The Corporeal-Dualistic View of Plurality

Introduction

Unlike many members of other plural groups, and unlike some of my colleagues in this system, I fundamentally have a corporeal view of this system. This is not to say that we 'are' the body in any absolute sense -- we are not -- but that we and our worlds are neurally generated. I do not relate to this body in the same way I would one that matched my own personal perception of myself, but I still cannot say that we arrived here through 'astral methods' or anything similar. It just doesn't square with the evidence that exists.

Connections

I believe that we developed affinities to particular histories, genders, ideas and interests, and as we spent more time at front, they solidified and gradually came to make more sense. This is not to say that we 'began as one consistent person' or that we did not have separate traits at the beginning, but all of us had to go through developmental processes at the front. At the beginning, we were merely a fissiparous collection of consciousnesses who had not attached themselves to any defining ideas yet. As we developed, we started to identify with the traits that defined us as distinct from each other and distinct from the body. In essence, it was numerous people undergoing the same sort of development that any young child would, but with separate trajectories because we are plural. It was a form of asynchronous development that exhibited asynchrony in number, as well as the other traits that caused our childhood development to be defined by dyssynchrony. It is fundamentally a neurological difference that should not be discounted because it is not necessarily the same as what other people experience. I believe that most people experience some sort of separation, but for plurals, it is profound enough that the result is different complex persons, rather than aspects of one highly complex person.

I believe that soulbonding may work through a similar mechanism: there may conscious persons  within the brain who have a strong affinity to whatever character they identify as. I am not sure, though, and do not want to make claims that do not describe the experiences of others adequately. I am not a soulbond, nor am I a soulbonder, so I cannot speak for them.

This is not to say that I do not believe in Fenspace, our internal world. To me, it is an extension of our developing affinities to certain ideas. I cannot say that we constructed it deliberately, but it could have developed neurally to become a context for ourselves and our individual backgrounds. The same applies to memories related to Fenspace. Just because it is neurally generated does not mean that it does not exist. I am far too attached to my life there and my history there to think it so.