Thanks so much for reading AFTER Life, Purgatory. Writing the NEXT Apocalypse Series, I thought a lot about the science of subjective experience, the intricacies of consciousness and the brain, both in fiction and non-fiction.
Which brings us to the heady topic of the worms in our brains.
It’s fascinating if you’re brave enough to face the dangers. Brain parasites are scary, particularly the possibility that they can affect human behavior. There’s a good chance you are infected with toxoplasmosis. Estimates of the infection range from a third to half of the world’s population. France and Germany are hotspots, with up to 90% of people carrying the parasite. You are, I hope, asymptomatic.
This is somewhat controversial but it’s something to consider. There is some evidence that toxoplasmosis which may turn men into distrustful rule breakers and women into extroverts. (It’s not all good news for women. Infected females give birth to children who have a slightly higher rate of schizophrenia.) Toxo can also speed the deaths of the immunosuppressed.
Another study suggested that toxo could contribute to neurosis in a large segment of the world’s population. Male motorcyclists tend to have it more often and, for both sexes, the infection may increase their odds of dying in a car crash three to four times. Might explain a lot, huh?
Most of my readers live in the United States. The rate of infection in the U.S. is currently estimated at 11%. (Good news? Well, you’ve probably read enough of my work by now that you grok the dark context non-fiction feeds to my fiction.)
But what about the Observer? Who is really running your brain?
That research is a slick science fiction concept that isn’t so much fiction when you look closer. Neuroscience researchers have demonstrated that decisions we think of as “conscious,” actually arise from elsewhere. Using brain imaging, they could predict decisions made by their test subjects before the subjects were aware of the decision.
We don’t understand anyone’s subjective experience scientifically. It warmed my heart when someone suggested that such questions were better left to poets or novelists. Hey! That’s where I come in!
I hope you are enjoying Daniel and Chloe’s journey down this particular zombie-infested rabbit hole. As I noted in the AFTERword to AFTER Life Inferno, I wasn’t sure how I’d write another tale in this genre. This Plague of Days was epic and global in scope and I didn’t think there was more to say. I’m a pantsing panther, not a plodding plotter. (Translation: I didn’t work from an outline for this series. I knew where I wanted to end up but I discovered the way as I wrote.)
You’ll discover what comes next (or what becomes of NEXT) in AFTER Life Paradise. See you on the other side.
~ RCC
August 2018
PS As always, if you dig what I sling in The NEXT Apocalypse Series, please leave a happy review wherever you bought this book. Cheers!
