Since I read this meta I can not stop thinking about it @ebaeschnbliah. (JOHN:
Yeah, well some people have that complex, don’t they – an idée
fixe.They
obsess over one thing and they can’t let it go).
I started looking carefully at the Triun Brain because it seemed to me an interesting idea. According to this theory we have three distinct brains, each with its different genesis and evolution, each with different functions, although being structurally and chemically different, they work together. The first, oldest, is R-cortex or Reptilian brain. From him depend the primary instincts of survival, such as feeding, reproduction, exploration, predation, and defense behaviors.
Then there is the limbic system, developed as a ring around the R-cortex. is able to develop adaptive strategies to address the environment. Finally there is the Conscious Brain, or Neo-Cortex. Is the house of conscious thinking and language, formulates strategies and new behaviors for deal whit a new and unexpected situations; is associated with self-consciousness, conception of space and time, the concept of causality, constancy, and synchronicity.
Obviously it was interesting because Mycroft was compared to a reptile, because he’s “i warry constantly”, because pass his time to scan the environment in search of dangers. Because he’s The Iceman, so he have a cold blood. The other two brains could adapt to Sherlock and Eurus in some ways, bringing together the three Holmes Brothers. Even the fact that the three brains had developed in three different moments could bring the concept of three brothers born in different time. However, while the features of the Reptilian brain fit well in Mycroft, they were less suited to the other two brothers, especially considering Sherlock as the middle brother, and Eurus as the most intelligent (as we have been told). In this way Sherlock was to represent the limbic system and Eurus the neo cortex.I imagine, however, the state of Eurus, as locked in a prison, makes it difficult to think that Sherlock (person, not part of the brain) could go around the world and be very intelligent and deductive.
But then I came across in the AMYGDALA.
The Amygdala is a very small gland placed right in the center of our brain. She is responsible for our basic emotions, such as anger, fear and instinct for survival. In most cases it is able to react before the cerebral cortex realizes what is happening. The amygdala causes a raw emotion, independent and not filtered by conscious thought. Emotions, like thoughts, are a product of our brain, is now a proved fact. The distinction between COGNITION and EMOTION between THOUGHT and SENTIMENT that has accompanied philosophical and psychological thinking in previous centuries is now overcome. Emotions are closely interwoven with our cognitive process.
When we become aware of a fact, we are able to perceive clearly the result of this new knowledge (I know/i remember), but we are unable to know how this knowledge came to us. This is because in the cognitive processes there is a conscious and an unconscious part and much of our mental life takes place out of our conscience. The thoughts we develop have to do with cognition but also with emotion. The fundamental difference between the two is that emotions, unlike the cognitions, always have an impact on the physical level as well.
The conscious experience of an emotion, its mental aspect is SENTIMENT and the ability to feel feelings is closely related to self-consciousness. Emotions have a close interconnection with memory, which is formed from an emotional archive. According to Le Doux, our brains model the memories mainly based on the emotion of FEAR. This process is called EMOTIONAL MEMORY.
To demonstrate this theory, he made an experiment called “Conditioning to Fear”. He locked a rat into a box with the bottom traversed by an electric grid. At the same time as a certain sound, an electric discharge was also started. The physical reactions of the rat were visible. It freezes, increased its blood pressure and heart rate. After some repetitions, the only sound was enough to induce the same reactions in the rat. Then the experiment continued with sound repetitions without electric shock. After a while, reactions to the fear of the rat diminished to the point of falling (extinction), but they never disappeared altogether. They remained part of the emotional memory.
The part most involved in the formation of our emotional memory is precisely the amygdala, which is thus responsible and archive of our emotional life. The amygdala can be controlled by the cerebral cortex, but the connections are stronger in output than in the input.
“In its most urgent form, fear can cause some kind of” neural sequestration “, that is, an explosive reaction in which neocortical circuits, albeit temporarily, are eclipsed by the intervention of the amygdala” (Le Doux, 1992).
Definitely to me this sends out crazy Sherrinfordish vibrations …
Eurus as amygdala, as responsible for the most raw and pure emotions. As a custodian of memory, lost because she is was suppressed.
MYCROFT (looking
at him):
Memories can resurface; wounds can re-open. The roads we walk have
demons beneath …
MYCROFT:
You do remember
her, in a way. Every choice you ever made; every path you’ve ever
taken – the man you are today … is your memory of Eurus. (x)
Sherrinford with his audio warnings and experiments, seems to be an attempt to awaken fear, a Conditioning to Fear. To bring back memories lost, because Eurus has the memory of Redbeard (sooner or later we will understand what the hell he is … I trust in the dog’s meta @sagestreet)
There is also the fact that even all three of the villains in history, Moriarty, Magnussen and Smith are somehow connected to Eurus or her manifestations.
We have Moriarty who meets her in person.
Magnussen who is like the therapist. He knows the secrets of people, has gray hair, glasses without frame, an accent, and even the same rug.
Smith is even the father of fake Faith.
Like any villain is the direct representation of a Sherlock’s fear.
Eventually Sherlock faces his fears,he becomes conscious of his emotions, ignored, locked because they are “crack in the lens (etc ….)”. Sherlock has always been emotional, incandescently emotional, and his heart (Mrs. Hudson) this knows. What he has never done is to be aware of his emotions. Once he is able to do so, only then,he can develop a correct SENTIMENT.
@raggedyblue ah thank you for this! I can’t remember if I commented on @ebaeschnbliah‘s original post, but I think Vermissa Valley of The Valley of Fear may be referring to the cerebellar vermis – and with all the brain scans at Sherringford, the shattered busts of Thatcher (bashed-in heads), both Moriarty and Magnusson’s heads were supposedly blown cleaned off…… fear and stimulus; that’s how it works 😱 (although I tend to be more optimistic in my reading of Sherlock and John, heh)……
Of course it is. And it first aired on 19th December, 1964. Interesting. Possibly just a coincidence, but the episode of Sherlock in which The Duplicate Man featured was The Six Thatchers for which the blog post is also dated 19th December. Yep. Coincidences are cool.
The Outer Limits was an American sci-fi series in the 60s (I feel like I remember watching reruns of it as a kid actually). The intro to each show was this Orwellian-themed voice over. Which possibly feels familiar to you.
Anyway. Just thought I’d share to relieve myself of needing to throw things. I suspect this cute old show has a lot more to tell us.
Here’s another question, why the hell would Culverton Smith show anyone the letter to begin with??? He could have just torn it up and Faith would have forgotten about it. It doesn’t make sense.
Moriarty was the person I thought of, too, @hufflepuffpentaholicinthebau. Especially given how the entirety of S4 was billed to be some sort of ‘showdown’ concerning him. I believe it was @loveismyrevolution that thought it was meant to be Mycroft? I’m still on the fence with just how ‘bad’ he might have been, but that is another possibility that I think might hold water.
Because your question, @sherlock-meta-collection is one that has bugged me as well. What exaclty was the point of ‘whomever’ it was giving the note to ‘Faith’? Culverton took the letter from the ‘real’ Faith (though, how do we know that really since TD12 compromises memory, and how did Sherlock know about that whole meeting? To recreate it on the street perfectly? Are we to infer ‘Faith’ described it in such detail?) So, Smith took the letter to keep his daughter from ‘remembering’ (almost a kindness, in his twisted way) But, then gave it to ‘fake Faith’ in order to have Sherlock come after him? WHY? And how did Smith and ‘fake Faith’ know each other in order to be of use to one another??
All this is to me is another case of Sherlock re-using events, playing them out over and over in his head because haven’t we had this sort of thing before?
HOLMES: One small detail doesn’t quite make sense to me, however. Why engage me to prevent a murder you intended to commit?
It never made sense that distraught Lady Carmichael went to Mycroft for help with her husband, who then sent her to Sherlock in order to prevent his murder by ‘the bride’ only to actually go through with it herself. It didn’t make sense because Lady Carmichael didn’t kill Sir Eustace.
So, why would we believe Smith had, in a roundabout way, asked Sherlock for help in ‘preventing’ more murders?
(Pre-warning, this got a bit longer than I had intended)
@monikakrasnorada I also think that most, if not all of S4 is taking place in Sherlock’s head/MP. Even before I heard about EMP, I always got the feeling that the note in TLD was somehow from Sherlock and the deductions he was supposedly making about Faith, he was actually making about himself:
SHERLOCK: Well, you’ve changed. You no longer top up your tan and your roots are showing. SHERLOCK: Letting yourself go?
Says the scruffy, unkempt Sherlock who is usually immaculately dressed and primped.
SHERLOCK: Oh, of course you don’t own a car. You don’t need one, do you, living in isolation, no human contact, no visitors.
Remember what John just told his therapist in the beginning of the episode?
JOHN: I haven’t seen him. No-one’s seen him. He’s locked himself away in his flat. God knows what he’s up to.
Then, Sherlock goes on to deduce:
SHERLOCK: Cost-cutting’s clearly a priority for you. Look at the size of your kitchen: teeny-tiny. (He walks past her towards the right-hand window then turns back to her.) Must be a bit annoying when you’re such a keen cook.
Says the man that, although his family seems to be wealthy, needs to have a flatmate for some reason, and so far as the small kitchen/keen cook goes, I’ll just submit these stills from later in the scene:
Then, later when Sherlock and Faith are sitting at the bus stop eating chips
SHERLOCK: You see the fold in the middle? For the first few months you kept this hidden, folded inside a book. (He looks at it closely. Beside him, Faith is eating from the carton of chips on her lap.) SHERLOCK: Must have been a tightly packed shelf, going by the severity of the crease. (Brief flashback to the folded piece of paper being put inside the pages of a book.) SHERLOCK: So obviously you were keeping it hidden from someone living in the same house at a level of intimacy where privacy could not be assumed. (As he speaks there’s a flashback of a hand putting the closed book back in its place on a shelf amongst many other books.) SHERLOCK: Conclusion: relationship.
This is referring to when John was living with Sherlock in 221B. So if the note is real, Sherlock kept it hidden away.
P.S. Does anyone else think that those hands look like they belong to Benedict Cumberbatch???
Also, that shadow sure as shit looks like Dr. John H Watson by the way, and I think others have addressed this fact, but I’m not sure who at the moment.
(More under the cut, this got reeeeeeeaaaaalllyy long)
So, there are some of the Sherlock
comparisons, but what about the note, what exactly is the note and what is it
trying to tell us? That’s where I’m having a difficult time. I have noticed
that there is a list/note theme in the show (others as well, I think there are
even meta’s, but I’ll have to check later). We have the conversation between
Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock in TSoT:
MRS HUDSON:
Your mother has a lot to answer for. (She takes the cup and saucer over to him.)
SHERLOCK: Mm, I know. I have a list. Mycroft
has a file.
And of course the many instances of list
conversations in TAB:
MYCROFT HOLMES:
You’re in deep, Sherlock, deeper than you ever intended to be. Have you made a list?
HOLMES: Of what?
MYCROFT HOLMES: Everything.We will need a list.
And in the “real world” on the plane:
SHERLOCK: Maybe there are one or two things that I know that you
don’t. (He looks across to Mycroft, who returns his gaze.)
MYCROFT (pointedly): Oh, there are. (He
pauses for a moment.) Did you make a list? (Sherlock has looked away again and is chewing on a thumbnail. He
turns to look at his brother again.)
SHERLOCK: You’ve put on weight. That waistcoat’s clearly newer than the jacket
…
MYCROFT (angrily): Stop this. Just stop it.Did you make a list?
SHERLOCK: Of what?
MYCROFT: Everything, Sherlock. Everything you’ve taken.
…
MYCROFT (his face turned away): We have an agreement, my
brother and I, ever since that day. (Sherlock bites his lip. In a cutaway flashback, a much younger
Sherlock is lying on a mattress on a floor. Nearby, candles are burning in
bottles. Sherlock is writhing and grimacing under the influence of the drugs
he’s taken. Mycroft, apparently in his early/mid-twenties, is sitting on the
mattress near his brother’s feet and now reaches down to a piece of paper lying
next to Sherlock’s legs.)
MYCROFT (voiceover): Wherever I find him … (In the present, Sherlock closes his eyes.
In the past, Mycroft picks up the piece of paper and unfolds it to read it
while his young brother continues to writhe in agony.)
MYCROFT (voiceover): … whatever back alley or doss house … (In the present, Mycroft sinks back in his seat.)
MYCROFT: … there will always be a list.
I am not sure exactly what to make of it, but
it does seem to me that Faith’s note actually looks like a list. If you try to
imagine for a minute that you don’t know the story behind Faith’s note
It says:
Police Office
Judge
Broadcaster
Me
I need to kill
someone
Who?
That looks like a list of people that someone
needs to kill, and notice that ME is crossed out in blood, like the person has
chosen to kill themselves from the list.
I don’t have concrete conclusions, I just
wanted to put down all of my thoughts on Faith’s note. I will have to clean
this up later and make a proper meta out of it.
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