Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c808IR // #c808Synthesis

The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh.

— In our words · Source: Neuromancer (William Gibson)

[Use when]

Use when a character who despises the physical is trapped inside it. The punishment fits the philosophy.

[Why it matters]

The elite stance of the console cowboys is contempt for the flesh, until the flesh is all they have left. The mind wants to be bodiless, but the body is the only thing that can be punished.

More from Neuromancer

#c806The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.Use when you need to establish a world where the medium has replaced nature. Open on the signal, not the sky. #c807Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught…Use when building or explaining any shared virtual space. Sell the agreement, not the hardware. #c809For Case, who'd lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, it was the Fall.Use when designing consequences that actually land. Find what they worship, then remove exactly that.