Conversations - Introductions

There is something of a trick to having a worthwhile imaginary conversation, and that trick is not to be talking to yourself. Well, I mean aside from the inescapable aspect of anything imaginary being fundamentally all contrived from something within yourself. Because if you have one version of yourself talking to another identical version of yourself, you’ve got to assume that the conversation is going to be just deadly dull... Or maybe that’s just me. I don’t mean to project. I just mean to say that what works for me is to converse with distinct albeit imaginary personalities.

So, with that understanding in mind, allow me to introduce you to Imaginary S.

S gives a smirk and a wave.

Right. So that leads me to pointing out the obvious aspect of Imaginary S that the word “helpful” doesn’t spring to mind in terms of the top-10 adjectives I’d use to describe her. Actually, I suspect that Imaginary S is probably a few shades more adversarial than the Real S, but that’s just how my perspective works out.

Imaginary S is an extrapolation of how I think the Real S thinks, and feels, and exists. I actually have a mental simulacrum of everybody in my mind, though my model for most people is not much different than one of those toy birds that uses thermodynamics to keep bobbing its head into a drink of water. What’s interesting is that I can’t claim to understand everything that is actually going on. I like to think that I am pretty good at predicting what the Real S might be like in a given situation, but I don’t really know all the internal mechanisms or reasons why she is the way she is. When I guess wrong, which is often enough, I try to reassure myself that she sometimes doesn’t understand herself either.

Also, I’d like to insist that Imaginary S is not an expression of how I wish or necessarily want the Real S to be. The main point of Imaginary S, as pertains to my mental model and these conversations, is that it is my best possible prediction of what the Real S might be like. And I’m not quite foolish enough to mistake the real power of a predictive model, and ruin it by biasing it towards what I personally prefer.

Or, at least, I mean to do that as little as possible.

In terms of setting, regardless of how I might fix the location of the various stories of the Conversations, they’re all being written in December of 2005 with the intention of being given to the Real S as a Christmas gift. So, sweetie, I’ve written this just for you, and is essentially my attempt at giving you something personal.

Anybody other than the Real S reading this: you’re doing so only because she wants you to be able to. Or you’ve acquired this work by nefarious means, in which case you will be subject to The Curse Of The Malicious Writer. And what legal counsel he can muster.