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The second season of Apple TV’s phenomenal hit Severance has held many surprises, but the biggest may be its growing similarities to a dystopianesque novel by C.S. Lewis. Will this season end more or less like that book? With less than a week to go before the season two finale, I’ll risk a guess. But first, a refresher.

Warning: Spoilers galore.

Background

Season one of the mind-bending psychological thriller/mystery/dystopian/alternate-reality drama opened in 2022 with a simple but compelling premise: an international corporation had invented a brain implant that severed a person’s work memories and consciousness from his home memories and consciousness, allowing its “severed” employees to enjoy lives free of office drudgery but dooming their work selves to know nothing else until the “outies,” as the outside selves are known, retire and their work-only “innies” wink out of existence.

What would happen to a self split in half in such a way could itself have provided more than enough material for an interesting series. But viewers soon find that something more sinister than morally ambiguous brain surgery is going on at Lumon Industries. The severed employees work on an isolated, underground floor, kept under constant watch, doing jobs that make no sense while earning incentives (pencil erasers, finger traps) of no value.

Exactly what Lumon does isn’t clear. Nor are the cultish religious and health beliefs of its owners and workers. Seemingly a fictional mash-up of typically quirky American religious movements such as Mormonism or Scientology and of companies affiliated with stringent but also typically American religious and health practices like Kellogg’s or Amway, the show’s mysterious company is the creation of equally mysterious founder Kier Eagan, whose face adorns every office like a crucifix in a Catholic hospital and whose writings employees study as if reading the Bible.

Kier’s key spiritual teaching seems to be that every soul is a mixture of four temperaments—malice, frolic, woe, and dread—and that correctly mastering them through intense physical and mental techniques is the key to personal and work success. What his key pharmaceutical discoveries were is never mentioned, but everyone knows that current CEO Jame Eagan invented the Severance Procedure, which is used at company locations around the world despite vigorous public opposition.

Over the course of the first season, viewers followed four severed employees who made up the entire department of “macrodata refinement” at company headquarters in the far north town of Kier. The only thing the “refiners” know about their strange job scrutinizing and organizing sets of numbers on their antiquated computers is that it’s “mysterious and important,” and all they know about their work lives is that if they deviate from the cheery, office-appropriate behavior they are expected to display, they will receive severe psychological consequences. But if they excel, one of them will win the most coveted incentive of all: the quarterly Waffle Party.

Two of the refiners get particular focus. Mark S. (severed employees have no last names), is promoted to department manager after the mysterious departure of the previous manager, his best friend, Petey. Helly R., Petey’s replacement, reacts to discovering she’s a severed employee with outrage, first trying to quit, then attempting to kill herself, and finally trying to help the others let the world know that severed employees aren’t happy, they’re caged animals.

Outside, in the town of Kier, where it’s always winter but never Christmas, Mark Scout is a young widower who took the position so that some part of his life would be free of crushing grief. Helly’s outie, viewers learn at the finale of season one, is Helena Eagan, daughter of Jame Eagan and heir to the company. She is working on the severed floor for reasons unknown. It’s a big reveal, but the shock for both innie and outie Mark is that his wife, Gemma, is still alive, working (until very recently) on the severed floor as Ms. Casey, Lumon’s “wellness expert.”

Other intrigue and weirdness—such as Mark’s mysterious living situation on a street of company houses that are all empty except for one ominous neighbor; the grim Kier art collection and the macabre reality of the Waffle Party—were left unresolved at the cliffhanger ending. Thanks in part to the Hollywood writers’ strike, season two didn’t begin until this fall. As it progressed, so did unexpected parallels with C.S. Lewis’ 1945 novel That Hideous Strength.

Parallels

The book is the third, and most unusual, in Lewis’ highly unusual Space Trilogy. Unlike the first two, which are set on Mars and Venus respectively and which depict a dying world whose inhabitants never fell and a new world whose first inhabitants are in danger of falling, the third is set on Earth and concerns a titanic simultaneously spiritual and terrestrial struggle for the future of the planet and its inhabitants.

The parallels between the two stories began in season one, but many were not apparent until season two. In That Hideous Strength, the leaders of the N.I.C.E. are not actually in charge. Instead, they answer to a mysterious “Head” whom they never see and whose orders they dispense. In Severance, the top employees of Lumon are not in charge. Instead, they answer to a mysterious “Board” no one ever sees. Represented by an intercom, the Board talks—if it really talks—to one employee, who listens on an earpiece and conveys the Board’s orders.

The plot of That Hideous Strength centers on young professor Mark Studdock and his wife, Jane, a graduate student. Mark is hired to do a job that makes no sense by the National Institute for Controlled Experiments (N.I.C.E.), a mysterious corporation buying up and, ostensibly, “improving” a small British town by remaking and running it on purely scientific grounds. At the same time, and despite herself, the aggressively secular and “modern” Jane finds herself joining a band of religious people opposed to the N.I.C.E. and its real, much darker aims.

In season two of Severance, we learn the following: Mark Scout and his wife were young professors before Gemma’s supposed death; “Mark S.” was hired to do a job that makes no sense by Lumon, the main employer in the company town; and before her supposed death, Gemma had become interested in—and had possibly adopted—Kier’s daily spiritual and physical practices. Those practices now dominate her life in a secret wing beneath the severed floor—in between experiments “severing” her consciousness into more and more discrete parts, each of which is subjected to odd demoralizing treatment that amounts to psychological tortures.

Fertility is a key theme to both stories. In That Hideous Strength, Mark and Jane are an unhappy couple who refuse to have children. Neither is likeable or sympathetic, but both had, until recently, been fun, attractive, and in love. In Severance, Mark and Gemma were a happy couple who wanted very much to have children. Although both had withdrawn in grief and confusion after miscarriages and failed fertility treatments, Mark’s survivor’s guilt after the car crash had driven him to behavior that made him unlikeable and unsympathetic. But previously, both had been fun, attractive, and in love.

Read the Whole Article

The post That Hideous Severance appeared first on LewRockwell.

Not long ago, a Google engineer created a stir in the world of artificial intelligence by claiming that its flagship chatbot was sentient. “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” said Blake Lemoine.

“I know a person when I talk to it,” Lemoine told the Washington Post. “It doesn’t matter whether they have a brain made of meat in their head. Or if they have a billion lines of code. I talk to them. And I hear what they have to say, and that is how I decide what is and isn’t a person.”

Google thought that Lemoine was driving out of his lane and put him on paid leave and later sacked him. Google spokesperson Brian Gabriel commented: “Our team — including ethicists and technologists — has reviewed Blake’s concerns per our AI Principles and have informed him that the evidence does not support his claims.

The fact is that many people are quite anxious about the growing power of AI. If it could become conscious, might it act independently to preserve its own existence, possibly at the expense of humans? Or are we creating intelligent beings which could suffer? Are we creating intelligent beings which could demand workers compensation for being badly coded? The potential complications are endless.

No wonder Google wanted to hose down the alarming implications of Lemoine’s views.

So who is right – Lemoine or Google? Is it time to press the panic button?

Defining consciousness

Most writers on this issue just assume that everyone knows what consciousness is. This is hardly the case. And if we cannot define consciousness, how can we claim AI will achieve it?

Believe it or not, the 13th century philosopher Thomas Aquinas deployed some very useful concepts for discussing AI when he examined the process of human knowledge. Let me describe how he tackled the problem of identifying consciousness.

First, Aquinas asserts the existence of a “passive intellect”, the capacity of the intellect to receive data from the five senses. This data can be stored and maintained as sense images in the mind. Imagination and memory are all part of these sense images.

Second, Aquinas says that an “agent intellect” uses a process called abstraction to make judgments and develop bodies of information. The agent intellect self-directs itself and operates on the sensory imaginations to make judgments. A body of true (that is, corresponding to the real world) judgments becomes “knowledge”.

Third, the will makes choices regarding the information presented to it by the agent intellect and it pursues goals in an actionable manner.

This leads to a working definition for consciousness: consciousness is the awareness of the cognitive and decision-making processes, including the steps involved in acquiring, evaluating and applying knowledge. A person is said to be aware of their sense of sound, sight, smell etc., aware of their feelings, aware of their imaginations, aware of their judgments, aware of their knowledge, aware of their choices. Consciousness is and can be included in all or any of these steps.

Can AI become conscious?

When we compare the different levels of the human cognitive and decision-making processes to Artificial Intelligence it’s easy to spot big differences.

External experience. Humans experience emotions together with the acquisition of sense knowledge.  AI simply acquires data. This emotional component adds to the knowledge of humanity in a way that computers can’t.

Sense images and memories. AI excels in recall and data retrieval, far surpassing human capacity. In this area AI excels, without a doubt.

Agent intellect. Humans actively direct their thoughts and they abstract concepts from the raw sense data. This process is self-directed and autonomous. AI merely reveals patterns of information; it is not self-directed. The pattern is the result of an algorithm which has been programmed by a human.  AI activity is prompted first by human inquiry.

Choice and will. Humans make conscious decisions with goals in mind, while AI does not exhibit characteristics of personal choice or intentionality.

AI exhibits behaviors associated with intelligence—memory recall, summarization, pattern recognition, prediction capabilities—but it lacks the element of self-direction which is characteristic of humans.

AI does not generate its own thoughts; it merely responds to its programming and responds to whatever it is prompted to. AI does not experience emotions conjointly as it gathers sense data which is merely installed into the computer.

Sometimes AI does seem to generate novel thoughts, but this is dependent on data that it already possesses and is the result of a learned pattern.  Humans can reflect on their thinking. This allows them to correct themselves without external prompts. Humans can develop concepts that are not dependent on sense data.

In short, AI merely simulates human cognitive and volitional activities.  This means it is not conscious.

Final Thoughts

Proponents of AI consciousness often fail to define consciousness adequately before making claims of AI consciousness. From a Thomistic perspective, human consciousness is multifaceted, involving perception, intellect, will, and self-direction.

To my mind, the most significant difference is found in decisionality. AI does not make the personal decisions which are a clear indication of consciousness.  AI, while powerful in data processing, does not exhibit those core attributes that define human consciousness.

When I ask an AI chatbot a question and it states that it has other things to do and will answer tomorrow, then I will revisit the question.

The post Could AI Become Conscious? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Biden judge Tanya Chutkan orders EPA not to obey a presidential order to terminate waste, fraud, and abuse.  Chutkan was admonished by the US Supreme Court last June for ignoring presidential immunity and rushing a politically motivated case against Trump just prior to election season.

Biden judge Ana Reyes ordered the Defense Department not to enforce a presidential directive to ban transgender people from serving in the military. No Democrat judge blocked the Biden Defense Department’s order to put promotions of white heterosexuals on hold while transgendered, homosexual, and blacks were promoted in their place.

Obama judge James Boasberg ordered planes in flight deporting dangerous immigrant-invader gang members to return the illegal aliens to the US.   President Trump called for the lunatic judge’s impeachment, and Republican Supreme Court justice Roberts (no relation) upbraided Trump.

Boasberg’s order is especially egregious as is Justice Roberts upbraiding of Trump.  It seems neither  Boasberg nor Roberts are sufficiently competent to know that the US Supreme Court has previously ruled that deportations under the Alien Enemy Act are not subject to judicial review.

I predicted that the judiciary would be the main obstacle to American renewal.  So many incompetent and unqualified people have been put on the bench that the judiciary is an obstacle to governance.  So many judges have been put on the bench because of where they stand on liberal causes such as abortion and who use judicial rulings to legislate their personal preferences that the institution of the judiciary is a dangerous threat to the United States. The only solution is to ignore the corrupt judiciary, or perhaps they should all be removed and we start over.

The US judicial system is so cumbersome that an appeal of a ruling against a president can take longer than a presidential term.  This makes it so easy for ideological judges to prevent governance. 

The post The Judiciary Is Attempting To Seize Executive Power appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Chaos Monkeys are so masterful at distracting and confusing us with sensory-digital overload, we’re not even aware of the game until the extortion begins.

Chaos Monkeys excel at distraction and extortion. They appear suddenly, leaping about in disorienting mayhem, selecting their targets among those dizzied by sensory overload and confusion.

They may appear harmless, until they grab something of ours that is valuable or even essential, and then extort something they value in exchange for what they stole from us.

Monkey steals tourist’s phone, negotiates for food in exchange

Here’s how the extortion works in the larger world: you buy an accounting software program, and over the years you dutifully upgrade it from time to time, storing all your financial data in the program.

Enter the Chaos Monkeys: you can no longer buy the software, now you must rent it via a monthly subscription.

Wait–did you just grab my data, and are extorting me to pay you to get it back?

Yes.

Chaos Monkeys don’t offer you higher quality goods or services; they take something away from you and extort a payment if you want it back.. This is–along with addiction–the business model of this era: take something away from you and then extort a payment to restore it.

Distracted and disoriented by the chaos around us, we cave in to the extortion. What’s being taken from us comes in many forms. The durability of basic appliances has been taken from us, and the extortion payment is “extended warranties.” Wait a minute–didn’t this product once have a multi-year warranty? Not any more. Now you have to pay extra for a warranty.

The problem with the Chaos Monkeys Business Model is deeper than its crassness. The problem is the Chaos Monkeys Business Model erodes trust in the system, as everything is either designed to addict us or become essential enough that we can be extorted to pay more for what was once standard.

The extortion is so blatant that it reveals the true nature of our economy and society. As with purposefully addictive products and services, we’re nothing more than profit centers to the addiction dealers and the Chaos Monkey extortionists.

One trust is eroded, the system starts collapsing under its immense weight of chaos, addiction and extortion. When everything is a con of one kind or another, then what’s left? In terms of a functional social order, nothing.

This originally appeared on OfTwoMinds.com.

The post Here Come the Chaos Monkeys appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Ginny Garner:

Lew,

Documents were withheld yesterday from the 80,000 pages of documents released by ODNI. They were withheld under court seal for grand jury secrecy and must be unsealed before release. The National Archives and Records Administration is working with DOJ to unseal these records. 

See here.

The post Documents Withheld from JFK Files Release appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Responsible Statecraft

The post The Israeli-American Trump mega-donor behind speech crackdowns appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks,  John Smith. 

Free Speech Center

The post Trump campaigned as a protector of free speech. Critics say his actions as president threaten it appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks,  John Smith. 

The American Conservative

The post Mahmoud Khalil, Viewed From the Right appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Jacobin

The post Trump’s Pro-Israel McCarthyism Is Already Boomeranging appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Independent

The post ‘Just another nothing burger:’ Internet sleuths blast JFK files as some label it a ‘distraction’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Federal Judge Seeks To Defang DOGE appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Responsible Statecraft

The post 16 yrs ago, Chas Freeman was smeared out of a job at DNI, too appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Responsible Stetcraft

The post Mr. Trump, you would’ve been lucky to have Dan Davis on your team appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Responsible Statecraft

The post When anti-war protesters are called national security threats appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

RT News

The post ‘This isn’t war. It’s genocide’: Why the world is silent about massacres in Syria appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm. 

Lifesite News

The post JD Vance defends American workers, blames 40 years of globalism for US deindustrialization appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Ginny Garner:

Lew,

Reaction of the Mary Ferrell Foundation from its president Jefferson Morley on X:

Here’s the statement of the Mary Ferrell Foundation from me, the vice president of the foundation, about today’s file release.#JFKFilesRelease #JFKRecords @InfoMferrell

“The first JFK files release of 2025 is an encouraging start. We now have complete versions of approximately… pic.twitter.com/Ptq4qf1a1D

— Jefferson Morley (@jeffersonmorley) March 19, 2025

The post Reaction to JFK File Release appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks Gail Appel.

Last night.

The post The Road To Damascus appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Gail Appel:

See here.

The post Imam O appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel writes:

But they don’t pay their NATO obligations, prohibit the most popular party from holding sway, continue flooding Germany with those who align with the Islamist Supremacist terror regimes and JD Vance is the Nazi.

Yet were expected to protect Germany.

Trump is right. The hell with the EU.

See this.

The post Germany sends 300m to the new Syrian “Government” days after 7000 Alowites and myriad ethic minorities were slaughtered appeared first on LewRockwell.