Cyborg Culture

Now the upside of technology

2007-05-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

I had plenty of time to think this weekend, on my way back and forth to southern Missouri for a friends wedding. In the twenty-two hour round trip drive I though about the amazing things that we now have thanks to technology. Just being able to make that trip down and back in a three day span was in thinkable before that advent of the car and the interstate highway system. A friend that I rode with left his wife and little girl who wasn't feeling well at home and he was able to check in with them any where we were, amazingly we never lost cell signal the whole trip. And third I thought about the tornado that wiped out the Kansas town, with out the new early warning radars and forecasting systems many more lives would have been lost. I have to admit as much as I fight technology, preferring the sound of an LP to an mp3, even I have to admit that technological benefits outweigh the disadvantages, at least for the time being.

Technology invading our life

2007-05-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

We have talked a lot about how our lives have been taken over by technology. I was thinking over the weekend about the new prevalence of webcams. For decades now we have been able to watch images of people and things on TV, but these have always been studio manipulated in some way. Now we have the popularity of the webcam, we still see the images but there is no longer any manipulation. I have a friend who lives on Lake Butte des Mortis and he has a camera that looks out over his deck and lake, and with this you can see day or night what is going over his portion of the lake. I don't know how I feel about this, it is nice that his family back home in Canada can see what is going on in his world, but what happened to calling and talking and telling the story of what is happening. I fear that we are turning into a world of voyeurs and losing our storytellers. Garrison Keillor where are you when the world needs a story.

“Come to the wired as soon as you can…”

2007-05-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

Considering my ambivalence towards humanity, especially the primitive human body still bound by countless needs (sleep and nourishment) and urges (sex and violence) I am really intrigued by the idea of disembodiment or an a corporeal entity. The concept holds some interesting connotations in relation to the problem of travel across infinite space. Regardless of how fast a space vessel could move journeys to other star systems would still require several decades at least and most likely a few generations. Quite an inefficient means of moving from point A to point B, but if the human psyche could be translated into a set of data and transmitted as a wave to their destination; we are no longer bound by the body (space) or time. As a result, within Schild’s Ladder those who choose to travel embodied are typically the target of humor, since it would be akin to someone walking from Boston to San Francisco even though they are more than capable of buying an airline ticket.

Convenience within travel aside there are two sides to consider in relation to embodiment. In one sense it would be wonderful to no longer be bound by the restraints of humanity and have the power to create any image conceivable of oneself. This to me would allow perfect expression of individualism for one could choose their gender and small physical traits; however, such a scenario would possibly allow some of the dangers seen in Snow Crash brought forth into reality, namely some of the ridiculous avatars in the metaverse or an infinite amount of Clints and Brandys. Furthermore, the question of post humanity exists, in such a scenario are humans even human anymore or is it that humanity has transcended to “post humanity”? I have no attachment to my humanity and would be willing to see a giant tomato conversing with a talking reproductive organ in the street if it meant I could live as an a corporeal and choosing to become embodied allowed for the freedom of choice. Yet the connotations of change are still justifiability frightening for some.

Tran...ssi....omme..ing

2007-05-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

Just some thoughts on the idea of transmitting oneself.

Assume for a second that it is really possible to transmit a person to another planet (person being defined as a qusp here). Is it therefore possible to either disrupt the transmission, or even intercept/kidnap that person? If the transmission is disrupted, does the person lose parts of their memory? Could the person conceivably die? And what about the potential of kidnapping a transmission? Not that there would be much value in doing so, as these transmissions take many (hundreds) of years to reach their destinations, but it is conceivable that someone could attempt to build their own slave force of captured people. I've been watching Street Fighter II V lately, and the antagonist group Shadaloo (pron. Shadow-law) implants chips into unwilling people's foreheads to assume complete control over them. Could that be done to captured people? Is it possible to make a qusp that allows someone to control the mind of the person occupying it?

Given the context of the story, these situations are unlikely to occur. There has been no major war for a long time. Life is generally peaceful. But these are things that would need to be considered should something like the qusp come into being. Also, what would being transmitted feel like? I don't think I could stand being in a complete null for hundreds of years. I think LIVING 100 years is long enough; this would probably drive me insane, because I couldn't do anything. If it was like being in a comatose state, then I would probably have no issue with it, as I would just wake up 500 or however many years later. If I had to retain consciousness for that entire trip...that would drive anyone insane.

Brave New World

2007-05-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

For the analytical paper I chose to do Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. I know many of you have probably read this book before, but I would like to share a part of my paper that refelcts what it means to be human according to Huxley's novel.

First, to explain the book a bit, the "State" has decided to exert power over reproduction by engineering millions of human embryos via test tubes, etc. The Centre they are created in also conditions them as they grow upwith such means that are similar to continous brain-washing. Tarter Esch (one of my sources) puts it that these humans are "mangled from conception onwards...they've been pressed, shaped, molded, cut, bottled, and packaged at every state of their development (more like manufacure)." Even as adults they are being manipulated by the state, but at this point, their existence has already been determined for them both physically and almost mentally. Ultimately, the novel shows that these humans are created and controlled by the state, and are not even given a chance to live their own lives. (Their is A LOT more to it, but you'll just have to read to find out:)

My point in all this is...what is imporant to discuss when analyzing dehumanization, especially when considering this phenomenon of a cyborg culture, is what it means to be human. Tarter Esch believes "the notion of freedom is central to the notion of what it means to be human" and "if to be human is to be a free, independent, individual, rational and autonomous and creative being, then the humans of the Brave New World are clearly under attack, nearly defeated." Tarter Esch holds a strong point in relation to Huxley's novel because there are instances that discuss freedom and the human being. For example, one of the characters Bernard Marx wonders what it would be like "if I were free-not enslaved by my conditioning" (Huxley 91).

And it's not only the conditioning that takes away these created human beings' freedom,' it's the technologically manufactured products, such as soma, that puts civilization in unthinking and uncaring states. In perspective, John, the only character in the novel that the reader sees as "naturally" birthed and completely against this form of society, tries to dispose of the drug and "free" the people who are slaves to it. However, the world Huxley has presented is, as another of my sources James Schellenberg describes, a society with "a state of mind...that puts happiness into a materialistic paradigm, and them uses it as a method of control, justifed as what people want." John in the novel opposes this notion and thinks as human, it is wrong to get "rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it" and that everyone has "the right to be happy" (Huxley 238-240).

These are just some of the ideas from my paper that discuss how this particular author sort of represents his idea on what it means to be human. (Like I said before, there's a lot more to it!) Freedom, moreover, was an aspect Professor Ganyard said many of our papers brought up on the issue of what it means to be human, and my paper was one of them so here I presented a bit more on that idea.

Raven?

2007-05-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

So I finished Snow Crash a while ago but I am a bit confused on what was up with Raven, especially at end. In chapter 20 we find out that the Enforcer, and everyone else who knows about him, is trying to protect Raven. Apparently, he's "packing a torpedo warhead that he boosted from an old Soviet nuke sub...a nuclear torpedo." Squeaky goes on to tell the clueless Hiro that "the trigger's hooked up to EEG trodes embeded in [Raven's] skull. If Raven dies, the bomb goes off."

I thought this was an interesting little twist to the story, and I pondered how they were going to defeat the dangerous and destructive murderer...because you know this is a bool were the good guys prevail at the end. However, I noted the part where Hiro defeated him in the Metaverse and killed Raven there, saving all the hackers (another great part in the novel). But, in chapter 70, Raven in the real world is having a battle with good old Uncle Enzo. Well...it seems Enzo defeats Raven with the skateboard's "RadiKS Narrow Cone Tuned Shock Wave Projector" and Raven is standing "stunned, empty-handed, a thousand tiny splinters of broken glass raining down out of his jacket." I'm just curious as to what's going on here...did Raven just get "stunned," or did the glass shards injure him, ir did Enzo actually kill him. As I look over it again it would make sense he is just stunned, but what happens if and when he does die in relation to the bomb that's connected to his life? This was just something I found myself wondering about, especially the events at the end of the book involving Raven (and how about his little ordeal with Y.T.?...what the heck was that?)!

Snow Crash

2007-05-03T16:58:00.001-07:00

I actually enjoyed this novel, mostly because Neal Stephenson presented such vivid characters with actual depth. The reader is able to figure out the characters for the most part without being told. You can see their development and growth as characters. I love it when authors do this, but I have found a trend that many science-fiction authors focus more on what is happening in the world because of technology, rather than the characters. As a result, the characters are one dimensional, at best, perhaps two dimensional. Stephenson however gives his characters so much time in the novel that they are able to become three dimensional.
I found Stephenson outlook on the future very bleak, especially the "Sacrifice Zone". It is sad when the world because so caught up in money that parks, even national ones (or state was it?), are not worth the price of fixing up or restoring to their previous condition. However, considering that the U.S. at this time has become city-states controlled by corporations and criminals, it is realistic to assume this would happen.
The metaverse in this novel seems to be like the matrix universe in that film. Although I have never seen Matrix, I know that it is a movie about a virtual reality world controlled by robots. Here, the difference seems to be that people know about the virtual world and can control it themselves to a certain extent. Overall, I found the humor sprinkled through out this novel to come at a time when things were at its worst, indicating that the author may have been worried about the future, but was also hopeful about it as well.

Mumbo Jumbo

2007-05-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

I definitely have to stick with Josh on this one...I really didn't get the book (Schild's Ladder), and didn't enjoy it enough to put the effort into digging deeper into it. There really seemed to be no real story or plot line, or maybe there was, but Egan used so much scientific jargon that it was buried in a mess of robotic sounding mumbo-jumbo. In most of the other selections in class, the authors made it possible for a layman, like me, to skip over some of the more scientific terms and still have a feel for what was happening; Egan did not.

Also, the other books in this class, in one way or another, have all drawn out some kind of emotional response, or made me feel sympathy or compassion for the characters. In attempting to fathom how the themes depicted in the books might play out in our world today, I began to actually get quite involved in some of them. Being someone that really deliberately tries to stay away from science fiction, this was really saying a lot for me. I did not have any sense of this after reading Schild's Ladder, however, and it was kind of a let down to finish the class with a sour taste in my mouth. The characters seemed cold, disconnected, even emotionless at times. While I realize that this is a science fiction novel about future computer technologies and quantum physics, etc, etc, I was still hoping for some sense that these charaters had some humanity buried in them. That must have been lost under the heaping pile of mumbo-jumbo as well.

In conclusion, I wish the "Mimosa Station" had referred to some sort sort of Sci-Fi bar or club, because that's what I really needed when I finished this book...a drink!

The human computer

2007-05-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, we all know how I feel about being able to extend life. Other than the fact that it would be completely boring to live that long...well, that's the only real drawback I guess.

The idea of this qusp seems like they turned the human (such as it is in the book) body into something of a computer, akin more to an Apple 2e than what we use now. My understanding is that these bodies can not function without a qusp, and the "user" can determine what kind of body he/she/it wants, much as a computer shopper can determine what kind of hardware is necessary to serve his or her purposes.

Ghost in the Shell anyone?

Bodies seem to be nothing more than computers that can run a program that acts as an intelligent being. Take the qusp out (or transmit yourself) and the body ceases functioning. Done with that planet? Recycle the body so another can be made. Nothing more than a useless box.

Here's a better question, and I may have missed it in the reading; What if the qusp was destroyed while it was occupied. What happens to that person? Sure, a local death may cause the loss of a few hours of "life", but what happens when the main essence of the person is destroyed? Could viruses affect it? What about EMP (assuming there is a way to create such a thing)? I would be more concerned about these things than living forever.

Emotionless Lectures

2007-05-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

This is probably one of the rare posts that will not deal with the theological issues I presented in my previous posts (most notably, those in response to our novels), so this should provide an alternative for those of you who are tired of my oppositional "religious" (actually, Christian) views. Consider this the original post about "Schild's Ladder, the scientific perspective." (In other words, the "preaching-free" version)

Throughout the book, I noticed similarities between this book and Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? True, the plots are no where near similar, but there are several themes that are similar. The most notable one is the use of memory as a form of identity (both seem to share this view, as others have mentioned), but I found another similarity that does not relate to the themes (specifically). I couldn't help but be reminded of the empathy box--that machine in Androids that can alter emotions--in scenes where the characters would ask there mediators to control their emotions. Both stories seem to have a machine to adjust the emotions of the characters, which actually does open it up to this theme of empathy that was present in Dick's novel. It is true that the book never comments on the question of humanity, but did losing their body, and losing the emotions that coincide with the flesh, did they lose a part of themselves? Did they lose a portion of their identity? It is a question I will pose but will not answer. Besides, I promised I would stay away from theology in this post.

On a separate note, I was frustrated by how much of this book seemed like scientific lectures! I always found it annoying in Michael Crichton's books when he would digress into random, and sometimes forced, insertion of scientific information, but this book makes Crichton seem like a actual story, rather than a long research paper! There were so many lectures included in Egan's writings, and a lot of it was difficult to understand. I didn't really know, or care, what was going on in this story!

So, you can derive from this that the unusual number of posts on my part has nothing to do with an actual enjoyment of the book. It is not hard to figure out the real reason why . . .

Me, Myself and I

2007-05-01T05:33:00.000-07:00

Who am I? Who are you? What makes us the individuals that we claim to be? Who and/or what is it that perdures through time that gives us this continuity we call "the self"?

A big part, if not the exclusive part, in Schild's Ladder of who we are is that of memories. There are the constant references to the loss of some short-term memories experienced when local death occurs to the individual and they have not backed up their recent experiences, some times just a couple of hours sometimes close to a day or so. But I think that memories may be given to much emphasis in this quest for identity.

It seems to me that there must be a "something else" that which the memories accrue to, that which maintains them, and that which perdures throughout. If who we are or who we become is the sum of our memories then every moment I am a different person. While it may be the case that I am a changing person for at each moment I gain a new experience and thus a new memory and perhaps forget some trivial memory, I do change. But there is an "I" that remains constant an "I" that binds together past, present and future. this "I" is not only and necessarily memories. It seems it must be something more.

Take the case of amnesia, permanent or other wise, I still am though I have lost all memories. Perhaps I no longer remember that I am was a welder, but I am. Perhaps I no longer remember that I used to be able to play chess but I am. Memories are perhaps a important part of how we define our self in a functional way, but I argue that they are not sufficient for defining who we are in an essential way. Before I learned to weld I was, before I learned to play chess I was and after I forget how to weld or play chess I will still be.

Perhaps the I that perdures is some ineffable thing, perhaps it is the ultimate subject that can never become object to itself. But what ever else it may be its essential nature is not tied to memories.

In Schild's Ladder Mr. Egan either ignores this or does not wish to deal with it, or perhaps also he is a pure materialist so who we are is nothing but the brain. But then that too would not make us our memories it would make us our brain whatever its state is.

Simply put I argue that we are more than the sum or lack of our memories. Memories add to us and there loss perhaps dimishes us but memories neither create nor destroy who we are, that "I" remains and is the constant to which memories come and go.

"Blinded me with science.."

2007-04-30T17:40:00.000-07:00

*cue bad 80's music* "IT'S SCIENCE!!"
I don't have much of a scientific background, but I was able to grasp a bit of it enough it make sense. I still really enjoyed this story and kept drawing parallels between other works I've read/seen such as BLAME!, GITS series, and quotes from a character named Himiko, from a book title that escapes me, but I own. But mostly BLAME!, which I may or may not post about at a slightly later time. Anyways, her quotes were about decisions and myriad of ultimate universes that come form those choices one makes in their life times. It was exactly along the lines of what we discussed in class. I often ponder at the possibilities of my own choices in life, and what may have been. Or possibly was would an alternate universe be like somewhere in the expanse of the stratosphere of dimensions and universes in space. No, no I don't toke up while doing this either, just out of boredom or daydreams. This brings me to another subject: reality.

acorporeal people in VR or fleshed out in our reality of the material, or Cass's swimming in real water; reality is real for those living in it. Just because VR is virtual, it is still a reality? Another form of it different from our own but no less real. Yet even the material people in this book are living half way between the two realities because of how much technology, their inter connectivity with it, and the use of the Qusp like a "save point" (lol tap the save point, find the moogle) are allowing this to happen. What is reality then what we perceive as real. Can't reality involve another state of being and or perceptions ?

(NO, no matrix quotes, I hate that movie, they totally ripped off anime/manga. It was fine the first time I saw it but no no more.)

The Body - Trash Or Treasure?

2007-04-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

"A lifetime's worth of defensive slogans about the perils of VR started clamoring in her head. She wanted to scrape this whole illusion off her face, like a poisonous, blinding cobweb; she wanted to see and touch reality again. To have real skin, to breathe real air, would change anything. If she could only see the world through her own eyes, and react with the instincts of her own body, she knew she could flee from danger.

It was so perverse it was almost funny. She was perceiving the danger a billion times more clearly than she could ever have hoped to if she'd been embodied. She had all her reflexes at her disposal, and all her powers of reasoning, operating a billion times faster than usual.

It was just a shame that all of these advantages counted for nothing." (Schild's Ladder Egan 39)

What if you could live forever? What if your life, your consciousness, could constantly be transferred to other bodies (or even survive on its own)? What if your senses were enhanced beyond what you are able to with the body with which you were born? Would this satisfy you?

It is a question that might seem to be an easy answer: of course it would. But would it really? The above quote brought perspective that I openly accepted and incited me to post in reply. There is something unique about the human body that discarding it thoughtlessly might not appreciate. True, the idea of our senses being enhanced may seem appealing, but it ignores the intricate system of nerves and the brain that can be found in the human body. I have written about the complexity of the human brain and my doubt of it ever being duplicated, but there is a a desirable uniqueness in the human body. For me, even this cannot be duplicated completely, and the sensations are hard to imitate.

Again, as I have previously stated, there is a conflict for those who might not believe in evolution and rather believe in intelligent design. The idea of just trashing the body is a reminder of how insignificant evolution considers the design of man. There would be more of an importance to those who believe in a design, especially by a loving Creator. For these, the body is a treasure, not just some accident. It is not just something you throw away. So when I read this quote, it provoked my thought to this perspective and reminded me of the importance of the human body. There is still something special that Cass seems to recognize.

On a side note, as I already stated in regards to science fiction in general, this idea of immortality is still depressing. It is just some software program being transferred from system to system. There is nothing truly cherished in this presentation of the humans in the future. Again, for Christians, the hope of immortality is not just a machine; it is rejoicing in a perfect heaven for eternity. I definitely would prefer this, and the human body, over what the book describes.

After all, does she not say that the immortality in the book all amounts to nothing?

Circular time

2007-04-25T09:14:00.000-07:00

While driving home after class yesterday I could not help but to think about Shild's Ladder I'm kind of a physics junkie so I enjoyed some of these concepts. The one thought that kept coming to me was the Eastern and Native American belief in time being circular rather than linear. So follow me on this. Is it possible that the creation of the Nova Vacuum actually sparked a Big Bang and beyond the boarder is our expanding universe as we know it. This would leave the beings in Shild's Ladder as ethereal beings not within our ability to understand (angels ghosts gods, what ever your personal belief maybe). This would me that time beyond the boarder would continue and eventually reach the point where the Nova Vacuum is created sparking the Big Bang and so on. It may be a little out there but it's just a thought.

Second Life University

2007-04-25T04:02:00.000-07:00

We're off of this topic right now, but this morning I found an interesting article on msn...

http://spotlight.encarta.msn.com/Features/encnet_Departments_eLearning_default_article_SecondLife.html?GT1=9279

With the upswing of online universities, this almost (key word: almost) seems like a good idea. You can "sit" in a class with other people from around the world, and interact with them within the Second Life world.

The class knows about this, but for those who are reading this and unaware, Second Life is a virtual world (a la The Sims but more real) where people can make a persona and live a life as that person in the virtual world. I do not use this particular program, so I know relatively little about it as far as functionality goes.

While this may seem like a good idea, it may cause just as many problems. First, any member of an educational class could easily lie about anything about them. Not that that is anything new, but some people may have a problem not being able to see the actual person. Also, what about tests (not that I've encountered this problem in the online classes I took at UW-GB); it would be simple to make notes and have every possible resource available to take these tests, or be able to control that anyways. In my case, it was stated that they could be used (like no one would take advantage of that anyways.)

The article does mention that Second Life is its own culture, and I would agree with it, but this culture can only exist as long as it is plugged in. Also, there is no real room for advancement in real life (as far as I know). Anything you have or do is limited to what is on the server, or your computer, or whatever they use for it. So you own a house on there...so what? That doesn't help you here.

Used as a classroom setting, however, Second Life could have some great uses. Even if it isn't real life, you can still get some pretty diverse opinions, as there would be more people from different locales around the world.

One more problem with this is that it doesn't replace real life interaction with people, but can help create problems that can't be done safely in real life; natural disasters, nuclear explosions, or Michael Jackson dying and coming back as a zombie. This would allow people in these fields, such as health care, to attempt to take care of the problem in their own ways. Now, the program would probably be set up that the student/player would always "win", as attack dogs are always allowed to win in training, assuming that they perform the correct actions. Real life doesn't work that way, and may lead to false confidence in people. Also, things such as surgery probably can't be done this way.

So in a classroom setting, this could be great. In practical settings it can be hit or miss, depending on what that setting is.

Out of Body Experiences

2007-04-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

I was extremely confused when I first dove into Schild's Ladder. I know we were warned about the writing style beforehand, but I was still a little confused.

By the sounds of things, consciousness can travel between different forms in this novel. A living entity can start out in a physical human body, and transfer itself (memories, active thoughts, etc.) into another form, whether it be a mechanical body or a plethora of nano-sized clones. There is no limit to the boundaries which can be crossed, or so it seems.

Having just dove into the book, these thoughts raise a few questions. First of all, how is it possible?! It seems as if they just will themselves into other forms, which by present standards would be one miraculous feat of mind power. I think it would be rather difficult to force my consciousness into another physical form, whether I have some sort of technological aid in doing so or not. Why would I want to change my form, anyway? I can see some implications of immortality... if you were to transfer yourself into a fresh cybernetic body every time your old one got damaged/defective, you could potentially live for an eternity. The whole "transference of consciousness" reminds me of the ghosts in Ghost in the Shell.

Next question... how long did it take to develop such a technique? Is this something that has been researched for generations before it was perfected, or was it a gift from another species from around the vast universe? I know we're pretty handy with technology and continuing to advance, but there comes a point when fiction and reality cross and fight with each other. Personally, I don't think this is something we'll be able to craft up anytime soon, if at all.

The time limits for some of these forms seems incredibly short. Picoseconds? That's not a lot of time, folks. Not a lot of time at all. Yet they make it seem like it's an eternity in Schild's Ladder. This confuses me.

I'm sure I'll get some answers as I continue reading, but I thought I'd throw some of that out for other people to think about.

Snowcrash enclaves

2007-04-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

I had to laugh a little at the idea of enclaves in Snowcrash. While reading this book I had a job interview with the Kohler Corp in the town of, you guessed it, Kohler. The idea of cooperate enclaves is not new in fact they have existed in a small scale since the 19th century in the form of the company town. Lumber towns and mining towns covered northern Wisconsin and the UP and these towns were the world to the employees. And these towns still exist today such as Kohler, but if we look further at the aspect of control not just ownership we can see where these enclaves may spring from. Just take Redmond WA, Microsoft may not own the town, but can exert a large amount of control over the area. Is it inconceivable that in the future this power could not grow into an enclave of sorts?

Galatea

2007-04-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

Well I am finally back online so here goes trying to get caught up. What struck me most about Galatea 2.2 was with in the first several pages. The beginning of the book describes the technological bubble of isolation that seemed to exist between the university and the outside world, and this section really threw me back in time. In 1994 about the same time the book was written I was just starting school at Michigan Tech, and this same sort of bubble existed. This was when the internet boom was just starting to explode and most people I knew outside of a university setting were not online. I seemed like the entire world of information was at my finger tips, and just like powers I would become lost in the web and find myself alone in the computer lab until the wee hours gorging my brain on information. And even then I noticed the irony of hand writing letters to people trying to describe this awesome technology.

A Depressing Future

2007-04-23T17:54:00.000-07:00

I offer this only as a brief comment and not a lengthy analysis like many of the posts I included throughout this semester. In discussing the essay (Lyotard, “Can Thought Go On Without a Body?”) that we read for Thursday, I was reminded why I have problems with the science fiction genre and its portrayal of the future. For a Christian, it is hard to rectify the differences of many stories in the genre with the vision of the future described in Revelations. Those who have read the book of Revelations are aware that it is a dark look at the end times, but, for me, it is more hopeful than the vision presented in some science fiction novels. That essay was hard to read and even harder to hear, because its content was truly depressing for me. To me, I would rather have hope of an eternal life than be planning some machine to store the thoughts of the destroyed human race. The thought of such a meaningless life is difficult to accept and this might be the reason why I have problems with some of the futures that science fiction stories depict. Even considering that the Bible describes incredible pain and torment in the last days, at least it provides a way out for believers. I know that many people prefer to not believe the Bible's version of the future but, for me, the depressing descriptions such as this essay only help affirm to me why I believe what I believe. I would much rather have hope in one faith (Christianity) than emptiness in another (and, yes, Evolution theory does not have enough proof to be considered anything more than a faith, which means it too requires a belief). Often, religion can conflict with science fiction, which might explain why I had problems with most of what we read in class and was offering opposition. Still, really, how interesting would a discussion be if it only provided one side?

Diversity of Humanity

2007-04-17T09:12:00.000-07:00

To be a copy of a copy of a copy, what a boring existence, pointless even, it’s diversity which makes things interesting after all. Just when you thought you had everything all figured out you realize that half way around the world your counterpart is doing things very very differently. Yet, people are afraid of change, that’s why even when Mr. X has traveled from his home in Virgina to spend a week in Tokyo he stalks down the streets for the trusty McDonalds (oh how funny that McDonalds that McDonalds has become part of our vocabulary and Microsoft word recognizes it as such). Never mind diversity “he can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will taste the same. McDonald’s is home, condensed into a three-ring binder and Xeroxed” (Stephenson 191). The world is becoming smaller because of leaps and bounds in technology, but it would be asking too much for us to use this opportunity to learn more about the human experience, it’s far easier to melt humanity down and reform it all into one uniform shape, that in essence would be snow crash, the means to melt humanity down. There is a bit of a problem with this scenario however, and just maybe babel wasn’t a bad thing but rather a survival mechanism for humanity. If everyone and everything is the same not only do we become machines and enter the brain drain of all the suburbia kids shooting up steroids and entering the metaverse as Brandy and Clint, but take simple survival, if everything is the same, simple laws of science dictate that the entire population can be easily wiped out by a single blow. One plague comes along and humanity is thus wiped from the face of the Earth, but if humanity were to be scattered across the earth to grow and develop along different continuums, humanity has a better chance of prospering. Perhaps, people simply needed a reason for explaining such differences and god is of course the easiest scapegoat.

Creating a Rat Thing

2007-04-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

I was intrigued by the implications that the Rat Thing created. A machine with biological components? In a way it is a feat of genius. In another way, it's a cruel, damaging proposition.

Creating a machine with biological components brings up a few unanswered questions as to its origin and function. First of all, where do these organs come from? It's apparent that the Rat Things have organic components derived from canines of sorts. Have these organs been ripped out of living animals to empower these new mechanical creations? If so, that certainly says something about the ethics and animal rights of the time. Taking organs from a recently deceased older dog probably wouldn't work because the organs would have been already "worn out" in a sense. If the organs didn't come from a living animal, where else could they have come from?

Perhaps it is possible that they could clone organs for the Rat Things. Better yet, what if they could simply grow organs? It'd be efficient, controlled, and there would always be spare components on hand for when pre-existing rat things take injuries/damage. This still doesn't answer the issues of ethics though, which we argue about even today. If this still isn't the case, then where do these organs magically appear from?!

The next issue is getting the biological components to function with the technological ones. This is an entirely new ballgame. You can't just put a heart in a machine and expect it to beat. There has to be some sort of method of combining the mechanics of the Rat Thing with the organs it has been set up to function with. What method this is, I don't know at this point...

I suppose the Rat Thing could be considered an actual possible creation of the future, but the ethics behind its design would slow down its creation.

Language of Life

2007-04-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

Even though there was a lot of action and side issues in this novel, especially religion, as noted by Josh, the main theme that continues to pick up speed throughout the novel is that of language. Software and hardware, programs and programmers, viruses and counter-viruses.

If intelligence and freedom (the nam-shub of Enki) is simply one programed language, and slavery (babel/meta-virus/me's) is just another type of programed language I do not see that it matters much. That being, in this reading as well as in all our readings, we are getting a heavy dose of materialism and different versions of the strong AI thesis. the example in this story is tantamount to saying that one computer is alive or intelligent because it has different, i.e. better programming than the other. So if my calculator is programmed with the nam-shub of Enki and your calculator only has the "B-metavirus" then my calculator is intelligent and yours is not. Hmmm...

Of course Stevenson does not differentiate the medium or rather the physical instantiation that may or may not be necessary, i.e. a biological brain, but I do not know that it matters for him.

I was looking on the web today at DNA, and most sites have it described as the instructions, or genetic code for life in general or the specific individual. It is the "language of life" it seems. What is language? And just how important is it not only to life but for life? Stevenson seems to be saying that all life is nothing but an appropriate software program running on sufficiently complicated and fast enough computer, i.e. hardware (like the brain). The sum is not only greater than the parts it is almost entirely different. This is and has been bothering me as we delve into what is life and what is intelligence this semester. And if most of these writers and thinkers are correct humanity is "nothing" but a complicated machine.

But I do not believe that "life" can come from non-life. That is, it takes like to create like, not unlike. I do not see how taking a bunch of inanimate, i.e. lifeless objects (what ever kind you like) and putting them together will give you life. This is the very problem that materialists since the time of Lucretius have had to deal with. If "atoms" for example are the basic building blocks of life and they are simply the smallest inanimate chunks of matter, then how can putting them together in any arrangement make them other than inanimate?

Perhaps it really is possible to "create" or program intelligence, but if it is then I may argue that you can have intelligence with out having life. Since we can have life with out intelligence, is it the case that it is possible that it goes the other way too?

Program all you want, but my calculator will always be just a calculator.

The Future Of The Church (A Response To Religion in Snow Crash)

2007-04-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

It should be no secret that I am a Christian--much of the discussion I contributed in class were rooted in this belief--but you might not be aware of the fact that I am not opposed to the criticism towards the church. People often assume that all Christians act the same and that extreme activities and statements made by those who profess to be a follower of Christ is an indictment of the entire faith, but these are merely examples of people who do not follow the example of Christ. I have found myself frustrated with the behavior that has alienated many from Christianity and am not afraid to address these issues if given the chance (For the record, true Christians are expected to show love towards others, not stage violent protests). Therefore, when I read the portrayal of the future "church" as presented by Neil Stephenson in Snow Crash, I wasn't offended. Instead, what I experienced was fear, cause I know that this could happen--and is beginning to happen--in today's church.

The vision of the church presented in this novel is one of business. The description that most affected me is found 193-196. I read with a certain amount of trepidation that was a combination of disgust (from what was being portrayed) and dread (knowing that this could become a reality). Still, the description that hit me hardest was the chapel itself: "The interior of the chapel is weirdly colored, illuminated partly by florescent fixtures wedged into the ceiling and partly by florescent fixtures wedged into the ceiling and partly by large colored boxes that simulate stained-glass windows. The largest of these, shaped like a flattened Gothic arch, is bolted to the back wall, above the altar, and features a blazing trinity: Jesus, Elvis, and the Reverend Wayne. Jesus gets top billing. The worshipper is not half a dozen steps into the place before she thuds down on her knees in the middle of the aisle and begins to speak in tongues" (195-196). This is what follows a waiting process that includes donations to enter the church. Knowing that I do not have a problem with church in general, and am only criticizing certain commercially motivated churches, I did find this portrayal to be incredibly poignant. Many churches are recognized by the design of the building, and bookstores and cafeterias are becoming common. The main offense I take to this is the portrayal of the speaking of tongues, which is important in my faith as it relates to the Holy Spirit. Still, the book makes the speaking of tongues I primary issue, and the emphasis on tongues within the church (an issue I myself am sensitive to and have been concerned about) in the pentecostal tradition leads to many people feeling obligated and sometimes people might try just from pressure (instead of letting it come "naturally") Speaking in tongues can sometimes be forced in some churches (though some have the spiritual gift, see Romans 12) However, the book seems to use this phrase throughout it rather flippantly.

It also impresses me how this book includes Biblical references in its discussion. most specifically, with the Tower of Babel. There is even a section where the Bible verses are mentioned by chapter and verse (Chapter 30) Still, the books make many statements about religion (when asked whether Snow Crash is a virus, drug, and religion, the response is simply "What's the difference?" 200) But what would obviously be the most offensive for me is the statement regarding the resurrection. For someone to say that you can't be a Christian with the belief in Resurrection is entirely oppositional to the center of Christianity. It is even more offensive for her to say that the "myth" of the Resurrection is "National Enquirer-esque" (201) Though, obviously, this book is not a Christian book.

However, in spite of its objectionable statements, the book does include an interesting one. One of the statements made on page 69 declares that "Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later . . . which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds." (69, my emphasis) While I do not entirely agree with this, I do fear that the church is becoming to superficial and that meaningful content is sometimes glossed over, which is ironic since that which is intended to draw people to the church is also turning away the intellectual. For every Sigmund Freud and his Civilization and Its Discontents, there is C.S. Lewis and Mere Christianity. Religion is not for idiots; some churches just dumb it down (though I refuse to neglect the many churches who do explore deeper, theological issues). However, if churches began to take the form of those represented in this church, including Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates. However, 99% is an unfair number in modern age.

Why am I writing about Christianity in a class about cyborgs. The answer is simple: I write responses to books based on what most resonates with me. In this book, it was the religious aspect that fascinated me. And as everyone know, Christianity is important in every response I gave to the concepts in this class. How could I neglect the opportunity to respond to a book that deals with religion so prevalently?

Semi-Autonomous Guard Units

2007-04-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

In chapter twelve we meet Ng Securtiy Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit #A-367. Though I'm not finished with the novel, I've seen a few instances involving these "Rat Things." I like how there are whole little sections devoted to their thoughts. But isn't this interesting. At first I wondered how this could be because they seemed to be built machines for the purpose of security. Then as Y.T. tries to save one from having a melt down, she realizes it bleeds and has "biological components," as Hiro informed her. So these Rat Things are cybernetic animals that can feel and comprehend (at an animal level), but are technologically advanced to perform "inanimal," like inhuman, feats.
Then we meet Ng, to tell us all about the Rat Things, around chapter twenty nine. But he's a weird specimen as well. He has an entire body device, with connection to that crazy van, that he simply calls an "extension of my body." But if you read the chapter...you know how elaborate of an "extension" this is! But isn't this how we discussed what a cyborg is, having a technological extension of the human (or animal I guess) body? What seems important, that makes humans and animals most special, are their brains and it's ability to control the surrounding technology it is engulfed in. Also interesting to note is when Ng reveals the Rat Things are of "dog parts," he tells the disturbed Y.T. that "your mistake is that you think that all mechanically assisted organisms-like me-are pathetic cripples. In fact, we are better than we were before." The whole concept that Ng brings up with the Rat Things and himself seem important to look at when we discuss cyborgs and what it means to be human (again, or animal...can't leave them out:).
And wasn't the story with Fido (or Number B-782) and the following section describing how he remembers Y.T., or the "nice girl," great? I especially like when B-782 thinks "in order to protect the nice girl, they are hurting some of the bad men...which is as it should be." All in all, what can these sections of the novel involving the Rat Things and their thoughts tell us? I'm still thinking about it, and I just really liked how Stephenson incorporated these creatures in the story...whatever they may be.

D(a)emons?

2007-04-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

We talked about this in class, how there seemed to be these things in the Metaverse called 'demons' that seemed to be functioning as some kind of a system tool. The specific example I'm looking at is where Hiro gives one of the underground demons the Snow Crash virus 'scroll', and tells it to deliver the scroll to his office, but not to open it. Looking into real life computer applications, particularly those relating to e-mail, there are programs or utilities that are referred to as 'mail daemons'. These daemons are used as a kind of status messenger for various e-mails, and, at the time that Snow Crash was written, were a far more common utility in e-mail programming. There were even some (admittedly simple) computer games that utilized the mailer daemon. Nethack (similar to Moira, Rogue, or Angband) comes to mind; even though it was a game that was played off-line, if you knew how to sync your e-mail address with the game, and were online at the time, a character called (literally) the 'Mailer Daemon' would rush up to you and deliver you the message, after acceptance, of course. They still do exist today, but are not referred to as daemons, probably because someone complained that they didn't want to have to deal with something that was named as a d(a)emon. It mainly came around when something went wrong with your e-mail, which could be the reason behind the naming.

I'll note that the only time I've ever encountered the mailer daemon was when I would input a bad address. Other than that I never saw it.

Stratified Net

2007-04-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Although Stephenson paints a very commercialized, corporate future, where everything is priviately owned; what seems to remain the same is the make up of class structure...even in the net. When Hiro visits the "Metaverse", he describes the "Brandy", "Clint" (p.37) and "black-and-white" (p.41) avatars he see on the "Street". It seems that only those with really sophisticated technology (Like Hiro) can create a truly unique, detailed "avatar". The mid-techies, ("Brandy" and "Clint") if you will, purchase their image from Wal-Mart, and the low-techies use some 'xerox machine' ( p.41) ("black-and-white")version of themselves. So, apparently while you can change your image to be anything you want on the net, people are still locked into an image they can afford. Even how you get to the street, having a "House" (p.36) or arriving at a public "port" (p.37), classifies the net user.

Is this what makes us human? Our ability to classify, objectify,and see ourselves as better than the other; in reality and in cyber-space?

I'm hungry for Pizza and infopr0n oops..I mean infomercials

2007-04-11T21:52:00.001-07:00

I Love this book. As a big fan of cyberpunk, this book is such a fun read with really likable characters. I mean, even though Hiro is a 1337 /-/4X0r (if you can read that, god you are nerdy! And I shouldn’t' laugh, because I'm the one that wrote it… -.-;…. ) type guy, there are moments where he is just dense or not all there. Or Y.T.'s double life as a punk ass teen queen and a role of a "good daughter," Each character has a personality and is just fun. But when they say "hacker" I keep thinking they mean "programmer" or "developer" because it sounds so over used or misused. I don't know.
Bob R. Rife's empire of media (and now church) reminds me a lot of Aol/Time Warner cable and how they own everything! I remember back in my old mass communication classes, discussing things about corporate conglomerations. When a company owns most facets of a particular service or product (monopoly), it drowns out competition and competitive, fair, prices. Also the quality of that product or service can go down, because there is nothing else and so consumers end up with it (I'm looking at YOU shitty Windows, oh yes I am). But more importantly related with this book, is the control of information. In a monopoly in the media, Information is controlled. The story is not always all there, especially if it is from the company or its affiliates making that news, or has an interest whether monetary or otherwise. People will get what is given to them and have few alternatives. Now with the internet that isn't so true, yet if Google can filter shit out for communist China, who is to say that AOL isn't doing the same. That's why I could totally see these conglomerate figure heads make their own news as to make more profit from the industry that they practically own most of, much like ol' Bob Rife.
Also, organized society in the burbclaves of their own nation-state franchises that connect like minded or similar people into a community that self governs. They share many things in common from culture, to interests, to status, etc. This is so similar to current trend on the internet, like Myspace, Livejournal, forums, and web rings. Essentially these things do the same function as these gated communities of burbclaves. Networking and residing on the internet as these people do in the real life (and sometimes the metaverse, as they are freer to be who they wish they were).
Some other similarities I found were the tower of Babel and the CIC library of congress thing, where knowledge, language, and culture tidbits are all protected by the god/librarian hackers. And the whole concept of neural hacking, and the god counter virus, as our brains function and are wired similar to computers, and the closer and more frequent we interact with computers, the more our minds are like them; there fore, the more susceptible to this virus and counter virus we become.
I also love Juanitia's take on faith. Just had to say. ^_^

"30 minutes or less"

2007-04-10T07:35:00.000-07:00

Snow Crash begins with a dialogue about "life or death" pizza delivery. It seems reminiscent of the old marketing campaigns of Dominoe's vs. Pizza Hut (pizza wars) of that time (the early nineties) that this book had been published. I remember that they would guarantee your pizza in 30 minutes or less, or it would be free. However, many delivery drivers had accidents and received citations in the process, or that had been just what I had been informed when I accepted a delivery position at Dominoe's years ago. Obviously unlike the book, the mafia, honor, and the family name had not been at stake, but the "life or death" analogy seems to correlate. Because of this history of an inability to deliver, I find it unlikely that any delivery service would guarantee such a small time-frame for their services anymore. That is unless there had been some major advances in transit that eliminates congestion and accidents. At any rate, it amused me, and now I'm hungry for pizza.

Ode to Cyborg Culture

2007-04-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

Well...for my Shakespeare class we had to come up with a sonnet for a little competition in class. It could be on anything really, but had to have the typical rhyme scheme, ten syllables per line, fourteen lines, etc. that comes with writing a sonnet. So as I sit pondering in my living room, I had no idea what to write a sonnet on. Turns out, the subjects we have been discussing in Cyborg Culture are something I've never really studied before and there is some pretty interesting stuff in there that I don't believe too many people think about yet. So long story short, I wrote a sonnet on a Cyborg Culture topic we talk about a lot...and I've decided to share it with with all of you...

She is but that of a complex machine
In truth inhuman, life given by man.
There's hardware within not outwardly seen,
But what I see is seemingly "woman."
How I feel for this electric mistress;
O flawless fabrication, so alive!
I look upon your sheath wearing that dress,
And ignore what inside you was contrived.
What can we call this created creature
That appears to me precise as can be?
And wired within to function all features,
For built was she exclusively for me.
Human is how my eyes will behold "it,"
But that position she can never fit.

Interestingly, my professor, and many in the class, wondered if this was actually about a created cyborg woman, or if it was all metaphorically speaking about this woman being like a "machine."

2(.2)B Sad or Not 2(.2)B Sad? That is the question.

2007-04-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

First, the down side of Power's novel. The need to use 'A.' and 'C.' to stand in for the two relationships in his life and the fact that he used his name in the novel as well as that the character was a writer makes it seem all to much that this was an (semi) autobiographical purging for him about his past relationships and his choice of a career as a writer. These items got in the way of the story their attempt at artificial intelligence, i.e. ultimately Helen.

I was to say the least shocked by the ending. Suicide(!?) who would of thought. The sad condition of existence, the eternal struggle for existence and survival, it was to much for Helen. But the real straw that I believe was the one to break, is that of loneliness and isolation. In the last few sentences that Helen speaks she says "I never felt at home here. This is an awful place to be dropped down halfway" (326). This isolation and loneliness has been expressed by several characters in the works that we have read as well as characters in other works that we have not read this semester. From the latter category I am reminded of Victor Frankenstein's monster who rage at being alone, rejected and isolated is what spures him on to his murderous vendetta towards Victor. Also I am reminded of Data from the StarTrek: The Next Generation, where he too often laments on the state of his loneliness because he is the only one of his kind. Even among a world full of sentient life forms Data still longs for "another of his kind."

I would make that case for Helen that it was this, the realization of her loneliness and isolation, the realization that in a sense she truly was alone that drove her into existential despair. Even for the example of Helen Keller (which Dani brilliantly brought up, which had not yet occurred to me) she was not isolated in who she was, i.e. she was a human being amongst human beings. But not in the case of Frankenstein's monster, Data, or the Helen of this story, they were utterly alone. It is this realization, this despair that pushes Helen to desire "death" to a life of pain and anguish.

Yod and Joseph both wanted to live but ended up dyeing. I wonder if ultimately there difference would have led to a similar type of loneliness and isolation. Isolation when chosen in life, like so much else, is much easier to bear than isolation forced. For example, the child who is sent to his/her room for the night as punishment is generally not as happy as the child who ends up playing in his/her room of their own volition. Any condition that is forced upon us becomes a burden whereas when we choose that condition it is not a burden.

I keep searching for the lines "My maker did I bid thee make me?" which I still think is in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. But the point I wish to make is that in most if not all of the AI stories we have read this semester the created and/or the creator ends up regretting the act of creation, of life itself. We are left we "abandoned children" and "deadbeat parents" that end up dysfunctional, lonely, isolated and despairing.

I wanted a "happy ending" to this story for Helen, the same way that I wanted one for Yod, Joseph. It seems that authors of AI Sci-Fi do not like to give us those happy endings.

"How can I make me as small as love?"

2007-04-05T00:49:00.000-07:00

oh noez!!1!1!!!!elventy!!1! insomnia hits again.

I couldn't help but think of this quote, as I was doing some other work and came across it:

“One thing is certain, though: there must be something wrong with any reasoned claim today to know any fundamental differences between men and possible machines. And there is a simple reason why such arguments must be erroneous: we simply do not know enough yet about the real workings of either men or machines.”
_Marvin Minsky

I think this quote is perfect for this book and a great comeback during an argument, wouldn't you say? We neither have total understanding of machines or your own selves, so how can one say otherwise when the information is incomplete? Computers and gadgets already have voice recognition programs, can work on visual stimuli, and try to act accordingly, depending on their function. When will it start conversing back?

What caught me was as Helen was learning the depth of language and all of it's layers and intricacies, it didn't just sound like a child(and she did have child like qualities) learning how to speak, but also as someone trying to learn a foreign language. As someone who is already involved in learnign how to speak many languages, many of the mistakes are similar to that of a student learning. I'm sure Powers himself expierenced this when he was learning Dutch and a little Italian, while abroad. She literally is translating computer language (and those with expereince in programming codes can attest for this) into a human language. They say that a culture's language is the window into the heart of the culture, a tool for trying to truly understand it and gaining deeper insight. Even to the simplest of colloquial phrases reveals something. I guessHelen, by learning our language (english is just one of many human language) she is learning about the human culture. She herself is not human, therefore, not apart of our culture but from something else. When she speaks, and it's hard to understand, Powers realizes she's communicating in her own way. "What you is the were for?" Helen doesn't have a concept of time as we do, she almost exsits in a world I'm guessing is much like dreaming, where there is no concept of time but a series of instances. The opposite of reality. She exists on a diferent level of reality and her speech reflects this. It is easy enough for people to mistaken her for just not making any sense, but so too can that be said for children, who, when learning to communicate, often speak aukwardly with their own interpretations. The "goose" for plane and flying come to mind. To further complicate things, she is not human, she cannot experience what we can physically besides aditory and speech. "It's a body thing, you wouldn't understand." She can't hold a ball, yet she has to understand what that means. Other humans have similiar issues; that their limits prevent them from totally understanding certain human experiences. Just like Helen, they substitue somthing in an equivalency the best they can to understand that expereince, to empathize what it's like, the sounds, the look. The will never be able to experience what a normal human can experience, yet they can come up with something else. Helen uses language as her tool, quotes to communicate, languge to "feel" out the world around her. The name "Helen" also reminds me of another Helen, Helen Keller. She was blind, deaf, and unable to speak until she found her voice. Her teacher got through to her. Both cannot share normnal human experience, yet both use what they have to find that equivalency and understamd concepts, language, and the world around them beyond their own limits.

And even thoguh Helen didn't have much of a body, I still thoguht she was cute! Her make up of electrical machine parts and huge number of boxes and wires, reminded my of the manga Blame! where they tried to simulate a "terminal net gene carrier" (close enough to us modern humans) human brain. It expanded an entire giant labratory and thensome, just massive, end even they couldn't get quite close enough. Lentz was doing somethign similar, by physically trying to create a "brain" out of machinery. He was right in there wasn't enough space. I wish I could scan in the picture and you all would understand what I mean by power and not enough size.

The Unmodelable Miracle

2007-04-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

This book did little to refute the argument I already presented regarding the plausibility of a reproduction of the brain (see "Who We Pretend To Be.") While that post was written in response to a book that did have artificial intelligence with the capacity to feel and joke--all those features unique to humans--my response was based on how realistic I thought the idea actually was and this book followed the same realism. In the end, we are not given the impression that a human brain could be reproduced (the story seems to emphasize that most of the statements Helen makes are programmed and not based on true human intelligence), especially when "she" fails the Turing test. Not only this, but the end also reveals that the experience was more to help Powers learn to tell (teach) rather than have the machine learn.

There are many lines that I find intriguing, lines that show this recognition of the complexities of the human brain, which illustrate some of the points I tried to make. He comments on the expression that coincides with thought. When C. is described as thinking, Powers asks "Would a thinking machine, too, turn its simulated eyes away?" (63) This line struck me immediately and lingered afterwards, refining my own argument by providing detail to represent it. There are so many nuances, so many different actions, that the human brain allows, even beyond just those thoughts we might have. We might scrunch are brow, raise an eyebrow, smile, shake our head, do many different expressions that coincide with our reactions. Could a machine do that? Even more interesting, if a machine could, would it understand why? Even humans don't respond to questions or even jokes the same way. One might decide to laugh at a joke, while another might cringe. It is hard to actually anticipate how a person might react; how could this be imitated. Even if a robot did turn its "simulated eyes away," would it do it every time and, if it did, wouldn't it lack the spontaneity and unpredictability of a human's reaction?

The book even considers the human brain in mechanical terms to show how complicated it really is. This is evident in Powers description of how Diane reacts to a joking statement he makes: "She gave me a look, bafflement routed slowly by inference. That she could unpack, decode, index, retrieve, and interpret by reference at all was an unmodelable miracle. More miraculous still, I could watch her grin of understanding unfold in less than hundredth-millimeter increments, in split seconds." (182) Notice how he uses his knowledge of computers to describe the process of interpretation. She took sarcasm and in a short time was able to appreciate it, responding with an understanding grin (another reference to the facial expressions humans associate with thought). The use of the term "miracle," modified by the word "unmodelable" suggests two things: one, a human brain cannot be reproduced and two, the brain is extraordinary and divinely created (the book doesn't seem to imply a creator such as God, but miracle is most commonly associated with the divine).

Finally, the last quote I will include deals with another uniquely human quality: the well intended mistakes and errors. The book makes this distinction clear: "Helen, choosing the right answer for the wrong reasons, condemned herself to another lifetime of machinehood. Harold's girl, in picking wrongly for the right reasons, leaped uniquely human." (222) Powers seems to suggest that the ability to make a mistake even when are intentions are right is unique to humanity. While a person can answer a question wrong but have the right intentions in mind, a robot can only be right for the wrong reasons or (rarely, as the book would imply) right for the right reasons. Humans, however, can have the correct motivations but still err in their action. It is a part of humanity.

Overall, I agreed with the ideas in this book and appreciated the realistic content (though, I was bored by all the information about C.) However, I have nothing else to say that this book didn't already corroborate, though I could cite many examples of parts that I found funny. In fact, since this part connects to the other comments that the writer makes about the human brain, I will conclude by citing the part of humanity that makes me laugh, since it is so true: (After trying to talk to Helen through the microphone) "It hit me well after it should have. The mind is still an evolutionary infant. Most trouble with the obvious. I reached down and turned the mike back on. Then I read the words again." (290)

Raison d’être

2007-04-04T21:36:00.000-07:00

The broad topic of GALATEA 2.2. is of course artificial intelligence and a consideration of humanity itself in the process. One must understand a concept before setting upon the task of recreating that essence. Therefore, if a human decides to play god and set out upon creating artificial intelligence, they may soon find that they hardly understand their own humanity and stand dumbfounded while attempting to duplicate it, quite the paradox I’m afraid.

However, even more interesting than the surface implications of artificial intelligence are the effects on the psyche itself, namely: raison d’être, a reason to live, a reason to die; this is the essence of GALATEA 2.2. Everything in existence requires some form of purpose or it falls from existence, simple as that. When machines break down and fail to carry out their original purpose of job A or task B they are typically destroyed. Even animals such as a race horse which has broken its leg will be shot and then given the new raison d’être of an adhesive. Humans of course are a bit different, due to ethics, humans are typically considered an ends in themselves rather than a means to an ends. Therefore, a human may loose their raison d’être and continue to live, however, that may only a shadow of life in reality. The type of people who work meaningless jobs, then go home to waste away in front of the television. They aren’t living, but rather simply waiting to die. They have lost their raison d’être and they are as good as dead to the world.

Rest assured, it isn’t as though finding purpose is exactly easy, this is the reality of adolescence, a midlife crisis and what have you, and even the search for raison d’être can in itself provide purpose and can be found in any facet of existence. Commonly people choose to create families, provide for them and live with ultimate satisfaction, others will live for the work they do which instills an equal degree of satisfaction. These are truly blessed existence, for to have purpose (essence) is to have a solid grasp on your existence.

In GALATEA 2.2 it’s rather apparent what I mean simply by considering the main characters: Lentz, Powers, and the series of implications. Frustrated by the very cynical nature of their search is how we meet Lentz and Powers, and the gaps are filled in especially with the chapters on Powers past.

In the liberal arts nothing is really tangible, not like the concrete facts and figures of the hard sciences and as a result Powers reconsiders the worth of his work in the grand scheme of existence and is ultimately dissatisfied with his novels and teaching. He has lost the raison d’être of creation and occupation and his new raison d’être becomes C. He now lives for the sake of another person, the sake of love, but ultimately looses that existence as well and everything dissolves into a vague memory without anything to ground himself in the real world, Powers begins to disappear from it in a way, this is what I mean by dying in a figurative sense yet still existing in a literal sense. This is also I believe the purpose of the literary choice of using abbreviated names for most things from that existence, they all became vague and not quite real you might say. At this point, Powers is simply wandering around, finishes his last novel in a daze of stale ideas and falls into Lentz’s lap.

Lentz, the engineer, lives for an entirely different reason, he is totally engrossed in his own work to the extent that he has constructed countless walls around himself to protect his ego and raison d’être. Since Lentz has poured everything into his work, it would be natural for him to fear failure and more so, criticism. Failure can be dealt with as a callus develops overtime and success almost becomes more surreal, but what becomes truly frightening is the scorn of others. It is far more painful to be told you WILL fail than the actual act of failing. Therefore in a world of more fragile mental constructs, what people often want is to be left alone in “private invulnerability” (powers 96), ironic considering humanity is more fragmented now, even though communication is as simplistic as it has ever been.

Lentz and Powers, both with a fragmented raison d’être seek to create their new purpose by becoming gods in a way, by creating their own version of humanity. Humanity version 2.2 (the .2 referring to the dual creator: Lentz and Powers), a human purified by releasing itself from the bonds of sensory input and connecting to existence directly. The problem of raison d’être still remains however: humans create machine, machine then becomes self aware and looses the need for its creator, and humans thus loose their raison d’être not only in being disowned by their creation, but becoming obsolete in addition. Moreover, where lies the purpose of these implications, do they have any easier a task of acquiring raison d’être? Or is it that humanity version 2 has somehow even transcended what everything in existence requires: a raison d’être?

Galatecia 2.2

2007-04-03T20:25:00.000-07:00

I found this book to be very dry and confusing. The way the names are sometimes spelled out while others are just a letter with a period, is very unusual and I don't see why the author would do this. I also feel that this is a very forced text, such as the author is trying to hard to get his point across. I do wonder if it is because this book is an altera ego of the author and he wishes to distance himself from the book so he does not make it more about his life than what he wishes to put in the book.
I know this is very vague, but that is mostly because I really don't know what is going on, although the main character has a new girlfreind and is back where he first lived.

GALATEA 2.2

2007-04-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

"Memory was the attempt to capitalize on missed cleverness, or recover an overlooked word that, for a moment, might have made someone else feel more alive." (Powers, 145)

Halfway through the book and memory seems to be a very strong theme. Not only for the many versions of Imp that have been created to win the bet, but also with the characters themselves. Powers finds himself not only struggling with the memories of C., B. and U. from his earlier life; a line for a book he wants to write and is sure he's heard it before; but also how Imp's memories are going to be formed and retained. Is this done just by repeation; strong connections stay, weak ones fade? Or does memory contain smells, feelings, sights; physical limitations of Imp, but strong memory triggers for humans. Lentz is struggling with his wife's memory being wiped out and even physical triggers cannot save it.

Do our memories make us human? Can a machine be taught more than just word generalizations and sentance structure? Stay tuned!

Depiction of the Web

2007-04-03T05:35:00.000-07:00

As I began Galatea 2.2, there was a passage on page nine that I thought powers depicted really well concerning the web. He writes "People who use the web turned strange. In public panels, they disguised their sexes, their ages, their names. They logged on to the electric fray, adopting every violent persona but their own. They wizzed binary files at each other from across the planet, the same planet where impovershed villages looked upon a ball-point pen with wonder [*what a great line!*]. The web began to seem a vast, silent stock exchange trading in ever more anonymous and hostile pen pals...The web was a neighborhood more efficiently lonely than the one it replaced...it seemed to me we'd still have nothing to say to each other and many more ways not to say it...Yet I could not log off."
To me, this view of the web that Powers reveals and the way humans interact with it is so realistic to our current world (granted it was only written in 1995, but the point is he wrote it so truthfully). In effect, I think when people read this passage they are nodding their heads or at least relating to some of the things he said. Though not all people change who they are on the web or things like that, we at least know there are people out there that do all the time, some very dangerous people as well. I just though Powers did an amazing job depicting the web here and I notice as I read the novel that he uses this beautiful language, yet to-the-point phrases to express many other things as well, such as what I so far see as his love (or once love) for the woman C. (I'm not that far to know the whole story with C., but so far it is an interesting addition to the seemingly scientific world around Richard Powers in the novel.)

The box.

2007-03-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

I was just kind of contemplating what we were talking about in class today, particularly the comments on the Chinese box, where a person was shown a symbol and had to react in whatever manner was required for the symbol. We had said that even though the person was acting according to the rules set out by each symbol, there was no actual learning (at least of the language) occurring. I thought about that, and it could potentially be wrong. If, say, the symbol was 青 (ao - blue), and the action for that symbol was to push a blue button, then it would be indirectly teaching the person what a color is in the language, even if they did not know how to say the word, they could look at the symbol and say "ok, this is blue," even if they weren't in the box. Now, whether thats the case or not I don't exactly know, but I would say that either result is plausible.

This goes further with the concept of machines learning, or even being able to act in a human-like manner. The machine can not do anything which is not programmed to do, so, in theory, the machine can not lie, unless it is programmed to do so. Even then, the lies that it would tell would be limited to what it was told it could lie about. If it was programmed to only say "I'm female" or "I'm male" in response to the question "are you male or female?" then it couldn't say "I am a dog" (and if any programmer was dumb enough to put that option in there...). Basically, no matter how intelligent it may seem, it can do no more than it was programmed to. In a sense, the coding of the robot/machine/computer is what it has "learned" and only by adding more information can it learn more.

I might have mentioned this earlier, but even transferring a persons brain into code, and then implanting that code into a robot, would not really prove anything. If the code was a sort of backup to the person's brain, then if the shell and brain/central intelligence were destroyed, the only thing that could be recovered would be wherever it was last backed up. Anything after that would be lost, barring some other circumstance. Whether a 'being' like this would be capable of learning is questionable at best.

Robo One

2007-03-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I attended the Association for Asian Studies Conference in Boston. One of the papers I heard was entitled "Robot Dreams: The Formation of Self and Masculine Identity in Japanese Techno-Culture" written by Hirofumi Katsuno of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. An anthropologist, Katsuno was interested in examining the cultural make-up of Japan's amateur robot-building community. One prominent topic of his paper was Robo One, an annual robot-building competition:

http://www.robo-one.com/

Katsuno had several interesting points to make, but three in particular were especially poignant given our discussions in class. First, Katsuno argued that many Japanese men were attracted to robot building because it offered some sense of control for people whose lives are often dominated by a very hierarchical corporate culture; although subject to strict relationships and requirements at work, robot builders find that they can control their own creations in their hobbies. Second, human-shaped robots were far more popular than any other kind of robot. Katsuno suggested that this was, in part, related point one above, that a human-shaped robot increased one's sense of dominance over an other. However, he also pointed out that robot-builders often commented that human-shaped robots were simply more interesting, often more challenging, but also much more relevant to theri own lives since the robot builders could relate their own bodily movements to their efforts to replicate these movements with their robots. (Katsuno provided an interesting example of one robot builder who was working to replicate the precise movements required in karate in his robot; his dream was to create the perfect martial arts master in robot form.) Third, however, Katsuno commented on the prevalence of parental language used within the community; robot builders, it turns out, do indeed view their creations as "children" and often refer to them as such.

I found these to be interesting examples from an actual techno-culture community. You might consider how these points related to certain aspects of the material we have been discussing, perhaps especially in regard to the relationship between Avram and Yod in He, She, and It.

Kabbalah and He, She and IT

2007-03-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I developed a bit of interest in Kabbalah, and no doubt, He, She and It holds some definite connections, so allow me to explain a bit about Kabbalah to the best of my ability. I must preface that I am by no means an expert on Kabbalah or even Judaism but I hope to shed a bit of light on the subject nonetheless.

In the Old Testament there exist two trees: the tree of life and the tree of wisdom. The tree of life grants immortality and a peaceful existence, which is what Adam and Eve originally held within the Garden of Eden. However, after “the fall” as it is often refered to, Adam and Eve took from the forbidden tree of wisdom which is what allows one to be conscious of their own self, stride forth in the pursuit of knowledge and basically makes us the rational beings we are. However, obviously by taking from the tree of wisdom we lost the tree of life in banishment from Eden. Along with it, humans gained “original sin”, sickness, strife, and all those other bad things we unleashed after opening Pandora’s Box.

In the tradition of Kabbalah, the sephirothic system (see link below) represents the tree of life, and thus a map between humanity and God, a means of returning to the creator or a “blueprint of creation” (Cooper 84). Therefore, by ascending the sephiroth completely, one basically becomes reunited or even obtains divinity. Logically it would seem that if one could understand the tree of life, humanity could return to its former state of bliss. Moreover, if one maintains the fruit of wisdom, they basically become equal to God.

As you can imagine, once you get into the system, things become rather complicated, but basically it is a set of virtues one must understand, one building on top of the other. The system consists of ten rings (sefirot) representing the main virtues, and 22 lines (one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet) connecting each sefirot together. This link is an image of the sephirothic tree:

http://neonevangelion.host.sk/other/sephirothictree.gif

From top down and right to left, the sefirot are as follows: keter (Crown_supreme/total consciousness), Chochma (wisdom_power of wisdom), Binah (understanding_power of vision), chesed (loving/kindness_power of love), Gevurah (strength_power of intention), Tiferet (beauty_creative power), Netzach (victory_power of the eternal), hod (empathy_intelectual/observation power), yesod (foundation_power of manifesting) and Malkhut (sovereignty/world) (Cooper 87).

So, the general populous of humanity starts at Malkut and the goal is to ascend each sefirot, eventually reaching Keter, basically equal to god. There are quite a few interesting little aspects to the Kabbalah and the sephirothic system such as the patterns which emerge, which is where numerical significance comes in. Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value, for instance: Gimel is the third letter and its numerical value is three, yod is the tenth letter and repsents ten. Yod holds special significance in that it is believed to be the number of creation, thus the ten sefirot, but there are supposedly patterns everywhere in the Torah, and by understanding them, one could understand the path of the sephiroth. One example of the patterns uses the words for: father, mother child: father is bet (2) aleph (1); mother is mem (40) aleph (1). The sum of these numbers equals 44. Now the word for child is dalet (4) lamed (30) yod (10), the sum of which is 44. This is a nice simple example from the film pi, but I hope it facilitates my point. Notice also, the appearance of yod in terms of creation.

A bit of a lengthy explanation but in reality nothing but the tip of what Kabbalah means and I feel as though I have not done the topic justice, but this is the basic idea. Now the point in how it relates to He, She, and IT is I believe basically the subjectivity of humanity. Humans may gain or loose their humanity up and down the sephiroth. We are born at Malchut but throughout life, most should ascend a few sefirot, perhaps not gain a perfect understanding of them, but at least a crude one. For instance, take Hod which represents empathy which we have discussed as a rather important facet of humanity. Within this subjectivity, highly advanced machines such as Yod can also ascend the sephiroth and gain humanity in the same way any human could. Yod of course begins his life at Malchut like any other, but also had incomplete knowledge of dictionary definitions without experiences to back them up. However, while spending time with shira, Yod slowly begins to understand and fill in the gaps of his existence. Here is where the significance of Yod’s name fits in as well. The novel is also about man’s first attempts at playing god, so Yod’s namesake fittingly pertains to his own unique creation.

Cooper, David A. God is a Verb. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 1997.

Pi a film by Darren Aronofsky

Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex

2007-03-27T10:15:00.001-07:00

OK here are words I never thought I would be saying. I was watching the Ghost in the shell series last night and I noticed something; on more than on occasion the United States is refered to as the "United States Empire." Is this a dipection of how the US is viewed in Asia as the next Rome seeking world domination and using it's unmatched force to acheive it. It's just a thought. I am now officialy off of my soap box.

Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex

2007-03-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

Distopian Futures

2007-03-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

After reading He She and It I 've noticed two patterns I find rather disturbing. I do not know if He She and It and the Neuromancer necessarily meant to portray a distopian future but the idea that the corridor from Boston to Atlanta becoming one large metro area really bothers me. To me this area possesses some of the greatest natural beauty in the US (along the Appalachian Trail) and viewing this area as a massive parking lot means that the environmental movement and much that I stand for has failed. For this metro area to happen also means that the zero population growth movement has failed and the Earth is more severely overpopulated than ever and most likely much of the "third world" is starving.
The other fact in He She and It that bothers me is the class separation that is portrayed around Y-S. Not only are the blue proletariat forced to live outside of the enclave and "tube in," but they are also given color coded jump suits to keep them from wandering outside of their assigned area. Even within the compound the bourgeoisie are separated with the techies living comfortably in small houses and the wealthy managers living the their own enclave within the enclave assuring separation from the lower classes.
OK sorry everyone I can now step down from my liberal soap box.

more human than human (good Daft Punk song btw)

2007-03-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

I've been having some trouble posting and I know Anthony has too. Perhaps blogger doesn't like us.

I must say I lilked this book, yet it was kinda odd. It was hard for me to feel for Shira as we had very little in common, almost the kind of woman I dislike. But her Grandmother and rive we just made of win.
I felt that Nili and yod were so closely similiar (I could draw up all kinds of obvious paralles between Joseph and Yod and all that, but I don't feel like it). Though she was born as a human, isolated society of which she came from, made her seem primitive, curious, and ignorant about the outside life. Both of course, were made with considerable mechanical alterations and implants. Each had biological and gentically engineered conponents. Only Yod was just created as he was with no culture to call his own, more like a different kind of cyborg ( Since almost everyone had some sort of artificial somthing or unnatural alteration to make them so). Nili atleast had the advantage to be a child and go through normal human enculturation. How each are different and the percentage of artificial and biological create a grey area. When do you stop being human? Is it a matter of way of birth ( fetus onward) to be able to catch the spark of life? Even when Shira and the others met Nili, they weren't sure what she was at first, a machine, enhanced human, or somethign entirely different? So why did the house identify her as human and Yod as a machine if both are extremly made of artifiial parts?
I also find Shira interesting. I don't particularaly like the way she thinks (mahlka and Riva, again are awsome) She's so traditional and prudish, proper. To willingly go into a hughe faceless corporation, to let it suck out your soul and do as society tells you to? Just because your feelings were hurty, I find that incredible weak. especially comeing from somewhere as nice as Tikva. But she does transition in to somethign that must resemble her old self because she gets a little better. I think she's a really good contrast to Mahlka and Riva and most people in that era. She is more typical of women today and most could relate to her( I don't make friends with many girls easily, HA I just realived whyI didn't warm up to her as much). This is where the sex comes in.
Like many women today, sex is always desribed by psychologists as more an emotional thing for women and a bit more taboo in society's eyes. So wither her interactions with Yod, it not only compares with women of our time with the values of the slight future; but also a good look into human emotion and the formation of relationships and intimacy. Which is why sex is such a popular topic in these books we have been reading. Many poeple reguard being human with feeling emotion and empathy that sets them apart form machines. Sex is one of those basic human instincs that involves such complicated emotions.
I'm tired so this might sound too simple and really hard to read because my brain works wierd like this, so I hope you can get what I'm getting at despite the aukward typing..okay....Even though there is only one society that Yod can try to fit into, like Joseph, he is not human, but that's okay. I know that this class is about humanity and what it means to be human, but people get so stuck on catogorization and what fits in that definition. How about what makes you YOU, if you cannot be defined by human. Perhaps they can't feel emotions and things like we can, but somethgn comparable to it, like Yod mentions quite often. Doesn't mean he is anyless a person, just different. Perhaps he is more than human or just in it's own filum. Transending humans or being another category altogether doesn't mean they are lower then us as we liked to think. Things people cannot understand, they fear or act hostile towards (ask any hermaphidite, transgendered person, or others that do not a fit a category or label). Just like in the novel, humaniod cyborgs, androids, robots were feared, rioted over, much violence ensued, and then outlawed because of that fear of the unknown, that labeling that must occur and cmplete understanding.
I also noticed a unch of other stuff by looking at the kabbalah chart, but I think Anthony is going to explain more on that ^_^

and screw spell check, I'm tired blah.

A Dreary Trend {Now Featuring 4:30am Humor}

2007-03-27T04:50:00.000-07:00

Got that post-armageddon feeling again?

There seems to be a trend in most of the novels we've read that take place in that drab future where almost everything that once was has been destroyed. The world is no longer a safe place for man or beast, and radiation is the norm. It all sounds rather dreary to me, but common ideas keep coming up in the novels we're reading and the films we've viewed. Let me shed some light on a few similarities that come to mind, delivered in a humorous fashion to keep you, the reader, entertained. (See end note).

Big Cities
Call it the Sprawl, Glop, or whatever you please, but it all refers to the same general idea. What's left of humanity has gathered into massive supercities, most of which are unsafe to traverse due to one reason or another.

Violence Abound!
Blood is shed openly in the streets of the supercities. Concealed weapons are normal occurrences. Seeing a body or two isn't a problem, and if you shoot a replicant or get stabbed by a local gang member, nobody is going to think very much of it.

Hooray for Drugs (?!)
It appears as though you can get pretty much anything you want at anytime on the streets of the supercities. Take your pick of a friendly painkiller or the equivalent of twenty acid trips, it's all available at the right price.

Wear Sunscreen
Radiation seems to be a problem. Don't forget to wear your protective bodysuit and/or stay out of direct contact with that UV-laden sunlight. You'll get a tan pretty quick, but you'll also pick up some skin cancer.

Screw Earth! Let's leave!
Manufactured platforms in space are pretty easy to come by. It's where all the intelligent and successful people are going, as well as those who can simply afford it. You might land a pretty good job up on those space colonies too if you've got the skills.

The similarities between He, She and It and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (and Blade Runner) are pretty easy to pick out, as well as similarities to a plethora of other science fiction novels. I just thought I'd bring it up in case anyone else was noticing it as well. The plots differ significantly between the two novels, but the scenery is all too familiar...

(End Note) Off Topic - I'm writing this at about 4:30am, so the humor just seemed right to me at the time. Enjoy.

Who We Pretend To Be

2007-03-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

I will admit that I never bought into the idea of a robot becoming human, which was more than evident in my debate against any definition of humanity as it relates to the books we read in class. The main reason for this is that I refuse to believe that any human can build a system that features the complexities of the human brain, which I believe was created by a Being (God) with more power and knowledge than any of our scientists (how can man reproduce what he still does not fully understand?). Therefore, most of my disbelief has surrounded what I view has the implausibility of accomplishing such a complicated cyborg. How can a cyborg dream or imagine or even feel when it is merely a program that decides these emotions? Can a machine ever be programmed to think and create on its own without a programmer inserting these images and thoughts? I highly doubt it. So, while I believe that humans contain souls that could never be reproduced in mechanical form (and therefore would remove humanity from cyborgs), the main setback for me is that I doubt humans can play God and create a brain with the complexity of our own and, therefore, any central operating system would only be an imitation of daily habits, not an original, spontaneous set of choices and decisions (and not just random). Therefore, I found it intriguing what Marge Piercy had to say in an early dialogue from the chapter "Who Can We Tell The Dancer From The Dance?" (an interesting title)

This chapter finds Yod questioning whether he can be human is only pretending to be such (imitating human behaviors). He asks in a thought provoking statement: "Does it feel almost as if were human? Am I imitating behavior I can never match? . . . Am I pretending at something I will always fail?" (238) It is a question that has major implications to our course: can a robot be human when it only imitates and pretends to be something it is not (human)? Can behavior that seems human make the cyborg human when it is still a product of programming? This is the questions that would invoke the answer I mentioned previously, but Shira's response provoked my thought: "humans pretend at things all through childhood" (238) Now I realize that this statement was in the context of Yod's apprehensions of moving into a human society and home, and the next line concerns "playing house," but there is a deeper implication here that she may or may not have intended: humans pretend as well.

We all act a certain way that may seem just to follow the behaviors of society. We have routines and we pretend to be something different, since we were children and dressed to play different roles: doctor, fireman, police man, house wife. We all imitate humans in someway, so how does that make us different than the cyborg, if said cyborg could imitate human behavior?

But wait; this is not enough. Such an argument is only intriguing but would not change my mind for several important reasons. One of those reasons relates to intent and depth of thought. What does this mean? Well, a cyborg pretending to be human would be for the sake of imitating humanity. If imitation was a defining quality of humanity, then the pretending would be the human part of the cyborg, not the existence. For humans, pretending is mainly a tool to either obscure real desires or escape the current condition. The human thinks about imitating other humans and decides whether it wants to follow the crowd or be different. Humanity cannot be defined by behaviors and any effort a cyborg makes to imitate humans would only be superficial. A robot can act like the typical human, but not having the ability to chose to be different means there efforts can only be futile (I am having troubles describing my argument. If necessary, I can elaborate in class).

Another reason is that humanity cannot be defined by its tendency towards imitation. What a mundane and mechanical life does a man live if he bases his existence on the lives of others. There needs to be more meaning and depth to a man, a purpose, or he actually becomes more like a machine. In fact, I would argue that imitation is more of a mechanical feature that detracts from humanity. Without depth in thought, the ability to make right, and wrong decisions, even the free will to be different, we are merely machines (men have choices that robots don't; robots have to work within programmed parameters). Pretending and imitation seems more to define robots than humans, which means that humans act more robotic instead of robots acting more human. What Yod is doing only reinforces is programmed and limited (even inhuman) life.

Of course, the more obvious issue is the question of who is being imitated. The act of pretending does not define humanity. Therefore, robots cannot be human by pretending to be human. Consider this, who are humans imitating? There is no model to the habits we see in society. Such actions were learned by humans (learning and adapting, by the way, also separates humans from cyborgs, or at least, are things I doubt can actually be reproduced). Yod is talking about acting like humans (something else). Humans are humans. Simple as that.

Alright. So that was a long winded argument on a subject that was more derived from dialogue than actually a direct interpretation of the book. So, I guess this chapter never makes the statement that pretending is a part of humanity and, therefore, an argument for robots being human. In fact, most of this post was a rant that was provoked by the words in the book and may have nothing to do with the intention (sometimes I just see a word and it incites all of these other ideas that relates to that word). Hopefully I am not too far off the mark. Still, it seems pretty obvious that even the author doesn't consider him human. After all, Shira does not see him as a man when she lives with him (if anything, she sees him as better than most).

By the way, the idea of a robot being more gentle than most men in the story has more implications, especially since it reveals the flaws, and selfishness, of humans. Sadly, this is a characteristic of humanity, but that is another post . . . never mind.

I cried

2007-03-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! the story sucked me in and yes it made me cry. The creation and destruction of Joseph and Yod, both characters were SO "humanly" written in the book. The purpose of both; weapon, protection, and then watching their transformation into something more; understanding, devotion, need for acceptance, love (?). I felt so much more emotion and attachment to all the characters in this book. The interwoven story of Joseph and the Maharal was just as fasinating to me as the primary story of Malkah, Shira and Yod. Perhaps as Malkah was telling the story, she knew what sort of fateful end would come to Yod.

The picture Piercy paints of the future seems to still include discrimination, racism and classism..the technology created does nothing to help those -isms. There are still "haves" and "have-nots", but the free towns seem to make up the middle class..still struggling to survive between "losing it all" and being incorporated and losing their own "identity".

The strong women in the book were fantastic! Each having to give up something to come into their own.

He, She, It and Us

2007-03-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

This is hands down my favorite work that we have read in class this semester. Also, since I am done with the reading I should mention a *spoiler warning* as this article will contain plot and/or ending details.

Marge Piercy's work He, She and It does a marvelous job of putting us face to face with ourselves and our society/ies. Through the use of two non-humans, i.e. Joseph and Yod we are given a background, a template so to speak that we can look at an compare (perhaps learn) about what we think is alive. Joseph and Yod both "die" but for the former he did not do so willingly and the latter out of self sacrifice. I was moved by the deaths of both beings. To remember Joseph's last words, "I fought for you! I saved you! I am a man too, I have my life as you have yours. My life is sweet to me." My life is sweet to me to. I cannot imagine any being where their own life is not sweet to them. Who would not want to cling to and keep that existence, that life, their own life, to live? Yod's death too was very moving in his last message saying "Malkah and you have been my friends, my family, my joy. Live on, Shira, raise Ari and forget me. I was a mistake. Whatever may happen at Y-S, I have done one good thing with my death. I have made sure that there will be no others like me" (pg. 416).

Life and death, some thing we as well as all the characters in this novel face. This means then Joseph and Yod as well. What were they? Joseph, as such is a golem, but what is exactly is that? The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language online says that "In Jewish folklore, an artificially created human supernaturally endowed with life." In Piercy's work Joseph is created out of clay and given life, and it seems intelligence, the ability to learn, and some desires too. Not to different from how man was created in Genesis! "The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being" Genesis 2:7. And further "by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return" Genesis 3:19. Not to turn this into a religious debate but it seems that what the Maharal did was not that far off from these Genesis descriptions, the main point being though that if both man and the golem were turned into living beings from, clay or dust (inanimate matter mind you) why would one beings life be worth more or less than anothers?

The same point goes towards Yod. If in creating a cyborg, as Avram says in the text: "Yod's a cyborg, not a robot - a mix of biological and machine components" (pg. 70). Yod, as with Joseph has and/or develops life, and intelligence, the ability to learn and desires too. Yet Avram sees Yod as a possession an object even though he always refers to Yod as "he" and not "it". And the irony is that the very rights of and to life that the Maharal and Avram would insist upon or take for granted is the very thing that they feel they are "entitled" to give and take away from their creations. Life however it has come about, is just that life. And if we allow and even mandate the objectification, the commodification of life, especially intelligent, sentient, life we can be headed for a (new?) type of slavery, of racism, or specie-ism, whereby the one race of beings is "allowed and vindicated" to the subjugation of the other, i.e. the inferior other. Whether that other be, female, black, Jew, Asian, martian, robot, android, or cyborg it is a mere detail, the main point is the "we" is allowed to do what we choose to "them." The problem the we and them distinction is that it generally makes up the entirety of us.

We are the story of He, She and It, Marge Piercy has given us a moral and ethical mirror by which we can, if we choose, to look at "we" and "them", she has shown us to ourselves, we will choose to recognize that which we our shown or will we go into denial and rationalize that, the image in the mirror must be one of "them" for me is part of the "we" and we are not like that. And for those who cannot stand to look in the mirror I say look! And for those that defend, rationalize or deny, I say really?

He, She, and It; Me, Us and Them, how easy it is to always find ourselves on the right side of the fence, one of the tragic ironies of life.

He, She and IT

2007-03-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

Note: Cannot find the book right now, so going by memory.
So far, I have read through chapter 13 and I find this quite interesting. At first, it was confusing due to the transition between the 22nd (21st?) century and the 16th century, although once I got use to it, I noticed similarities between the gholem (sp?) and the robot Alhem created. Both were trying to find their place in the world and both were created by man to protect a place which was in danger. The danger in both cases was to a place where the people were regarded as different or threats, so I am eager to find out what deeper connection the two events have in common.
I also find myself questioning even more about what is a cyborg and what is a human. In this book, the robot seems very much human, yet reminded me of an autistic person. I kept feeling as if I was reading about an autistic adult because like the robot, both have feelings, but realize and analyze those feelings in a very different way from NT's (neurotypicals or those who are normal, nonautistic). Such as, the robot would say I feel like this and it seems similar to how you humans describe this. It is the same way for many autistics; we have to compare our thoughts and interpretations, as well as what we think we feel to what others may experience to correctly define our feelings to an NT.
Also, the sensory overload that the robot was plagued by and how he in a sense shut down because of that is very much as autistic thing as well. It is very common for autistics to not be able to filter out things and experience something very similar to the overloaded robot felt. Eventually, autistics learn how to filter it somewhat, but it is a continual learning process that is very much confusing.
Thirdly, the robot is very unsure how to interact with society yet wishes to. Many autistics are exactly like this, we communicate and see things so differently,we are unsure of the unspoken rules that society has. Thus, we need to observe behaviors and be taught how to interact as well as communicate with society just as the robot needs to be taught.
Because of these similarities between the robot and typical aspies/auties, I must confess I am even more confused over what defines a human and what defines a robot. If I were to label the robot as nonhuman, I would have to label myself as a nonhuman because of the connection and similarities between me, an autistic individual, and the robot. That I define myself as human means I should define the robot as human. Yet, I find myself struggling to do so. The only reason I find to do so is because it was not create in the traditional sense, through birth of a mother. Yet, again, in this case, the robot was created by a man and a woman in a sense. Both a man and a woman inputed stuff into the robot to allow it to be as a typical human would and so it could learn how to be human. Again, this is very similar to how autistics are subjected to different programs and their brains are programmed. The only difference is that a robot seems to have a brain made of computer parts.
In the end, up until this point, I seem to feel as though the robot is actually human and is very similar to a human. I did not expect to ever feel that way, but after thoughts of this nature occurred to me, I cannot help but feel it is more human than machine. Perhaps, God even gave the robot a soul, despite the fact that he was not made in the traditional sense.
I am sorry if this seemed random, but it is hard to explain.

"a Cyborg Manifesto"

2007-03-08T15:07:00.000-08:00

Although I can relate to the idea of Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto," I find it difficult to imagine a truly classless/ genderless/ non-racist society. In order to achieve equality, I think that the society would have to be composed of only one kind of organism/being that are exactly identical. Otherwise, indifferences will create competition. The theory simply does not make sense to me, and what would essentially be the point? Who would like to have the same existence as the person next to them, and they would all have to "die" and be "born" simultaneously as to not be able to be unequal to the next. It seems ridiculous, or maybe I'm just not getting it.

I think it is irrelevant what the discrimination pertains to, because at some point any difference can become a discriminatory trait. Think about the Nazis' many ways to distinguish a person as being inferior to the "superior" Aryan race. Moreover, different levels of knowledge, position in society/career, and the way one walks can all make someone "inferior" to the next. Also, in order to eliminate racism, I think that identifying labels would have to be expelled. When we identify a person/people with their race, I think that it in itself is a form of racism. Do we identify everyone by their race? It simply categorizes people into different segments. So, back on the cyborg theory, won't there be newer/different/better cyborgs? Maybe they could be genderless (although we have seen the complete opposite of that), but they could fit into different classes/races. Also, I know we are discussing humanity, but what about everything else that is living-the entire ecosystem of the Earth? Are they not included? Do they not count?

On the issue of what defines a cyborg...I really have no idea. Today, we learned four different definitions. Personally, I have wires holding my breastbone together and some synthetic something that repaired my heart. Does that make me a cyborg? Maybe, I guess. Am I less human? Sure, I think so. I would not be here had I not had these manufactured parts put in me, and whenever I have stitches (which is too frequently since I'm a "clutz"), I feel like Frankenstein or something. Because I have these inorganic parts, I think quantifies me as less human than to someone that came out "perfect" and is all "intact."

In considering the comment about having to take a drug or you will die, I would say that would make someone less human and a bit of a cyborg. You are putting something "inorganic" (in a way) into your body, so you can exist and keep the organs functioning. However, taking a manufactured substance to prevent someone from being psychotic/depressed/schizophrenic is different to me. I think that it too makes you less human, but I do not think it is physically necessary for one to live.

“The Girl Who Was Plugged In”

2007-03-05T18:01:00.000-08:00

We have discussed technology and becoming an entirely different person; however what made “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” truly striking was the fact that P. Burke never really disappeared, yet still became Delphi in a very real sense. Loose a sense here or there is apparently a small price to pay for becoming a “god” or so it would seem. It’s a video game, ultra virtual reality where you connect and live within manufactured bliss. Yet this bliss really does exist within the real world, rather than in the construct of manufactured space, which makes the possibilities even more interesting.

P. Burke becomes a part of her clam shell container to such an extent that she doesn’t exactly exist in the truest sense outside of Delphi’s own sensory perception. Sure she has to be pulled out from time to time to collapse into sleep or receive nourishment, but she really doesn’t see herself as P. Burke anymore, this girl is now Delphi in her own mind. “P. Burke doesn’t know she’s alive—it’s Delphi who lives, every warm inch of her” (Tiptree 51). The brain and the body simply aren’t connected by a hard line anymore, but rather with some highly advanced WiFi in a way. Yes it is basically wireless internet vs. a hard line if you consider it that way. “The fact is she’s just a girl, a real-live girl with her brain in an unusual place” (Tiptree 51).

Too bad P. Burke, but the body cannot live without the mind as they say. A doll cannot live without the remote operating it. Once she lives exclusively as Delphi, everything is bound to come crashing down. Then again, a god can do anything can’t they? Sorry again, but there is actually a remote control controlling the remote and a god controlled by something else isn’t really a god now is it?

Just like we have already seen, corporations dictate how things operate. How foolhardy, taking away advertising is futile in a world where corporations already control even those not plugged into clam shell’s like P. Burke’s. Anyone can live the life of a “god”, but of course at a price. Complete subservience should be a small price to pay for ignorant bliss right? Who cares what’s real if you have someone to do the thinking for you? The true god has forsaken the chaos of this mess and what’s left? “One great big vortex of lies and garbage pouring round and round, getting bigger and bigger, and nothing can ever change. If people don’t wake up soon we’re through” (Tiptree 69).

P. Burke dies, but Delphi (who in actuality is nothing but a shell) will live. Normal humans really are expendable aren’t they? Well at least in a world of false gods, escapism can be manufactured. Yet everything comes at a price and you will only experience the sensations and emotions you are allowed to. Taste and smell? You don’t need them, don’t be foolish. And love, well you can forget about that too.

Intelligence, Games and Rules

2007-03-03T21:14:00.000-08:00

I was dog-sitting for my brother this weekend, taking care of his family's golden retriever, Dawson. Dawson is your typical golden, easy going, playful, energetic et cetera. I normally do not spend a lot of time with Dawson but see him enough so that he knows me and is comfortable with me. Well during one of Dawson's energetic bouts we start to play with a toy. What was interesting is that he (and I) seemed to be responding and learning(!) from our play. We seemed to be developing a game with unspoken rules that we were both figuring out and playing by. We weren't just play keep away, and we weren't just playing at tug-of-war. He and I were playing a game where once one of us got the toy away from the other the goal was to make it difficult but not impossible for the other to get the toy back so that we could begin our tugging again.

It was very peculiar but I strongly sensed that Dawson "got it" as he neither played to hard or simply ran away with the toy. He seemed to be modifying he actions in response to me adjusting to what we were both agreeing to as part of the game. As I said, I have not spent a lot of time with Dawson and he is still in his first year and this was our first substantial playing together. I would have to say that he was responding and reacting in a manner I would have to call "intelligent." Which lead me back to one of the questions of our class "what is intelligence?"

Are only certain animals intelligent? Maybe mammals in particular? Why do we consider some worthy of our respect and care and others only as our dinner or as simply a nuisance?

If and/or when we create create "artificial intelligence" how or why is it that it will be different from "natural intelligence?" If humanity is part of nature why do we feel that when we make something that it is somehow not natural? Especially if we are "only" animals. Other animals build structures, use tools, dig holes and tunnels have complex societies are those things "un-natural?" Why or why not?

Why (and how) is it that we separate ourselves somehow from the "natural world?"

If we create "artificial intelligence" if we create "artificial life" are we not actually really creating "intelligence" and/or "life"?

If a being or entity is alive, sentient and intelligent does it really matter how it got to be that way?

If we are just part of the evolutionary plan of this world and universe any thing we do is simply and evolutionary movement towards the improvement and survival of the species, perhaps this would even include evolving into a new species "Homo-Sapiens-Mechanicus."

Apparently there have been some 15 different Hominid species,
( http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/species.htm )
and so we must simply be in the process of creating number/s 16 and 17.

The Universe seems to manifest intelligence. I feel that I witnessed it and was a part of it this afternoon. Maybe being homo-sapien is not more important than being a homo-erectus was to them or any other Hominid or other species. What can be more precious than ones own life and existence?

Perhaps the sun rises and sets on all life forms sentient or not, intelligent or not.

Perhaps we have only what we have and "things must be what they are" aside from what we may need or want them to be.

How we view the future

2007-03-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

After watching Ghost in the Shell last night, I can't help but notice that almost all of the films and books we are dealing with have a very similar apocalyptic view of the future for earth. There are virtually no examples of nature and biological life, tall skyscrapers and flying cars dominate the skys, and there is conflict everywhere. Not that conflict isn't already everywhere today, but people don't seem to have any optimistic views of the effects of technology. It all leaves me with a sense of impending doom...and no one is doing anything to really counteract it. There seems to be a concensus that humanity is drunk with technology and out of control and its all leading to this ultimately nasty situation. I guess we should all start learning how to guard our brains against hackers, distinguish bad androids from good androids, and keep ourselves out of the lower levels of the city lest we get sucked into the machinery. Crap...its depressing.

I still have an optimitstic view of the possibilities of technology if only we don't let the technology control us. The idea of cybernetic bodies is appealing when you consider the medical possibilities of being to help people. Being able to "jack in" through our own brains is just plain convenient. The ability to break down national barriers and have an actual global community and understanding would be fantastic. Why can't people take that type of spin on some of these things...even partially? I realize it all sounds naive and utopian, but it seems like a better goal to shoot for than some total anarchy with humans against androids with cyborgs stuck somewhere in the middle...

What does it mean to be human!?

2007-02-27T21:57:00.000-08:00

When I signed up for this class I never realized how much I would be pondering such questions as what it means to be human. The more we read and discuss the issue, it seems the more complex it gets! However, so far I think Ghost in the Shell hit hard on trying to determine what it means to be human, although it seems this question is still almost impossible to answer or define. Kusanagi is mostly a mechanized being except her brain and spinal cord are human (so I found). However, on her scuba expedition with Batou, we learn what's on her mind. She defines herself through the nature of her experiences personal to her, how she gains knowledge through these experiences, and so forth. Also, the personal beliefs she has within her help Kusanagi to figure out what her experiences mean.

Later in the movie we see the encounter between Kusanagi and the Puppet Master. Upon looking at the cryptic image of the blond girl the Puppet master possesed, Kusanagi notes how they "look alike" and then questions whether or not her experiences are actually her own or human. She makes a really interesting point when stating that being treated like a human doesn't prove that she is human (there goes that definition:) At one point the Puppet master argues with Nakamura and the idea that memory defines mankind is brought up. Nakamura refutes the Puppet Master (or I guess Project 2501) is human but is shot down when 2501 tells him to prove his exsistence. What is most interesting is however is when Kusanagi's ghost interacts with Project 2501's ghost. We find out that 2501's believes two major components of life is reproduction and death, which he lacks. They also discuss the importance of variety and originallity in living beings. Already the movie has defined for us many different views on what it means to be human or have life.

Finally, I thought the concept of 2501 merging his ghost with Kusanagi's was an intriguing way in which cyborgs could reproduce to create a new entity, which as it seemed would be a pretty powerful creation. This is somewhat similar with Wintermute wanting to merge with Neuromancer. Wintermute, like 2501, are stuck without bodies and are just "ghosts" exsisting in the world. Also, both Neuromancer and Kusanagi have established personalities and both also worry that a merging would diminish or destroy their already created selves. Though Kusanagi agrees to merging with 2501, it seems that at the end of the movie the final entity is more Kusanagi than 2501 so maybe her fear of losing herself didn't happen to a full extent. It would be interesting to see the second movie or the series to see what kind of being Kusanagi truly is.

Project 2501 - Machine or Living Being (or Both)?

2007-02-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

First off, let me just say this... Masamune Shirow is a genius, and Mamoru Oshii is amazing for putting Shirow's idea into an incredible anime film. Good stuff.

Ghost in the Shell brought up a number of interesting questions commonly associated with a number of our in-class discussions, although they're not always brought up. Some of those underlying themes are the questions that've been asked since the great age of technology began, as follows:

Can a "machine" be considered "alive?"
Can a "machine" have a "soul?"

I used quotations on purpose. Why? Most of the terms in quotations will have multiple definitions depending on who you talk to. What does one consider to be alive? What is a soul? These are questions that have been discussed far before the technology age began. Some of it has been argued with science, others with the traditions backing various religions. Personally, I don't think I could give you a definate answer to support what I think, but niether can you give me a definate answer to prove me wrong (and you can't say faith proves it; I'm not buying that excuse)!

Ghost in the Shell portrays technology in which they have been able to identify the existence of a person's soul. In most cases of definition, part of being "alive" means you must have a soul. Therefore, there can be a defined difference between a living organism and a machine. Machines can be created such that they have a soul within them as well, as if the soul was simply another manufactured product from a production line in a dark factory on a no-name street. This brings up a disturbing image of a future in which the soul is no longer considered a sacred or spiritual object, but rather a psuedo-physical one that can be crafted or destroyed. The thought of creating a machine and giving it a soul sounds promising to the lonely, but in order to gain something another thing must be lost. If a machine can gain a soul, what does it lose? What does humanity lose if machines gain a soul?

In addition, it's apparent that one's memories can be implanted, removed, or modified with the use of technology. It also seems possible that one's memories can be transferred to another location. As far as I understand it, it seems that the Major's brain is essentially organic, but that some of her psychological processes are mechanated. Does this mean some of her memories and brain functions have been cut-and-pasted into the mechanical subroutines of her mind? Such technology would be mindblowing (pun intended) and create a number of controversies almost instantaneously. If you could transfer your entire mind from an aged, dying body into a young, pseudo-human cybernetic body, you could continue living far beyond the normal lifespan of a human being. In addition, if your new mechanical body took some sort of damage that would normally kill a human being, you could just get some replacement parts (although in the movie it seems that the parts are not necessarily easy to get, as Batou had to get a replacement body for the Major/Puppet Master over the black market). Essentially, it could turn into an attempt to grasp at immortality.

Now let's couple this idea with genetics. What if we could manufacture a human body, organic in all senses of the word, and then transfer one's mind into it? You could continue your life this way, or perhaps live another life entirely. That sort of says something about reincarnation, now doesn't it?

Overall, Ghost in the Shell gave me a lot to think about. I saw it years ago, but I never watched it with this sort of mindframe before. I have to say I enjoyed the deep themes it displayed, and it'll keep me thinking for a while.

Now, a couple of other random thoughts that are essentially off-topic...

That tank was awesome. It gives a new meaning to the phrase "all-terrain vehicle." Those of you who have not had the chance to see the series, Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex should check out the mini tanks they use there if you liked the huge one in the movie. The little ones are called Tachikomas. They may appear in Ghost in the Shell 2 but I havn't seen that one... yet.

I... would like Batou's ridiculously huge cannon/gun. Sweet.

GOD, Machine, or someting else

2007-02-27T11:16:00.000-08:00

Blogger is being extremely bitchy today, making it really had to sign in and post...

I definitly noticed before we discussed it in class, about gender. It seems that what has separated men and women where biological regions and stupid assumptions derived from it. Technology levels the playing field where only your mind, or how you were wired, is what defines you as a person. Looks can be changed, weakness altered to be strengths, and hormones changed into something else. Especially when you "jack in" you are apart of something else. You "meat" no longer hinders you as long as you have things supporting your basic biological needs.

I also notice that over the course of the book Case keeps referring to his emotions, instincts, lust, and biological needs as his "meat" part of himself. His body is the meat. Yet as much as he tries to ignore the meat, it does start to affect him. His fondness for Linda and after a while a certain bond with Molly is perhaps not just a product of the meat but part of the wiring that most humans have for other humanly contact.

Neuromancer was the personality, the one with closer to what consider feeling. Wintermute was the brains, the decision maker. As the reference was before, "two halves of a human brain, the left lobe and the right lobe," and once they are unified it makes a whole person. Yet The AI becomes something much more then that. You can't pin down what it is. It can create a reality of it's own, even in what we think is reality. It can also resurrect life into an eternal paradise, or at least of what Marie-France's fragmented incomplete idea of paradise would have been. It's not really resurrecting form the dead and the discussion of if you can't tell the difference between the copy and the original (in this case the copy has no idea it even dies) and it is an exact replica, isn't it the same? I suppose it depends on what you think consciousness is and spirituality and all that. It's almost like a god in a sense. It can create life and recreate life that it bends real reality, whatever that is.

Drugged Up

2007-02-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

There are vast amounts of references to drugs throughout Neuromancer. It seems they have everything from neurotoxins to awareness boosters in every sense we do now, except considerably more accessable.

The story begins with Case being poisoned [by a drug] and trying to recover from that mess so that he can get back on the matrix to re-live his glory days as a console cowboy. To fix this mess, he goes through some procedures to have the majority of the toxin removed. A simple fix for an elaborate problem, I suppose?

Before all of this mess, Case seemed to be a pretty heavy drug user, dealing with all sorts of wonderful things that can kill the average man with unwatched doses. He's done so much that his organs are starting to fail with irreperable damage. What's the cure? Replacement. However, his new organs were modified in such a way that he was made immune to the effects of the drugs he had previously used. Therefore, there was no reason for him to be taking any of those drugs, as they wouldn't have any effect on him in the future.

I know drug use is pretty serious in some areas now, but will we really get to the point that Neuromancer portrays? What about those who are heavily addicted to things now? I used to smoke pretty heavily for a few years and it's taken me quite a bit of effort to kick the habit. I admit I still have trouble some days and I'm on the verge of beginning again. Perhaps I could just go have some lung surgery done and have my replaced with ones that block out nicotine and remove all the addictive effects of cigarettes? Could those dealing with heavy alcohol addictions simply get a new system that'll nullify the effects of alcohol or prevent it from seeping into the bloodstream?

This presents an interesting (and probably costly) alternative that may be developed sometime in the future, fictional or otherwise. I'm sure at some point we'll be able to grow organs back, prolonging our lives even further than they were originally meant to be. Is this the future we seek, one similar to Gibson's Neuromancer where drugs are abundant, organs are renewable/replacable, and all of the above is considered normal?

Personally, I'd rather live a short but good life than a long and traumatic one... but perhaps that's just me.

The Question Of Immortality

2007-02-26T18:26:00.000-08:00

What could it really mean to upload the conscious into a computer? This question was posed in class last Thursday when discussing the idea of a person's personality being "saved" in cyberspace, or "the Matrix." While the idea of immortality was presented as a possibility, where the old bodies would be thrown away as the mind lives on in the computer, there are many flaws to consider. It is an interesting thought--even the idea of entering a world where you can be anyone or anything is fascinating--but there are certain problems in this viewpoint. Most of these were addressed by either me or others, but I will repeat them here. All brings to question the practicality of a virtual world.

One of the questions I brought up in class was the probability of anyone actually exposing their entire self online, especially when they tend to keep their identities relatively private on the Internet. Most people hide behind a user name to shield themselves and be honest without repercussions. It is rare for someone to reveal too much of themselves online. The prospect of a person offering their entire self to the public is unlikely, for at least a large number of individuals. Would a person actually reveal every part of themselves to the public, or would they do the same that they do on blogs? Would they offer their entire selves, including the dark secrets that they try to hide, or only what others would like? In other words, would they only include the person they want others to see them as? Consider how the bold ones, even if they do express themselves, still maintain some secrets, while the ones who reveal their name might be more careful. Imagine, for a moment, a MySpace where the consciousness of the people is online. Sounds good if it is only your friends who see you, but imagine complete strangers learning your personalities. Not everyone would be fine with that.

So what if a person just removed the problems they didn't want people to know about? Well, this creates the question of identity. If we removed our flaws, would we be ourselves or, even more, would we still be human? Aren't these flaws apart of us? Worse, aren't there good qualities that we still might want to keep hidden, as even they could be considered weaknesses? The problem is, our "immortal" identity, which we upload unto the computer, probably wouldn't include everything that makes us who we are. I may not want to expose my weaknesses online, but I know that I wouldn't want to lose these flaws and secrets. Why would I want to destroy my body and all the flaws within it?

What about computer hackers? We might think that uploading our consciousness would prove to be relatively safe, because we would still be separate identities, but once we enter the computer world, wouldn't we be just as vulnerable as any file? Wouldn't we be made into 0s and 1s (if they don't become obsolete). There is definitely a threat of being exposed (firewall, anyone?). In fact, even "jacking in" features this threat, since the mind is open to the public. And what about computer viruses? I would not trust my life to a computer that could crash at any moment. Imagine putting your life in the hands of Microsoft. Scary, huh? Why do we still backup our work if we don't recognize the threat? It would probably be better to keep an original copy (i.e. our bodies!)

Finally, the question of immortality includes the question of humanity. Claiming that immortality is found in the preserving of our conscious suggests that the mind is our identity. Now this is great if you adhere to the idea that thinking makes us who we are, but it is useless if you believe in a soul. If it is a soul, and a spiritual world, that you feel defines you, than immortality is much easier than developing such a technology. And if those who believe that a soul defines our identity are right, then the computer has nothing to do with it. The conscious might not bring the desired immortality (and trust me, I would rather put my eternity in a perfect Being than man made, inconsistent technology).

So, while it would be cool to enter a world of virtual reality, it is fair to say that it is not the perfect existence for us to obtain. As far as I am concerned, it is merely science fiction.

Note: While this post does not specifically reference Neuromancer beyond just a short allusion, it is a response to the book as much as it is a response to the class. When I write responses, I tend to use the concept, and questions, within the book as the platform for my response. Though the references are few, it is in response to the idea of virtual reality as presented in this book. The same goes for "Virtual Reality Of The Mind." This was intended to be one of the original posts. Just thought I would clarify.

The Ghost in Our Machines

2007-02-25T22:46:00.000-08:00

Watching Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell was very interesting and had some great questions and insights. What I wish to focus on though are the meaning and implications of "the ghost."

The basic premise of the movie follows the assumption of the strong AI thesis, that being that all is required for intelligence and sentience is a sufficiently fast and complex enough program and then consciousness emerges. This cuts two ways first it means that we as humans are nothing special as far as consciousness and intelligence goes, we are just one small point on the time line of evolution. Second, if it really is true that consciousness simply arises out of complexity and speed then who we think we are really is nothing else than a ghost in reference to our own machine. When the mind, i.e. the brain breaks down, we cease to exist.

This is the materialistic premise behind the strong AI thesis, that being we are nothing more than a program running and who we think we are or might be is nothing more than the sum of the program and its specific memories and experiences.

The movie seems to imply that there is something special about being human. But if the strong AI thesis is correct then it really makes no difference if we are human, cyborg, android or computer. All that does matter is that we, which ever of the four previous "species" you wish to choose has consciousness "emerge."

The funny thing about the strong AI thesis is that, somehow and we don't know how, consciousness emerges from nonconsciousness. This is very much akin to the evolutionary argument that from the inanimate and lifeless matter of the universe that life emerges. This would be the same as how the movie portrays program 2501, after enough time, experience, and gaining enough complexity and speed she/he/it spontaneously (miraculously!?) becomes sentient and we have life.

The question that I have started asking myself this semester since we are focusing on AI in almost everything we have read or watched, is what truly is the status of intelligence. That is, is intelligence a necessary and/or sufficient condition for life? I would have to say that it is neither, since in the former case we have instances of plant life and microbes that we would say are alive but lack intelligence. Now in regards to the latter case of its being a sufficient condition, I, when the course started assumed it was, but now I am not so sure.

The movie stresses that for something to be a life form it needs to evolve and needs to be able to die. Unusual standards for defining life. Let us leave out the biological side of the issue for the moment and focus on (and assume for the sake of argument) the strong AI hypothesis as portrayed in the movie. I find it hard to imagine that the computer I am typing on now could somehow, someday simply by becoming faster and more complex actually become alive. Somehow I imagine that it would be much easier to see my computer as intelligent without being alive.

It seems to me now that intelligence does not necessarily make something alive.

Are animals intelligent? If the answer is yes then they too, as we, must have a soul or a ghost in the machine. But, what if the answer is that they are not intelligent and have no soul or ghost? Then Descartes would be right they really do not feel pain, anger, joy... they are just a system of stimulus and reaction, a purely causal system.

Another issue that the movie does not really chomp down on is "what is intelligence?" We seem to take for granted that what would count as intelligence can and must be something we recognize as, if not identical at least strongly similar to our own "intelligence."

Perhaps fetus' or young children do not have their ghost until their brain (i.e. computer) is sufficiently developed enough. But we already know that brain does not necessarily mean "mind" or "ghost" or "soul" until it gets complex enough for many creatures have brains that we do not give credence to for having either intelligence or a ghost.

How are we then to take Oshii's ideas represented in this movie?

If you happen to be a materialist, an evolutionist, then perhaps you welcome the ideas that life is nothing but increasing complexity. But if you happen to be of a theistic point of view it would be a shot at any importance of human values, morals and ethics.

Complexity and design do not happen by accident. Like creates like. Like comes from like. Perhaps we can someday achieve the goal of creating life, but I do not think it will happen according to the hypothesis of the strong AI argument. Intelligence is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for life, but if we ever do figure out how to create life and not just mimic some of its instantiations, we may then become as Gods ourselves. We may then discover what the other tree in the Garden of Eden really was offering us as an option.

Would that be a good thing?

Teaching the Machine

2007-02-21T09:45:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting comment on the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to alter or social and psychological world:

http://preetamrai.com/weblog/archives/2007/02/08/web-20-in-five-minutes/

and a response thereto:

http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=80

Virtual Reality Of The Mind

2007-02-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had a moment where you just let your imagination overcome you? Maybe you were sitting in class and was bored by the professor (which could never happen in this class), so you decided to daydream. Consider for a moment what you are doing. You are sitting in one place, but your mind has drifted into another world, probably creating different scenarios that may stem from your life. Sometimes, the emotions within your imagination is so strong that you feel the effects of these thoughts. In effect, you are experiencing a virtual reality of the mind.

Now consider creative writers. They spends hours developing new scenarios, sometimes creating stories of how they want to be. They become so involved with these characters that they may connect to them and feel they are real, while some of it might be a reflection of the author. Creative writers may write to escape from reality and become so involved that they become a part of this world they develop. I have written several stories and I can testify to the fact that a lot of my writing begins from my own experiences, and sometimes I am so connected to this world that I sympathize with the characters and the events I create. Though I am not hooked up to a machine that reproduces reality, my imagination runs so high that I feel that I have become a part of this other world.

What about you? What about the reader? Have you ever just sat down and read a book that featured a character more successful than you, so much so that you picture yourself in that role. How different is this from the purpose of virtual reality? The mind can be so real that your thoughts can have a physical effect on you. Consider the cases of people who became sick because they thought they were. Have you ever heard the expression: it is all in your mind? Would it be too much of a stretch to claim that imagination is a natural version of virtual reality?

After much reflection on "Crash"

2007-02-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

I’ve really struggled over the past week to fit Crash into a larger world scope. I found three things throughout the book that really struck me.
The first of these is the idea of “Autogeddon.” Ballard seemed to view Autogeddon as vehicles bringing about the end of civilization. It strikes me that Autogeddon may really betaking place in the form of global warming caused by vehicles in the hydrocarbon era. In the novel Vaughn uses his Lincoln as a force of destruction, where as in the world today the gas guzzlers like his Lincoln are causing the greatest environmental damage.
The second point I was able to dig from Crash was a warning against media desensitization of viewers. Throughout the novel actions became more violent and more outrageous for the characters, like a heroin addict more and more was needed in order to feel anything. In our world outside of the novel you can see the same thing happening. Take for example movies, since the beginning of the CGI era violence is becoming more and more graphic. I personally am very disturbed by the recent popularity of torture movies like Hostel.
The third point I found was the problem of technology becoming a necessary part of and overpowering personal relationships. This is most obvious in Ballard not being able to sexually perform outside of a car. Since 73 when Crash was written humans are becoming more and more separated and depending more and more on technology to communicate. We have lost the personal touch of looking at a person’s script when reading a letter. When reading an e-mail you have no clue to the writer’s mood like you may get through penmanship. Finally the piece of technology that confuses me the most and even more cuts the personal ties of communication is text messaging. We now have to type into our phone rather than simply talk to the person at the other end.
Well that being said I have to check my e-mail and send a couple of texts.

Crash Porn

2007-02-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

I made the statement the other day that I consider Crash a porn novel and that it is not a work of sci-fi, now after having read the second half of the novel I still stick with that assertion even more so than before.

The novels obsession with sex, fetishism, death, eroticism, pain, injury, mutilation, homo-erotic, gore, and pedophilia, and such, are simply topics and themes that are screaming so loudly that I cannot hear anything else the author may have intended. Just because the theme for this novel happens to center around transportation in general and cars in specific they only happen to be the instruments of the fetish/eroticization. It could have been literally about the fetishization of any object or technology in general, but that would still just make it a porn novel.

Now it may be an objectified porn novel, or it may be a high-brow porn novel, it may be a fictional porn novel, or some sub-genre of porn but not sci-fi. It seems to me that it is simply a contemporary pornographic work of fiction.

I have been since I started reading this novel trying to get a better idea of how I would define sci-fi and I am still working on that, but unless sci-fi is defined overly broadly (so broadly that it loses any meaning as a definition) I cannot see putting this novel in that genre.

Suffice to say I did not like this work or enjoy it. Anything that might be culled out as worthy(?) of discussion is out weighed by the novels over-the-top use of all the above mentioned topics. Whatever Ballard may have been aiming at, other than controversy for sales sake, has been lost on me.

Crash

2007-02-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

Well, you were not kidding when you said this book was disturbing. The images Ballard throws at the reader are non-stop..like skidding into oncoming traffic. Reading the book, to me, was like driving up on an accident..I just had to look!! The most upsetting images to me were the ones where sexual acts, upon kids, were being described. Those I skipped over..and then came back after few hours..and pages later. The other images, after awhile, reminded me of every print ad I have seen for either a car; fender here, radio there..or some item that uses a woman in the advertisement; when pieces of her are splashed all over the add..face here, leg there..and it has nothing to do with the product. All the scenes in the book became dismembered. Nothing human about any of the sexual acts, of the people involved, nothing recognizable about the vehicle. It seemed to me that technology was tearing everything up and throwing it back together..pieces falling where they may..and see what form takes place.

"Fleshy Points"

2007-02-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

Let us begin with a quote... ladies and gentlemen, thumb your way to page 99 and follow along if you would...

"I imagine her sitting in the car of some middle-aged welfare officer, unaware of the conjunction formed by their own genitalia and the stylized instrument panel, a euclid of eroticism and fantasy that would be revealed for the first time within the car-crash, a fierce marriage of pivoting on the fleshy points of her knees and pubis."

By this time I was far enough along in the novel that the disturbing nature of the writing had little impact on me. Well, honestly I was pretty disturbed in general by it, but not as much as when I had first started reading. The though kept running through my mind as to why I was reading such material in the first place. Part of it was a mild interest to see how the novel would close itself out. [Part of it was because I paid for the course and because the almighty Clif said we had to read it.] However, I mostly just wanted to keep reading so I could contemplate how it could relate to something such as cyborg culture, rather than to another book of Letters to Penthouse (available at your local Barnes & Noble)!

Humanity's perversion and obsession with machines continually bombarded me throughout this novel. It seems as though we cannot survive without technology or sexuality, and now we are trying to find a way to merge the two of them together. In Ballard's novel, he expresses this desire with cars as the piece of technology and the crash injuries/victims as the forms of perversion. His sexual encounters reach their peak only when he is within a vehicle. The mere thought of one drives his character to orgasm. Sex is no longer a passionate act, but a ruthless and unrestrained one only achievable by the use of technology.

We have already surpassed this stage in some pockets of present society, although we often times choose to ignore it or have little knowledge of it. There are companies that produce machines and devices that mimic sexual acts themselves, removing the need for a second human being in the act. Sex has become a mechanical process for some in that sense, in that human is replaced with machine. Many cultures view sex as a sacred union between two people and something that should not be taken on a whim. These machines take over the role of one of those individuals, merely providing pleasure for the other human while receiving nothing other than a sense of gratitude from the human afterwards. (Does this make that human a cyborg after this stage?!)

Computers have greatly mechanized the entire sexual process. In my short time at Michigan Technological University, I was an unwilling witness to this sort of scenario. Those of you that know anything about MTU know that the ratio of men to women is four to one. Of the women, they are either already in a relationship, are blatantly unattractive (I don't say this to be rude, it's the truth), or have far too many diseases to risk a sexual encounter with (also known as "frat mattresses"). There were many among my dorm-mates who were single men, basically all of which owned a computer. One day I was walking to the central room to whip up a batch of Ramen when I witnessed a particular scene of interest that I only now remember. Across the hall from me was an open dorm room door, with one of the occupants on his way out. As he left, I watched the remaining student out of the corner of my eye. I saw him look around outside, most likely to see which rooms had their doors open (we usually left all the doors open when we were all in our rooms chillin'). I continued to watch as he quietly closed the door, and I heard the quiet click of the deadbolt lock.

I knew what he was doing. You know what he was doing. The computer became the only source of sexual "entertainment" for him. He couldn't find a human to interact with in such a way, so he had to resort to a machine. Tragic, no? Is this the path that Ballard sees us heading towards? Will there be a day when a single man can flip a switch, and a realistic female humanoid machine teleports in front of him for the sole purpose of his sexual enjoyment? I hope that our humanity doesn't stray that way, but I suppose my voice is just one among many.

I apologize if this entry offends anyone, but if you are offended then you probably havn't read the novel. If you have a story like my MTU one, it may be worth sharing just to prove I'm not the only one who's run into that sort of thing.

Comparisons

2007-02-13T13:20:00.000-08:00

If there were any time I wished I was a cyborg its now. Strep sucks (at least I think its strep)

Anyways, onto the real topic.

I get the feeling that this book is relating a lot to Japanese culture. The neon lights, the protagonist Hito, the "Deliverator" favoring samurai swords over guns, and the Nipponsae (not sure if this is spelled right). Even though the book takes place in America, it still feels like its referring to Japan, more specifically Ghost in the Shell, though its not quite to that point, as there are no androids with souls here (though I could be vastly misinterpreting Ghost), although, once could ask if the hackers themselves are cyborgs or not. Hito may not necessarily be one, as he has an outside life and job, such that he isn't "just" a hacker. If you take his tools away, he will still be able to function in society, similar to Neo in "The Matrix". He worked for an accounting firm or something along that line. I also like that Hito seems to be working for the Mafia/Mob (Cosa Nostra is the proper term for the Sicilian Mafia), which would be fronting as a pizza delivery service. It's an idea of his real life identity versus his hacker identity, which he would like to keep hidden.

Note that I use the term hacker loosely. Many people that are hackers don't aim to wreck things, but to simply improve them. Those that do aim to do harm usually are able to cover their tracks. Recently, someone hacked (in the attacking sense) the US Government website and added the tag 'failure' to the biography of George W. Bush, so that if someone searched for the word 'failure', they got Bush's biography. Remember though that these people often don't know any other means. Take away their tools and they have nothing, thus they could be considered 'cyborgs'.

Scars are sexy

2007-02-13T07:35:00.000-08:00

This book is a bit like a penthouse, actually no, more like one of those crazy european fetish magazines you can only buy off the internet......#ahem* But past all that sex is considered one of those wierd taboos that is always in our face and familiar yet our society seems prudish. The main character always equated women with the cars and compares body parts or emotions to car parts. I think he even may have compared the highway and flow of cars to the rythem of his own body. Bodies and machines. That the technology all around us somehow makes things impersonal and can hide all the human drama, like when he was viewign his neigbourhood from his loft. This technology by crashing into beople transforms them, sets them free from conventional normal life and becomes something else. Sharing a difference of perspective then most because of what happened to them and the lasting signs of injury. In this way it is like the ultimate taboo is seen in a differnet light as the new techonlogy of the cars is able to touch and effect people in a way that technology seems to distance people physically. Not saying that all crash victems will end up that way, but something that is so draining and powerful and mind set in a state of choas can really mess with people. Vauhn seems to be like an artist or somthing, picking out those people who have suffered and brought them to a collective, an twisted passion of his for the ever advancing car to feel intimate with someone.

My Dog is a Cyborg

2007-02-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

Well, my wife and I took the leap and adopted a dog from the Humane Society. His name is Wiley (short for Wile E. Coyote Super Genius; yes, original, I know). He doesn't look like a cyborg, does he? How do you tell the difference between a dog and a... um, canoid? When we adopted him, we were informed that he had a microchip. "Excuse me," I said, "a microchip?" Yes. When he was brought in to the Humane Society by the Green Bay Police Department (he was a stray), they inserted a microchip underneath his skin: Home Again ID. With this microchip, if he runs away and is found, he can be "scanned" and all of his information, such as his home, can be brought up on the computer. Neat, huh?

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Anyway, that got me to thinking, why don't we do this under other circumstances. For example, consider the number of missing children cases in the United States. Could something like this help find those children? Help them get home again if lost in the mall? Catch criminals who abduct them? Could this be a good thing for human beings as well as our pets? But what are the other implications of such technology if used on human beings? With the proper technology, would our car start for us automatically? Could we set our lights to come on when we come home? Our TV to turn to our favorite channel? (Dial 3.) But then, could businesses tailor advertising to us personally? ("Mr. Ganyard, you look like you could use a Guiness." Well, yes, now that you mention it....) Of course, if that were the case, how much information would the police have? Is that a good thing? Break the law, and you're immediately identified. Take a trip to California, and you're immdeiately identified. Vote in the next election....

"Can you guess what I'm thinking?"

Reasons Why I Hated (Yes, Hated) The Movie Blade Runner

2007-02-08T09:21:00.001-08:00

I had planned to post my problems with the movie Blade Runner after I saw it yesterday but didn't get a chance to and, as a result, much of what I wanted to say was already included in Anne's post. However, instead of just commenting to her post, I thought I would include my thoughts here, even if they are repeated. The difference is in tone because, while Anne mentioned she hates movies that are poor adaptions to a book, I just plain out hated this movie as a film. I will begin with reasons based off of the reading and how it effected my viewing experience and then continue to why I hated the movie even if I hadn't read the book.

This movie was "inspired by" the Philip K. Novel, which is another way of saying that the filmmakers took the general idea but tried to "vamp it up" with all the sci-fi cliches and action scenes, which I will complain about later in this blog. Where was the depth? First, I need to say that the films portrayal of Rick Deckard was a horrible re-imagining of the character in the book. I don't know if it was the script or Harrison Ford's performance (why, Han Solo, why? Just kidding. I hate Star Wars. Probably shouldn't have printed that.) Either way, I didn't care at all about the character. Seriously, where is the inner conflict? Where is the questioning of humanity? The film did a horrible job in expressing this controversy of what determines life that is found in the book; Rachael does question if Deckard is an android and if he ever killed an human by mistake, but it is only thrown out without any implications, like it is merely obligatory. Worse is how they made the androids so human in there emotion and even have empathy (or at least remorse, as evidenced by the scene where Roy kisses the dead body of Priss, more on that later). The problem with this is that, if the androids have empathy, wouldn't the question of humanity be more important instead of barely even be mentioned? The film's fault was that it chose to focus way too much on the replicants lifespan and not enough on the question of life.

There are self indications of the flatness of Rick in the movie as compared to the book. One is that he is coming out of retirement but I never actually understood why, and his lack of hesitation in returning demonstrates that the issue could not have been that deep. He kills without regard for his actions, never seeming to care (even Luna Luft is portrayed as a lower former of entertainment, which would obviously make her "retirement" a lot less significant). In the book, his decision to have sex with Rachael was portrayed as being an action that could get him in trouble and therefore was more of a conflict, but in the movie he just grabs her and forces himself on her. It seemed more like he was raping her, since she did not seem to pleased, and that created the impression in my mind that she was just some kind of slave that did whatever the man wanted. In other words, she was merely an object to give him pleasure. Since he was married, anyways, the action did really show any dangerous implications and, therefore, he lacked some of the inner turmoil that the book portrayed (a.k.a depth)

There are many other things that bothered me but I won't go into too much depth regarding these. I will say that removing Mercer and the empathy box was a major drawback and that changing the name of Isidore and the Rosen Corporation was completely unnecessary. And, like Anne mentioned, why was the animals basically removed? Why was the world so intact? It didn't look like a war had occurred. The answer, in my opinion, is not that they didn't have time, but rather they filled that time with cliches and "roll your eye moments" and substituted depth for mindless action.

This brings me to my problem with the film itself. Most of it was completely mindless and it got really boring after a while. Not to mention all of the extremely horrible dialogue and corny scenes that were filled with cliches. There were many moments where I thought the script needed a revision, and while I can't cite examples of the dialogue problems, I definitely would ntice it if I watched it again ("Wake up, it's time to die." Come on!) The climatic scene at the end was just so typical of hollywood, having to end it with a final battle (oh and having it on the roof where he hangs off the edge staring at death? That's original) Furthermore, how did he hang on so well after breaking his fingers? He sure didn't seem to be in too much pain as he was hanging on to the edge and climbing the side of the building with relative ease. The romantic scenes were completely pointless and not even built up to (Roy meets J.R. and Priss and then just kisses right in front of him, Rick basically rapes Rachael) The scene where Roy was counting to give Rick some more time and then stops to kiss Priss' dead corpse was definitely a "roll your eye moment" for me. I know that this movie is relatively old, but the cliches were around before then. They really don't have much of an excuse. All they do is take all the depth of the book away to create a more "entertaining" action flick, but movies with great action and little depth are not the type of films I enjoy. I wanted to leave halfway through and was constantly glancing at the clock. I hated this film.

I will say that I did appreciate the scene where we actually see Rick act as a detective. I would have enjoyed more if it had more of a mystery approach. This is the reason why I consider Minority Report one of the best Sci-fi films. It combined a brilliant look at the future with a interesting mystery that included plot twists that I liked and was actually surprised by. Movies with tension and mystery are much more interesting to me that mindless action. Sure, Minority Report had cliches, but I enjoyed how the movie seemed to be a good mystery set in the future instead of cliched action thriller based off a good story. When I watched Minority Report, I was made interested in reading Dick's story, but I doubt such interest would come from viewing the movie Blade Runner.

I am sorry for my exhaustive analysis but I hope you better understand my disdain for this movie and why I feel that way. You might not agree with me, but it is an opinion. And, as you probably noticed, my opinion is very strong.

Blade Runner

2007-02-07T19:58:00.000-08:00

This was a very frustrating movie for me. It was way too different from the book and I kept waiting for the story line to match up. It never seemed to, so I got confused and mixed up a lot.
I think that if I had not read the book, this would have been a movie I would have sat through if I had nothing better to do. It wasn't the worst one I have ever seen, but it was not even close to a good one.
I hated the fact that there was so much emphasis on fighting, not on the contervsy about robots and humans surpassing them. Also, by having Batty actually kill someone because of anger, that did not help the idea that robots could be humans. Plus, I seemed to see emotions coming from the robots.

BladeRunner

2007-02-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

I hate when movie is so different from the book!! I realize movie have time restrictions, but I felt the movie lacked so much of the book! I really didn't see his internal struggle with killing the androids, the animals held no importance, either did Mercer. If I hadn't read the book..the unicorn dream would have been even more out of place. The affair with Raechel meant less when he wasn't married. The only hint that he maybe an android is the shot of his eyes reflecting like Raechel's. The movie definetely made the androids out to be "more human", more emotional, wanting to live longer.

But really, why change the Rosen Corporation and JR's name?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

2007-02-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

The was an excellent novel that moved along at a steady pace. It made me question some things, such as how dependent humans are on technology already and how much more dependent we could become. I found that using an emotion machine to generate different feelings to be scary and a bit confusing. First of all, how would that type of machine really make the humans different from the androids? To me, the machine makes a process out of feeling emotions, just as the androids had to think logically about things to figure out what feelings they may have. Such as, when Rachel was going on about how she felt for the other androids and how it must be empathy towards them. She had to think logically and follow a certain process to come to that conclusion. This is similar to how humans in this novel have to think about what they want to/need to feel before dialing it on the emotion machine.
I was confused about how the androids were made of biological parts-yet scientists had not yet found a way to have cell regrowth. How would this be possible-there is no way that enough human parts are lying around for the number of androids that are built.
I did like how Philip K. Dick made the reader question who Methodises really was. Although it seems as though the androids, especially the tv personal, proved that he was in fact an old time actor, they are a couple of spots where both J.R. and Rick seem to have an encounter with him. On the other hand, Dick makes that conclusion hard to buy because J.R. is known to have had hallucination's in the past and also because he is deemed a 'special' due to his brain being fried. When Rick encounter Methodises, he is under a lot of stress, which could be a cause for the hallucination. Plus, in the end, Rick believes that he and Methodises are the same person for a while and it is not clear if he ever really came to the conclusion that he is just Rick.
Finally, the last thing that struck me is the fact that the androids seemed to be enslaved by humans. It is as if the humans are so dependent on technology, they no longer wish to do any menial labor or any other job deemed beneath them, thus employing the androids to do it for them.
Overall, I did enjoy this novel. It caused the readers to think how like androids were to humans at this time and how dependent the humans became on technology.

**Note, this was done on Monday originally. This is the draft that was saved thanks to this site :D.

Are Emotions Just Human?

2007-02-06T08:07:00.000-08:00

I just got done watching Blade Runner. I really wish they had stuck more with the novel, but there were some interesting additions to the story. Ironically, I think the film concentrated mostly on the pure technology and fighting instead of the actual moral issue regarding the androids.
What really struck me was the fact that they said flat out in the film that they believed there was a chance that the androids would develop their own emotional responses. In both the film and the novel you can see that the androids do experience some sort of emotion, especially when Rachel and Pris (in the novel) discover that they aren't human. They do express a frustration and a sense of loss when they realize that their memories aren't actually their own. There is an attachment to the other androids and even a few humans that they meet. I think these interactions do raise an interesting point about wether or not emotions are only in the realm of humans.

The Future? (Technology of Fear and Necessity)

2007-02-05T20:55:00.000-08:00

Drab. Dark. Empty.

These are a few words I'd use to describe the world that exists within Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Everything is dead or dying as the Earth tries to heal iteself beneath a blanket of radioactive dust. Many of mankind's members have fled the planet, leaving the remaining people in a place where they'll continually and eventually become stupider due to radiation. Those living among the stars have their own little android "slaves" to accompany them and tend to their every whim and will.

Occasionally, one of the mechanical masterpieces will get a mind of its own and flee to Earth, where police-funded mercenaries track them down and eliminate them. If they are not "retired" they have the potential to turn against humanity in a violent fashion. For this reason they are hunted down when they arrive on the Earth.

I'm overwhelmed by the bleakness of Philip K. Dick's view on the future in this novel. It seems to me that technology has become such a necessity in Dick's novelization that a human cannot function without it, as compared to how a human would function on any given day in today's society. Many of the themes were already discussed in class, such as the mood organ and empathy box. However, as much as the society of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep seems to rely exclusively on technology, they also seem to fear it. Androids turn against humanity and become a physical threat. Violence leads to fear, and thus the fear of technology.

Do you think our society is headed into an age where we will both require and fear technology? I surely hope not. Then again, technology is a broad topic. The invention of the horse-pulled carriage was an advancement in technology. Dick's novel describes the sci-fi-esque classic "hovercar," another advancement in the same field. I suppose I'm referring to more futuristic and computer-based technology when I ask the question of whether technology is to be required and feared. Personally, I have seen computers, cellphones, and other such objects to be extra items in my life, not necessary for my existence. I don't need my PS2 to have fun, but I will admit it is an object I use often. Then again, I'd be perfectly content to sit out on the lawn with a pencil and paper and just let my imagination run wild for a while, and that would be equally as fun. (Off Topic: Exception to that last statement would be the current weather. It's below zero out there... you won't see me sitting on the grass anytime soon!!!)

Rick vs Rachael

2007-02-05T19:38:00.000-08:00

Dick put a few instances in his novel where the reader is believed to know one thing, than it twists into something different, then does something different again. One thing that caught my attention was Rick's "relationship" with Rachael. Though he questioned his job at the point where Luba Luft was killed, I think Rachael played an important role in his so called revelation as well. He sees her as almost real, has sex with her, and for a while thinks he loves her. Then, when they are in the car and moments after he says he'd marry her if it was legal, things turn. The reader finds out Rachael used Rick, more than he used her, when she says "no bounty hunter has gone on ...after being with me. Except one..."(198). In an attempt it seems Rachael tries to make Rick see that they are real by something so intimate as sexual induction and that he would see the androids in a new, sentimental eye...however, do to her lack of empathy, Rachael gave away her plan of swaying Rick, who becomes somewhat hurt or betrayed by it all. Interstingly, Rachael thinks she can read Rick by "that expression...that grief" (199) on his face. Here she is only reading him intellectually rather than emotionally, which she is unable. At this point Rick now sees her again as an "it" rather than a "she."

Though Rick doesn't kill Rachael, he goes on to kill the other three androids, mainly because of what this Mercer told him, which could possibly be what he trully felt seeing as how he claimed he was Mercer (which I got a bit confussed with). Rachael's Nexus-6 brain, more android than human, lost in the battle that she tried to wage with Rick and his human empathy toward androids, where in the end he did what he felt he must and ultimately kill the androids. (However, in her own way Rachael won too in killing something dear to Rick as the other androids were "dear" to her.) All in all Rick felt "required to do wrong," but maybe deep down near the end of the novel it didn't seem so wrong to him, he started seeing the andriods as "its" again, he thought "savagely" towards them, called them "stupid," etc. Finally, in the last pages Rick says "sometimes it is better to do something wrong than right" (242). What can we really make of all these jagged turns Dick puts in his novel?

Justifying Murder

2007-02-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

"Do you think of them as 'it'?"
"I did at one time," Rick said. "When my conscience occassionally bothered me about work I had to do; I protected myself by thinking of them that way, but now I no longer find it necessary."
(Phillip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? pg. 125)

What does it mean to be human? It is a question that philosphers have asked for centuries. But to answer the question posed by Phil Resch in this book, it becomes necessary to reword this to apply to life in general: what do we think to justify dehumization? It is interesting to recognize the depth found in this quote, especially in how it applies to two issues: dehumanization and disensitization. The former is the more obvious--it addresses the issue of identity--but the latter is found in the statement "but now I no longer find it necessary." We have already discussed the idea of dehumanization in class, where it was mentioned that war requires people to view the enemy as less than human to kill. But now we come to the issue of justification as it relates to becoming disensitized. There many not be realistic cyborgs like in this book but you can fill in the blank here. Disensitization is found everywhere, and it always begins with justification. "It is alright to play violent video games, they're not actually real murders." "It is alright to watch films with torture sequences, it is just acting." Sure, this may be true, but disensitation can follow and that extends beyond just the games and the movies. This may seem controversial, but should we merely ignore those murders that were attributed to violent games and movies? Maybe you think that it is harmless fun, but those stories do help back my point about justification and its disensitizing result.

Now why don't I increase the controversy with another example. This quote reminded me of another hot topic in society: abortion. Consider this: imagine that the question was really about unborn babies and viewing them as merely an 'it'. Isn't that how we justify killing babies? By claiming that they are not life, we justify their murders, and then we become so disensitized that the justification is no longer necessary. Now you may disagree about whether unborn babies are living, but is that not the issue of justification that I am addressing? Amazing how such a short quote can have such a large implication.

Hopefully my analysis didn't cause too much controversy as well.

Empathy Box

2007-02-04T08:51:00.000-08:00

Isn't this what we ended last Tuesdays class talking about? Empathy? Is this what makes us human? According to Philip K. Dick in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it is. The Voight-Kampff test, seemed to determine an android from a human based on empathetic responses to questions. I was struck by how the empathy theme ran throughout the book and how this seemed to be the one of things people left on earth were trying to cling to. The use of the Empathy Box by the characters and the belief in Mercerism; to stay connected to the human race they needed to feel other's pain, to walk in their shoes,to be able to empathize. But people did this by using an electronic device. That led me to think that people lost their empathy for each other. But that would also explain the "flattening affect"; the lack of human interaction and attention. If we continue to ignore each other; to create media that objectifies human beings as things to be bullied, raped and beat on, will we be using an empathy box to keep us human?

I may be paranoid…but not an android

2007-01-31T22:06:00.000-08:00

Human’s dependence on machines/technology in relation to the pure android still intrigues me and even though I’m not finished with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, there has already been some powerful images conveyed. The first chapter starts off with the mood organ. Dial a number, and you may feel whatever you want to feel. You can wake up with a smile even though outside the window, the Earth is crumbling under a cloud of radiation. However, setting your mood as one may set a timer may make the human feel good, at the same time; one’s humanity is being stripped away. Iran could feel this; feel how wrong it was “So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn’t feel it” (Dick 5). “But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness” (Dick 5). So by programming depression into her day, she recaptures her humanity, although to the frustration of her husband, Rick Deckard. At times it’s tempting to just wish all the painful emotions away, but would loosing half our emotions make us less than human? Moreover, would depending on a machine (the mood organ) to regulate those emotions make us more cyborg.

Iran addresses despair, and John Isidore exemplifies human loneliness. Cut off from most other humans in the empty apartment complex, Isidore talks about Wilbur Mercer and the empathy box as the most important things in existence “It’s an extension of your body; it’s the way you touch other humans, it’s the way you stop being alone” (Dick 66). Once again, humans no longer possess the ability it would seem to connect with each other in a meaningful way without the use of technology. For instance, when Isidore goes to greet his new neighbor, he has forgotten social norms and etiquette, and ends up showing up with a block of margarine melting in his hand.

One last observation was the entire system of owning animals and the status symbol. At one time (still today but not to the same degree) an automobile was an obscenely important status symbol for people to take pride in, and in this novel, that symbol remains in the form of animals. Shame for those owning mechanical ones and pride for the owners of rare large animals, the owning of animals gives the leftover inhabitants of Earth some sense of pride as they live their lives slowly decaying from the omnipresent dust, and the Sidney’s catalogue a sense of hope for Rick Deckard to clutch onto.

Jetson's

2007-01-31T19:24:00.000-08:00

As with Mike, I have not yet delved too far into "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," but my goodness. This idea of a free android from the UN (of all places) for those that emigrated (to Mars?) reminds me of the maid robot, Rosie, in the Jetson's which premiered in 1962. Interestingly, this book was published in 1968. It seems like he stole Hanna-Barbera's thunder, but maybe this idea of personal androids and hovercars had been popular science fiction themes of the 1960s. However, I do not think Astro was considered as much of a status figure for the Jetson's as the "electric sheep" represents for the Deckards. Another aspect that I found to be rather comical has to be that the sheep died of tetanus and not from perhaps cancer from the pungent dust cloud looming above. Moreover, any author willing to print, "and there existed chickenheads infinitely stupider..." makes me rather amused to read more (Dick, 17).

Androids

2007-01-31T15:38:00.000-08:00

I made it through some of this, though not quite as far as I wanted. I found it quite interesting that humanity would make robots of animals. What purpose would this serve? It isn't like humanity can make any use out of these robots. (By use I mean biological use, they could do work and other chores that could normally be done by them, but could you eat an electric cow?) Wouldn't it serve humanity better to raise those animals that are still alive? I guess this is a personal matter for me, because no matter how realistic an animal-robot is, it still isn't the real thing. I could write more on this, but I feel like I would just run around in a circle. The problem is making human androids, because if they are made to act like humans, what's to stop them from temptation? Beyond that, they are stronger than humans, and probably do not want to be trapped by humans (their 'kin' so to speak).

interesting stuff

2007-01-29T23:05:00.000-08:00

I don't want to steal this blog's thunder as they say, but this online community might be of great interest for some of you. It may be called "Cyberpunk," but it discusses a bunch of different facets of technology, sometimes even eugenics. But this highlighted link is a definite read for anybody, especially if you like philosophy. Plus, you don't need a livejournal account to read any of it, though if you want to comment or post anything, that's a different matter entirely.

http://community.livejournal.com/cyberpunk/738308.html

This particular post is back dated a bit in the actual page of the community, but I directly linked it to the post of interest. They often give reasources on particular subjects.

cheers!

"heart between brains and hand"

2007-01-25T07:28:00.000-08:00

Similar to the "Time Machine," the worker's city is far below the Earth's surface which is gloomy and robotic. The workers are inferior and only useful as part of a machine. If perhaps they are injured or even killed, the work must go on and no real regard for the loss of life is represented by the owner, "Freder's father". It is disheartening when the father says, "such accidents are unavoidable." The "people" of Metropolis have no compassion for humanity, and they feel that the workers are just subservient creatures that willingly perform ludicrous duties.
Eventually, the scientist produces machine men that will make "no need for living workers", but what will happen to all of the living workers? I do not think that we should become a society run by machines and robots. There will always be people willing to do working class work, and could probably do it better than a robot that may default like the Maria robot. I agree with the movie that it is important to include "heart between brains and hand." It is imperative to not take advantage of workers, because they will revolt as in "Metropolis." Although Freder proclaims that "ten hours can be such torture," it obviously does not need to be that way. Also, the storyline of the people meeting in the catacombs to hear Maria speak and search for a mediator reminded me of a Union meeting and Freder (the mediator) as the Union Steward.
I noticed that there was a star on the scientist's door. I don't know if that was a pagan reference or something anti-Semitic. I just found it to be interesting considering it was a German film.

Biblical Metropolis

2007-01-24T20:06:00.000-08:00

I just got done watching the movie... Wow!!! I was blown away by all the biblical references and symbolism!!! The Eternal Gardens and Tower of Babel reference were the first to be seen and heard..but the first to really strike me visually was when Freder changes places with worker # 11811 and as he struggles with the arms of the machine, he looks as though he is on a cross and asks "Father, Father, will 10 hours never end?" This got me to thinking about The Time Machine and the reference to the name of the Eloi in the notes about section 6; " Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" translates to "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", Jesus's final words on the cross. Perhaps the Time Traveler gave the name Eloi to the creatures looking the most like man or created in man's/God's image and perhaps feeling that they have been forsaken to an awful fate with the Morlocks. In the movie, it's a cry for help, a question of why this is happening. Also, the themes of Creator (Frederson), Prophet (Maria), Mediator or Savior (Freder), humanity (workers) and the devil (Rotswang); of wanton desires and mankinds lustful nature (Yoshiwara); the reference to the Apocolypse and the Seven Deadly Sins that were present in the movie. The other religious theme, that has been perpetuated through time, is the portrayal of the main female character, Maria; that of saint and slut. How it was that the image of a woman, who was to save the people and lead them peacefully, could be turned into the image of something evil that will lead the workers to their death and downfall. Eventually, it seems that peace between Frederson (Creator) and the workers (humanity) is to be brokered by the Mediator (Freder) and the people are saved.... in front of a cathedral. It seems to me, at least in this piece of Science Fiction cinema, religion and science went together into telling this fantastic, futuristic tale!

The Movie

2007-01-24T18:26:00.001-08:00

For me, this was a very difficult movie to watch and was hard to figure out. It seems as though that the whole society is a machine in itself. The workers are the clogs of the machine and the center brain or heart (depending on what you think is the center of a person) is Freder's (sp?) father. Without the brain/heart trying to ensure that everything runs smoothly, the machine falls apart. Those in Metropolis (the above ground area) do not seem to know how the machine works and just the vision of what the city should be, while the workers know how the machine works, almost as if they are part of the machines based on their movements. This means that they need to work together for the ultimate good of everyone; however, the workers revolt and destroy the main machine.
The creator of this film has created a dystopia in an urban setting and how it would be if there were two social classes at war. The creator of this film seems to say that people must be careful not to take for granted machines or those who work on them, else the machines could take over and destroy all that ha been built. This is based on the fact that the workers can be considered the machines since they move so much like machines and flow with the movements of the machine. It is also based on how the workers eventually get revenge on those who believe they have ultimate control. The creator is warning also that control is precarious and must not be taken for granted. Considering the destruction that was wrought from the robot Maria was able to convince the workers to revolt, I believe this creator of the movie is warning that robots could be huge trouble if they become too human in their nature and looks.
In a way, this reminded me of Well's book we just read. The similarity was mostly felt because their were two secret classes and in a sense, races. One could not survive without the other.

The Movie

2007-01-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

Humanity and The Time Machine

2007-01-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

While reading The Time Machine, Marx and class structure was interesting to think about in relation to “Machinery and Modern Industry”. How the Morlocks became so much a fixture in the great mass of machinery below the surface that they could not even live without it. They work simply out of habit, and centuries after they have been exiled from the surface, they could not return to the sunlight even if they desired to. Their bodies had changed in such a way that they were more suited to coexist with machines than with the Eloi. The human race had indeed become separated by more than class, but actually split into two separate species.

This has already been commented on a bit though, but what interested me the most was the frightening picture of what humanity has become. Humanity in general has not evolved into a utopia but rather devolved into something more similar to animals, children and machines. One particular bit which stood out to me was “Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers” (Wells 79). At some point in the huge leap of the time traveler, the classes became cemented in place, and without a need for change, the Eloi abandon their intellectual institutions (the ruined museum the time traveler visits for example) and the wit of the Eloi degraded to the level of children or animals, and have lost their humanity, left to be preyed upon by the Morlocks, who have equally rejected their humanity in favor of the machines. True, the time traveler felt more of a connection with the Eloi and loathed the Morlocks, “Instinctively, I loathed them” (Wells 57), but that was mostly due to their physical appearances, yet fundamentally, both the Eloi and Morlocks had lost what made them human long ago as result of the class system and the growing use of machinery which Marx described.

The last few chapters present a strong image for humanity for anyone believing that the human race is more than a relatively short amount of time in the existence of the Earth itself. The Earth existed before the advent of humanity, and after humanity eventually dies off, the Earth will continue to exist, possibly inhabited by giant crab creatures, until it is eventually consumed by an expanding red giant.

Too Many Leaps

2007-01-22T19:32:00.000-08:00

This is the first time since middle school that I read this novel, so it was like reading it for the first time. For me, Wells made too many jumps and conclusions. Although they do follow some logic (such as about the culture and what happened), I think it is too neat and tidy. Besides which, learning a new language, would be difficult and hard to do so within a few days. I did enjoy the amount of details Wells provided and I do agree that eventually, society may come to an almost Utopia type of society. It does seem logical that eventually, we will find a way to get rid of most diseases. Again, I do think Wells is jumping a bit to far in thinking that two races wold be created. I could not understand why or how they evolved; I did not understand why they could not try and get rid of the other race.

Poor Weena.....

2007-01-22T18:23:00.000-08:00

When I was reading "Time Machine," Thursday's discussion did come to mind, yet, it was certainly no utopian society. The evolution of mankind into the two from the Marxist perspective was interesting, though even in the present day such evolution is happening. It reminded me that with societies such as ours, so heavily reliant on science, technology, and processed food, and that need increasing; People are getting fatter, and more prone to illness due to our habits.

Anyway, getting back on the subject, I thought the omission of most of the names was interesting, especially of the time traveler's, as it was blatantly written out and left blank. It makes me think that perhaps he wasn't named because of something he did wherever in time he went. It reminded me of "Back to the Future" How you aren't supposed disrupt anything or you could change history.

I remember reading this story along time ago when I was kid, and watching the movie too. Much different, as the movie takes off after his initial adventure. Worth a watch.

Time Traveller

2007-01-22T17:52:00.000-08:00

I found H.G. Wells' The Time Machine presented interesting insights regarding the Time Traveller and his relation to the time machine. First, the Time Traveller curiously chose to travel into the future, and not just a few years (for instance to see where his own life takes him) but he goes so far that readers for centuries to come will never meet. Also, why didn't it stike him to go into the past to explore the time before or againt to tamper with his own life. I think it is our human nature that propells us to the unknown, the thirst to explore and discover things mysterious and unreachable. Also, the Time Traveller must have felt pretty secure in his current life not to tamper with it which to me seems like something a vast array of people may attempt with such thing as a Time Machine. It is interesting for one to ask themselves "if I could travel time, where would I go and why?"
Not to write a novel here...but another thing that caught my attention was the Time Traveller's connection to the machine. Without the machine, he was distressed and raving, not to metion highly helpless. Also, when he discovered it missing, he was almost violent in an attempt to question the Eloi to where it was. Then, when he believes the machine is behind the bronze of the White Sphinx he wants to beat it open by any means necessary to reunite with his prized possesion. I also thought there was a point where he took no remorse in the thought of pummeling the Morlocks for stealing his Time Machine. I enjoyed this book from beginning to end and feel there can be much to discuss about it. These insights I posed were just a few that interested in.

Wells and Marx

2007-01-22T11:29:00.000-08:00

I found that Wells seemed to agree with a lot of what Marx was saying in his book Capital. As the traveler was passing through the future time periods he saw societies build up around him and then crumble back down and then repeat the same process until he came to the final societies of the Eloi and the Morlok. This society had the same basis of the workers and the factory owners. The owners were originally the Eloi and the workers were Morloks, but the Morloks revolted and began attacking the Eloi and using them as a food source. This also reminded me of a much more extreme scenario of what happens in Metropolis. It seems as though Wells comments on industrialized society are about the horrifying effects that it has upon society and its citizens.

The Time Traveler

2007-01-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

This was my umpteenth time reading H.G. Wells The Time Machine and I must say that this reading was the most enjoyable and I discovered much that I had not seen before when reading it just as entertainment.

I have 4 questions that I am left with after the reading:

1) Why if the time traveler promised to come back with proof "up to the hilt" has he never returned? Was it because he could not or would not?

2) The future that the time traveler ended up looking at was a future that did not include him in the process, i.e. when the time traveler went into the future he took himself out of the time line that lead there from the past. This could be taken to mean that what is really important is that we stay focused on the present, the here and now. But I do not think this is what Wells intended or even thought of, for if he did then the time traveler would have returned to his time and remained there and he did not. Which ties back into the first question why then has he not returned.

3) Which direction did the time traveler go into? The past? Or The Future? And how far? Unless I missed it in the reading Wells did not answer this for us. The movie versions both have. In them the time traveler goes boldly back into the future for love and to save humanity from itself. But I do not see anything in the reading were Wells points us in this direction.

And finally 4) If technology is bad for us how is it that the time traveler thinks that he can save the world using technology (i.e. the time machine) to save us? Wells does not give an answer but I do not think that the answer lies in more, better or even more complex machines. The answer rather has to rest with us or in us. Our morals, our politics, our economics et cetera. Machines are like weapons or tools it is how they are used that determines their value.

Blog 1-The Time Machine

2007-01-22T08:18:00.000-08:00

This is the first book I have read by H. G. Wells and I loved it! While the idea of traveling through time is exciting, the portrait Wells paints of humanity is bleak, to say the least. Section 5, I found to be most interesting; the Time Traveler's speculation as to how humanity has come to be this way in the year 802,701 A. D. "That Man has not remained one species, but had differentiated into two distinct animals: that my graceful children of the Upperworld were not the sole descendants of our generation, but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal Thing, which had flashed before me, was also heir ro all the ages." H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (London: Penguin Group, 2005), 46. What he goes on to describe is how the gap between the upper and working classes has eventually widened into seperate creatures, living in two seperate realms of the earth. This got me to thinking about the question that was posed in class last Thursday; What will become of the Upper class/Humanity when everything is done for us? A few thought that it would give humanity time to continue with great thinking, with art....Wells seems to see the upper class becoming "fatted cattle". (Wells, 62). The thought of humanity becoming useless scares me.

Metropolis Comments

2007-01-20T17:30:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching Fritz Lang's Metropolis, in a word stunning. Amazing that this is now 80 years old. The breadth and depth of Mr. Lang's concepts are extremely complex and varied. To start I wish to say a few things first that are not necessarily pertinent to our Cyborg discussion specifically. The two elements that caught my attention as the movie moved along were the religious and political (or perhaps economic rather) ideas. The parallels and Christian themes and allegories are fairly self-evident and I will return to comment upon those in a moment. In the beginning of the movie it seemed to be echoing Marx's ideas of the dehumanization of man by industrialization. The machine is portrayed as an entity of its own which survives and lives on man, i.e. the laborers. The machine at one point early on is called Moloch, which can be a type of deity or evil master. And in this case it seems Mr. Lang is definitely saying that technology is (or can be) a cruel and evil master.

The main (overt) theme of the movie is that the hands, i.e. the workers (or the proletariat) and the head (or the bourgeoisie) can only survive if they are united by the "heart" or the mediator, which given the movies religious/Christian overtones could be a direct appeal to Jesus and the message of the Gospels and New Testament, that being the message of the heart, one of love, forgiveness and compassion.

As the movie went along a theme that came to my mind was the fact that the masses, both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but especially the proletariat, or the hands need to be lead. In the beginning of the movie they are lead in a dehumanizing manner by the bourgeoisie, then there are lead by the hopeful Maria, then they are lead by the automaton/machine Maria (HEL), then the are lead by the worker who was in charge of the "heart" of the machine, until finally at the end of the movie I was wondering who or how they would be lead now. It seemed that the entire movie kept implying that one way or the other the hands, the workers must be lead, as a group or as a heard, but they must be lead. Perhaps Mr. Lang had a classical Greek idea in mind implying the importance of the group over that of the individual, or perhaps a more socialistic one I am not sure. But outside of the "individual" that is the mediator, the Saviour (and Mary, which begs for the interpretation of either Mary Magdalene, of the Holy Mother Mary) the emphasis is on how the group reacts and responds as a whole.

The one machine that represents the idea of the cyborg, is named after a women named HEL and is first presented underneath what looks like a cross (no pun intended) between the Star of David and and inverted Pentagram. So the only female of the main characters in the movie, Maria is portrayed as both the good (human) Maria, and Maria (HEL) as the bad (machine) Maria can be both good for the proletariat or bad, and apparently the choosing is not always easy. The human Maria represents love, peace and hope, whereas the cyborg Maria, represents violence, hate, and destruction.

It is not clear to me how Mr. Lang at the end of the movie wishes us to envision Metropolis moving on. It is clear that he seems to intend that it will continue on in a positive direction but the how is entirely unclear matter. Perhaps, somewhat like the Marxist (or perhaps Leninist) idea that the details will be worked out exactly what to do only after the revolution happens, which has always seemed a bit problematic to me.

Also unclear at the end of Metropolis is exactly what will be the relationship between technology/machines and humanity. In the end it seems that he is at least gives us an optimistic point of view that there is hope for the future even if the path to get there will be difficult.

The themes and images that Mr. Lang uses in in his epic masterpiece require a much more in depth study to come to a fuller understanding of Metropolis in all its magnificent complexity. And what I have put forth here is a first impression and a mere scratching of the surface of all the ideas and concepts that the movie deals with and portrays.

Welcome to Cyborg Culture!

2007-01-11T11:46:00.000-08:00

This Blog has been created for use4 in my course on Cyborg Culture at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. Students will be invited to post reviews of assigned materials and to comment on each others thoughts.