The Doctor and copying made visible
This week's episode of Dr Who was v different from the norm: rather than fancy sets and special effects, it relied on humans and the oddities of human behavior in a simple and contained group context. The Doctor finds himself trapped on a 1 room space tourist ship with a bunch of earthlings.
The plot turned on a number of Herdy kind of things (like how easy it is to fall in line with what those around you are feeling and acting or how unreliable our accounts of our own behaviour are post hoc) but the central device that drove the alien possession plot was this: how spooky it is when somebody repeats what you say (repeats what you say) – everything you say (everything you say) and then starts (starts) to (anticipate what you say…)
In other words, when the copying mechanism that shapes so much of our lives is made visible and intentional, we get that uncanny feeling. It seems to be important that each of us sustain the impression that we are in control of our own destiny – that we are capable of escaping The Other [Freud]. Have you ever been on a date with someone who's done their NLP sales training?
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