Mind Screw/Other Media: Difference between revisions

* The [http://www.maydaymystery.org/mayday/ May Day Mystery], an uncategorizable and indescribable series of bizarre documents, possibly the coded annals of a conspiracy. Sure, it could all just be an (insanely) elaborate hoax, but [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic]]?

** If you squint and turn your head it kind of looks like an [[Alternate Reality Game]].

* [[Fan Fiction]] quite often drifts into this trope, either by being so full of personal in-jokes and/or bad grammar that it might as well be written in Sumerian, or simply by having a writer who enjoys playing with his/her readers' heads.

** Clearly you don't hang out in writing groups, because original fiction has this problem as well. It's just more pretentious than dumb, is all.

* [http://samehat.blogspot.com/2007/06/abstraction-by-shintaro-kago_26.html What.]

** To clarify, that's [[Same Hat]], a (mostly) defunct blog that covers a variety of [[Mind Screw|mindscrewy]] topics, but mostly obscure anime and manga.

{{quote|''"It has been reported that some victims of violence, during the act, would retreat into a fantasy world from which they could not WAKE UP. In this catatonic state, the victim lived in a world just like their normal one, except they weren't being raped. The only way that they realized they needed to WAKE UP was a note they found in their fantasy world. It would tell them about their condition, and tell them to WAKE UP. Even then, it would often take months until they were ready to discard their fantasy world and PLEASE WAKE UP."''}}

* [[Richard Feynman]] once quipped: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics - you don't understand quantum mechanics."

** This makes slightly more sense when you realize that "observe" in this context means "bounce another particle off of it"; it doesn't have anything to do with whether a person is observing, only whether or not any other particles are interacting with the electron.

* The theory of relativity: Classical mechanics is incredibly intuitive and elegant: location, distance, speed are all unambigous, time is the same for everyone, etc. It's also wrong, because the time and space just doesn't work that way. Simultaneity is relative, time can dilate and distances contract. And thats just Special Relativity. Its big brother General Relativity is a lot more mind-screwing than that.

** Category theory has gained quite a bit of respectability among mathematicians in recent years, partly because of its applicability to computer science (not just Haskell, but all kinds of things). The Monad in question is actually a straightforward implementation of the category-theoretic concept, so the category theorists are to blame for the nomenclature, was influenced by Leibniz. Haskell isn't so much a mind screw itself; it just points up how much of a mind screw programming is when reduced to its essence.

*** Haskell ''is'' straightforward - as long as you've never tried programming before. Once you get used to it, it makes a lot more sense than, say, C. Most programmers are just too used to thinking about things the way the machine does them, rather than following an intuitive logical process.

** If you think that Haskell is a mind screw, try using Lisp. The parentheses alone will drive you insane. The fact that the language only has one type (functions) will also generally throw programmers unfamiliar with non-object oriented programming into fits.

** The esoteric language Homespring, on the other hand, was pretty much intentionally a mind screw. It might have been created to make a language higher level than anyone could ever need or want. The name? It stands for Hatchery Oblivion through Marshy Energy from Snowmelt Powers Rapids Insulated but Not Great. And a paradox is explicitly defined within the official language documentation, just to make sure no-one manages to fully implement it.

** [[wikipedia:Brainfuck|Brainfuck]].

* Then there's Complexity Theory (aka Ramsey Theory), which is at least as old as Chaos Theory and is the counterpart to it; it states that, given enough data, it is impossible for there '''not''' to be some kind of pattern to them. (Which of course doesn't signify that said pattern "means" anything...)

* Also, the work of the French philosopher [[Jacques Derrida]] (notable for founding [[Deconstruction]]) is nearly completely composed out of Mind Screws '''and openly admits it'''.

*** Taking about philosophy: [[Friedrich Nietzsche]]. His philosophy might be totally non-coherent, but academics across the philosophical realm treat his quotes as [[Serious Business]].

* The religion of Discordianism, which either inspired ''[[Illuminatus]]'' or was inspired by it, claims to have a long-running project to undermine consensus reality known as "Operation Mindfuck". They also cheerfully admit they might be lying about it.

** Really? It makes complete sense to me. Some people have difficulty envisioning three-dimensional space, especially when trying to draw it on paper, which is inherently two-dimensional. ''True'' 3D space, even if we look at the world around is, is a difficult concept--we have up, left, right (and all the angles between) but rarely do we think of "down". Space makes all direction basically nil; or rather, direction is relative to your starting point. It gets into infinity and spacetime and how everything you thought you ever knew about anything is false when it comes to infinity. [[Sophisticated As Hell|Or something.]]

** As a game programmer, this always made sense to me: negative = going "into" the screen, further away from the camera, while positive = coming toward it.

* The [[wikipedia:Banach-Tarski theorem|Banach-Tarski theorem]] states that any ball can be divided into pieces and reassembled into two balls the same size as the original. ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' offers an [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2339.html explanation] in (almost) layman's terms as to how this is possible. {{spoiler|It isn't. It only works with mathematical abstractions, not actual objects}}.

* e^iπ - an irrational, transcendental number raised to the power of the product of another transcendental number and an ''imaginary'' number - equals ''[[Shocking Swerve|what now?]]''

* Done on the Belgian talk show 'De Laatste Show'. One of the guests asked "Can I mind screw my kid?" He then turned to the camera and said "Oh, look. Daddy's on the screen, but he's also right next to you on the sofa. How can that be?"

* Happens [[On This Very Wiki]] with the [[Third Person Person]] page. How many of the [[Real Life]] entries are posted by the person they speak of?

* Why nobody ever mentioned Zen Koan? It is to make you achieve enlightenment by Mindscrews.

** What did your face look like before your parents were born?

** Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?

*** [http://buttersafe.com/2007/08/09/consulting-the-master/ This apparently].

* Ever think about parallel universes? Most would have completely different sets of physical laws, assuming "laws" are a viable concept; or even if "concepts" have the capability to exist. Or if existence in itself is warped beyond human comprehension. And the worst thing of all, is that all these crazy, otherworldly, incomprehensible laws all makes sense within that universe, it all conforms to that universe's rules or "laws". Just thinking about it makes your head hurt.

* Anything related to time theories. To further the point, look at the [[Back to The Future]] Game by Tell Tale Games and tell me if it's not confusing. {{spoiler|1=How did Doc get back to1930 if the DeLorean was taken by Edna?}}

* Dreams. The ones that make sense are perhaps the least common.

* LIFE ITSELF.

** The assorted tabletop works of Jenna "[[Nobilis]]" Moran, AKA Rebecca Borgstrom, have received this kind of reputation, to the point where rpgnet defines "[http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Borgstromancy Borgstromancy]" as 'The ability to understand a complex, outlandish, or badly explained setting or system well enough to run a game based on it.'

* [http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/60-completely-unusable-stock-photos This collection of stock photos].

 

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