more human than human (good Daft Punk song btw)

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.