Rewatching Severance S1 and imagining what the experience would be like, (For those not familiar with the show a fictional procedure is available where one can separate their brain so their work life and home life minds are completely severed. When leaving work you have no memory of any type of what occured AT work, none. And vice-versa when arriving at work you have no memory or knowledge of your life on the outside), I figured the time spent at work for the outside person’s mind would be similar to sleep. You sort of go unconscious for 8 hours.
Which brings about the hypothetical question:
If you had the option to either have a current Monday-Friday life mix of 8 hours sleep, 8 hours personal time, 8 hours job and were instead offered for your same salary a M-F mix of 16 hours sleep, 8 hours personal time would you take this offer?
No, because no matter what your job is like you have at least some moments in your own head. But if you are severed, 8 hours a day are just gone. You are cutting out chunks of your effective lifetime.
(At the risk of hijacking, I find the life of the innie more interesting/horiffic. Imagine being at work effectively 24/7, never sleeping. That would have to have severe psychological issues.)
This, to me, is the equivalent of asking if you would trade a quarter of your lifespan in exchange for not having to go to work. No, thanks.
So, so often, I solve complex work problems in my personal time. I work in software dev.
Often, a difficult problem becomes clear in my head when I am driving home, hiking on a mountain, lying on a beach. So technically I am “working” outside my paid hours, but fuckit, I am making my “work” life easier.
I am willing to give that time up in exchange for the times when I am in the office but goofing off or gossiping.
I absolutely agree - I spend much of my time watching this show thinking the exact same thing. “How have they not gone insane yet?! Can they at least provide a fig leaf of exposition that “outie-time” is effectively the same as sleeping for the innie?”
Finger traps and that coveted as fuck egg bar.
I have assumed that the time that the outie spends sleeping has a consistent physiological benefit for both the innie and the outie.
Physiological, yes, but what about psychological? Imagine a life where you work 8 hours, walk to an elevator, step in, immediately step back out, and walk back to 8 more hours of work. Endlessly.
I dunno, what’s the difference between that and a perfect night’s sleep, one where you zonk out the second your head hits the pillow and wake up only when the alarm goes off?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had a sleep that was so instantaneous and oblivious that you can’t tell that it ever happened.
But it isn’t. There is no time gap, nothing that tells the innie (or outie) that time has passed. The elevator door closes and immediately opens again. The innie doesn’t know if it’s been 10 seconds, 16 hours, or months.
As for the hypothetical, I would absolutely be happy to give up awareness of my time at work. It’s not the same as cutting 1/3 off your lifespan; it’s skipping over the part of the day that I’d be happy skipping.
But I would never actually do it, knowing what it means for the innie.
In my experience, that’s exactly how general anesthesia feels. One moment you’re zoning out, and the next you’re in a different room with different people and somehow they’ve already put a cup of water in your hand. Just feels like a missing piece of time. And very unlike, as you say, normal sleep where I can sense time has passed.
No. I have no desire to mess with my own mind like that or create another person that suffers in my place. I’d rather die than spend my life working at a job I hate so much that I want to sever my brain.