skepticism de coeur

There were some interesting talks in the last ´Pint of Science´in Seville. I attended at one by the doctor Esperanza Rodríguez called ´Everything I like is illegal, inmoral or makes you get fat´ like the tittle of a terrific song by Pata Negra. In this talk, Esperanza told us about the Olds and Milner experiment, which was very important for studying the brain circuit of pleasure. In this famous experiment, some rats had access to a button directly connected to an electrode that activated the pleasure in their own brains. The rats pressed the button up to 700 times per hour and even some of them ended up dying because they gave up eating.

In this post, we are told about an extreme and gory versión of that experiment: to mutilate oneself a finger whenever you want to see again this samizdat or Entertaiment, which is the McGuffin of this amazing novel.

 

THE GHOSTS RIDERS OF ORDEBEC (FRED VARGAS) AND ORINE AS FERTILISER

 Lucio nodded, seeming to appreciate the macabre balance sheet, and uncapped the beer bottles, levering them against a branch.

‘When you piss against it, you’re damaging its roots,’ Adamsberg protested, ‘and now you’re tearing off its bark.’

‘Not at all,’ Lucio retorted indignantly. ‘Urine’s full of nitrates, best thing there is for compost. Why d’you think I piss against the tree? Nitrates, that’s why, did you know that?’

‘I don’t know much, Lucio.’

 

In this case, folk wisdom is near the truth, because human orine contains urea, a substance that is produced industrially as a fertilizer. In 1828 Whöler was able to synthesize it artificially in a laboratory for the first time, messing up the vitalist theory. This theory defended that certain compounds were only able to be produced by living organisms

This Lucio is also right about nitrates, because the urea is a nitrogen compound whose symbol is CH₄N₂O