>>24460041[continued]
It is through the magic of removing certain aspects of mental life, projecting the consequences of cognition in the absense of these aspects, and forming a hypothesis about the political structure of the virtual or fictional world, that the copying or reproduction of mental phenomena takes place. The basis for this is the primary removal or elision: that of political life. The characters have no political consciousness, social change has ground to a standstill, and the government encourages escapism. This has the quality of demoralizing the reader, and the impact of Mr. Dick's work was so profound that William Gibson created the characer Case of Neuromancer to illustrate the profound effect of the written word on the mind. It is through neuroscience that Mr. Dick's work manages to create mental states that mimic the intoxication of drugs. We find a mental engineering at the intersection of narrative and neuroscience that interfaces with non-proliferation. It is through the unconscious mind that governs our behavior that we connect the political implications of non-proliferation to violence, action, cognition, motivation, and so on as they relate to the characters in the novel. In short, non-proliferation places a burden on the mind that needs relief. By following the characteristic patterns of mental activity of the characters, we are able to let off some steam and create new worlds of possibility in the real world. This new possibility exists because we are consuming something safe, something we know will be compatible with the political landscape of the real world. In short, we have a sort of heat sink that allows us to offload some mental activity, thus fundamentally altering the structure of the brain.