3. The difference between animal and machine has long been debated. What makes a machine? We tend to think of them as something artificial, manmade, like a hammer or a car. The definition seems to be somewhat less clear-cut though: “A machine is any device that uses energy to perform some activity. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work.”
What then prevents an organism from being a machine? Don’t they use energy to perform an activity? The definition of organism is: “A living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently.” Cannot a machine can act or function independently? It seems the only thing preventing a machine from being classified as an organism is the quality of being alive. How do we define life? It seems the official definition is simply: “A characteristic state or mode of living.” Such a simple definition of something so complicated implies that life is such a basic concept that all beings can understand it. I have also heard life defined as the quality of having metabolism. This definition, however, excludes viruses, which do not metabolize and are therefore not technically alive. If they are not alive, what are they? And how do they differ from a machine?
Life Extreme raises more questions. If a machine is to be defined as manmade and designed to use energy for a purpose, how is something classified that has those characteristics and is also alive? An animal that is created by humans seems to blur the line between living and mechanical. The Semi-Living Worry Dolls on page 90 are an example of this. Are they alive? Can something be “semi-living?” What would a machine constructed out of living parts be referred to as? E-coli can be engineered to produce beneficial drugs, in essence becoming a machine. Does that mean it is not alive?
The splices of Ribofunk force us to look at how comfortable we are with referring to ourselves as animals. If something is partially animal, partially human, and all manufactured, what is it? Human? Animal? Machine? Is there a distinction between animal and human? They are treated as machines, trained and bred to have certain core responses to external stimuli, but it is clear that they have very human emotions; anger, fear, betrayal. Postsingular seeks to ask the question from a different angle; is it possible for a machine to become alive? Does the quality of being conscious mean that something is alive? Does the quality of being conscious make something human? Obviously, all that is sentient is not literally human, which suggests that, if animals other than humans were self-aware, we would cease to be unique. Therefore, humans are simply animals that happen to be self aware.
I read an article a while ago about how there is no structural or molecular difference between a dead body and a living body. One is simply alive and the other is simply not. Both are constructed entirely of non-living parts, of atoms no different from the atoms inhabiting non-living matter. In essence, an animal is a construct of non-living particles organized in such a way as to be alive. If all there is to life is the order in which non-living parts are assembled, then how is a machine any different from a living creature? A sentient or semi-sentient computer would be made out of non-living parts that would make it capable of autonomous action and thought.
Is the manner of a creature’s creation what determines if it is alive? Does it matter that it was manmade as opposed to evolved? Of course not. It is arrogant to assume that the quality of being made by human hands creates an entirely different class of matter. Artificial and alive are not mutually exclusive. A mechanical animal/human is a very real possibility.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Final-Part 2
2. If I had to point to a single thing that made the class entirely different than any I’ve taken, Plurk would win hands down. While it certainly wasn’t the only unique element, none of the others would have worked had it not been for Plurk. It facilitated most of the discussion in the class, pertinent or not, and created a space for people who normally wouldn’t have joined in to say their piece as well. I was dubious of the idea of a “live” class at first, but Plurk allowed ideas to be shared 24/7.
Many of the texts we read deal with the idea of constant intellectual and personal contact as well. The classroom in Rib funk’s “After school Special” was a perfect example of teaching in this format; more or less self guided, independent, and through an avatar, the “grafix” from the story being the rough equivalent of our display names, the classroom being our friends list. The difference (aside from the obvious technological differences) lies in the fact that Plurk is always online, not just during class session. In a way, this is an even better teaching tool than the virtual classroom because the information discussed is freely given and taken. Even the most free form classroom settings have a teacher directing the course of conversation and presenting topic for discussion. On Plurk, there is no teacher at all, the conversations that arise being entirely without set direction or obligation. There is always the option not to join in on a discussion, or to start your own, an option that is not always presented in a traditional classroom.
The Orphid-net in Postsingular is a more directly comparable system to Plurk. While reading the book, I noticed that communication vie the net was very similar to a Plurk thread. They often contained images or little clips of video, and people seemed to enter and leave at will. The Big Pig is to be a vague equivalent of the internet as a whole; massive amounts of information at your fingertips, much of it useless out of context. And it’s addictive. Perhaps that is why users of the Big Pig couldn’t remember what it was they saw while on the inside; the information could not be taken out of context.
I wrote a blog post a while ago about the information explosion, and I think the idea of the Big Pig deals with that quite nicely. When does the pursuit of information overshadow the actual information sought? When kiqqies use the Pig, they cannot process the information gained there once they return. In other words, the Pig was producing information that was not translatable to humans and was only readable in a computer-mediated context. This is very similar to the idea of a wealth of information written by and for computers without human mediation. In a much simpler way, isn’t a youtube video just that? Without a computer, the video would be meaningless. The same goes for digital photos and text. In a way, Plurk is the Pig; we just haven’t had to be unplugged yet.
The Diamond Age’s Drummers are another example of this idea, except that the information was actually stored in the individuals of the group. The basic idea is very similar, however, to the idea of the Pig. Each gives up their memory of the event for greater computing power. The shares some of the core concepts with the Nants as well, as the Drummers “dissolve” their consciousness to create a much more powerful computing machine. In the case of the Drummers, this is reversible, allowing the conscious mind to reassemble itself, allowing subconscious access to some of the information gained while inside the tubes.
All of this begs the question: what will the internet be like once technology is integrated seamlessly into the human body? I would venture to guess that the general format will be very similar to Plurk but on a much larger scale. Everything you do could be instantly uploaded and shared with your friends or the world at large. Conversations could be emphasized with clips of video or pictures. Music could be added, metanovel-like, to everyday life. We are looking now at preview of what the world will look like in the near future.
Many of the texts we read deal with the idea of constant intellectual and personal contact as well. The classroom in Rib funk’s “After school Special” was a perfect example of teaching in this format; more or less self guided, independent, and through an avatar, the “grafix” from the story being the rough equivalent of our display names, the classroom being our friends list. The difference (aside from the obvious technological differences) lies in the fact that Plurk is always online, not just during class session. In a way, this is an even better teaching tool than the virtual classroom because the information discussed is freely given and taken. Even the most free form classroom settings have a teacher directing the course of conversation and presenting topic for discussion. On Plurk, there is no teacher at all, the conversations that arise being entirely without set direction or obligation. There is always the option not to join in on a discussion, or to start your own, an option that is not always presented in a traditional classroom.
The Orphid-net in Postsingular is a more directly comparable system to Plurk. While reading the book, I noticed that communication vie the net was very similar to a Plurk thread. They often contained images or little clips of video, and people seemed to enter and leave at will. The Big Pig is to be a vague equivalent of the internet as a whole; massive amounts of information at your fingertips, much of it useless out of context. And it’s addictive. Perhaps that is why users of the Big Pig couldn’t remember what it was they saw while on the inside; the information could not be taken out of context.
I wrote a blog post a while ago about the information explosion, and I think the idea of the Big Pig deals with that quite nicely. When does the pursuit of information overshadow the actual information sought? When kiqqies use the Pig, they cannot process the information gained there once they return. In other words, the Pig was producing information that was not translatable to humans and was only readable in a computer-mediated context. This is very similar to the idea of a wealth of information written by and for computers without human mediation. In a much simpler way, isn’t a youtube video just that? Without a computer, the video would be meaningless. The same goes for digital photos and text. In a way, Plurk is the Pig; we just haven’t had to be unplugged yet.
The Diamond Age’s Drummers are another example of this idea, except that the information was actually stored in the individuals of the group. The basic idea is very similar, however, to the idea of the Pig. Each gives up their memory of the event for greater computing power. The shares some of the core concepts with the Nants as well, as the Drummers “dissolve” their consciousness to create a much more powerful computing machine. In the case of the Drummers, this is reversible, allowing the conscious mind to reassemble itself, allowing subconscious access to some of the information gained while inside the tubes.
All of this begs the question: what will the internet be like once technology is integrated seamlessly into the human body? I would venture to guess that the general format will be very similar to Plurk but on a much larger scale. Everything you do could be instantly uploaded and shared with your friends or the world at large. Conversations could be emphasized with clips of video or pictures. Music could be added, metanovel-like, to everyday life. We are looking now at preview of what the world will look like in the near future.
Final-Part 1
4. The topic and idea of a double or Doppelganger has been central in this class since day one. Doubles were discussed in texts we read, viewed in various movies and countless Youtube clips, and embodied in Plurk. The act of living creates a trail, or double, that follows along behind us comprised of debris and footprints.
The idea of a photographic double is interesting in that it is only truly a double for an instant. The representation and the subject only exist together during the act of creation. A photograph is the capture of a moment in time, but only mirrors the subject for the length of the exposure. As the photograph is taken, the subject is still and the photo is dynamic. Afterwards, the subject is free to move as it wishes, but the photograph is eternally static. In a sense, the subject and the photo fell out of synch, one eternally changing, the other eternally the same. The term “negative” takes on much deeper meaning in this context, as the image is opposite in every way except for the moment of creation. When the image moves, the subject is still and vice versa; the photo forever frozen and the object forever changing. However, with black and white photography, if one were to superimpose a negative (the double) over a positive (the representation of the original), the end result is a solid black image, the dark from one filling in the light from the other. In photography, this is a non-issue as the negative and the positive only exist in the same place for an instant, but in Morel, this causes a sort of washing out of the fugitive, canceling out his life, literally adding of a negative to a positive to get zero.
Biological doubles are another matter entirely in that they are able to exist concurrently with the original. It is not necessary for one to negate the other, or to be at odds with the other. Identical twins, for example, often are very close; closer even than non-identical siblings. However, it seems most literature and pop-culture pits the double against the original, as in the splices in Ribofunk. Why is that? Perhaps real doubles can coexist because they are not exact duplicates. The “nature vs. nurture” argument comes into play here. Even if two individuals are exactly the same genetically, they differ on the larger scale. Their blood vessels don’t necessarily follow the same paths, their hair might be slightly different colors or lengths, one might end up liking music, the other might not. Their differences allow them to coexist. If a true, exact biological double were to exist, a literal Doppelganger, then perhaps conflict would be inevitable. In non-exact biological doubles, the conflict would then arise from social issues. This is true of any group, be it racial, economic, or class oriented. The splices were not rebelling because they were doubles, but because they were made to be slaves.
The time travel induced double, as illustrated in Primer is, also a perfect biological double. However, it goes farther in that both are actually the same individual. The interesting question isn’t who both of them are, but becomes which is a result of the other. For instance, if a person from an earlier timeline is influenced by themselves from a later timeline, the earlier one’s actions are a result of the later one’s. Therefore, the future person’s influence results in the actions of the past person, in effect becoming the original. In a way, neither is a copy of the other; both are Doppelgangers. The question of origin stops being important as neither is the original. Both are, in effect, doubles of the other. The Filth goes about the double in a different way; the hive-mind, the super-organism, both in the form of I-Life and the people aboard the Libertania. This is fascinating because by making all the members doubles of each other, a Doppelgang, the group becomes a new entity. In a way, the double becomes a single, each member becoming the average of the whole.
The Doppelganger, once a literary tool, is becoming a very real possibility in the modern age. Plurk, for example, records every post of every one of its members in the “timeline,” in effect creating a series of photographic doubles. While it is not yet a perfect representation, it is possible to travel to any point on that timeline and view what the member was doing at that time. In a way, it resembles a movie, with many still clips meshed together to show a representation of the whole. The image is two dimensional, and only shows the actions originally recorded (similar to a virtual Morel copy). Add to this the endless stream of cookies, browser histories, downloaded content, credit card statements, various permanent records, and the many other websites we contribute to on a daily basis (facebook, myspace, twitter, blogs, email servers) and the image starts to flesh out. Add to this the house, the room, the car, the belongings of a person (their physical records) and the image takes on even more depth. It is becoming possible to know a person by looking only at what they leave in their wake. In other words, their “footprints” are becoming full fledged doubles.
This can become problematic, however, when one considers that the internet allows for almost complete anonymity. It is possible, even easy, to have multiple personas, be it multiple email addresses or screen names or avatars. There are many instances of people preferring to use the names of their online Doppelgangers in the real world. For example, I am more familiar with Tony Prichard as nanotext, but it is possible that he has many other doubles, perhaps even some within the Plurk community. These identities are more similar to The Filth’s parapersonalities because we put them on only when we need them, temporarily becoming something or someone else.
Where the double is to be used also dramatically changes its personality. If a parapersonality were to be used on an “adult dating service” website, for example, the user would probably exaggerate their sexual prowess, shaping themselves to be more outgoing and desirable. On online games, players are often much more aggressive and assertive than they are outside that venue. “Analogue” doppelgangers, such as graffiti artists, are only represented in their art, using false names to avoid giving out any information into age, sex, race, features, etc. We shape our Doppelgangers to be useful, or to have more desirable characteristics. How long, though, before out digital doubles start to live lives of their own? The trend seems to be towards longer and longer “tails,” as technology grows to accommodate them. The more a person leaves behind, the easier it is to know them. The more a person is known, the better one can predict their actions. The more accurately one can predict actions, the more accurately they can be simulated. It is said that the entire human body is replaced every 6 years. How long before actual copies of ourselves are created from the dust we leave behind?
The idea of a photographic double is interesting in that it is only truly a double for an instant. The representation and the subject only exist together during the act of creation. A photograph is the capture of a moment in time, but only mirrors the subject for the length of the exposure. As the photograph is taken, the subject is still and the photo is dynamic. Afterwards, the subject is free to move as it wishes, but the photograph is eternally static. In a sense, the subject and the photo fell out of synch, one eternally changing, the other eternally the same. The term “negative” takes on much deeper meaning in this context, as the image is opposite in every way except for the moment of creation. When the image moves, the subject is still and vice versa; the photo forever frozen and the object forever changing. However, with black and white photography, if one were to superimpose a negative (the double) over a positive (the representation of the original), the end result is a solid black image, the dark from one filling in the light from the other. In photography, this is a non-issue as the negative and the positive only exist in the same place for an instant, but in Morel, this causes a sort of washing out of the fugitive, canceling out his life, literally adding of a negative to a positive to get zero.
Biological doubles are another matter entirely in that they are able to exist concurrently with the original. It is not necessary for one to negate the other, or to be at odds with the other. Identical twins, for example, often are very close; closer even than non-identical siblings. However, it seems most literature and pop-culture pits the double against the original, as in the splices in Ribofunk. Why is that? Perhaps real doubles can coexist because they are not exact duplicates. The “nature vs. nurture” argument comes into play here. Even if two individuals are exactly the same genetically, they differ on the larger scale. Their blood vessels don’t necessarily follow the same paths, their hair might be slightly different colors or lengths, one might end up liking music, the other might not. Their differences allow them to coexist. If a true, exact biological double were to exist, a literal Doppelganger, then perhaps conflict would be inevitable. In non-exact biological doubles, the conflict would then arise from social issues. This is true of any group, be it racial, economic, or class oriented. The splices were not rebelling because they were doubles, but because they were made to be slaves.
The time travel induced double, as illustrated in Primer is, also a perfect biological double. However, it goes farther in that both are actually the same individual. The interesting question isn’t who both of them are, but becomes which is a result of the other. For instance, if a person from an earlier timeline is influenced by themselves from a later timeline, the earlier one’s actions are a result of the later one’s. Therefore, the future person’s influence results in the actions of the past person, in effect becoming the original. In a way, neither is a copy of the other; both are Doppelgangers. The question of origin stops being important as neither is the original. Both are, in effect, doubles of the other. The Filth goes about the double in a different way; the hive-mind, the super-organism, both in the form of I-Life and the people aboard the Libertania. This is fascinating because by making all the members doubles of each other, a Doppelgang, the group becomes a new entity. In a way, the double becomes a single, each member becoming the average of the whole.
The Doppelganger, once a literary tool, is becoming a very real possibility in the modern age. Plurk, for example, records every post of every one of its members in the “timeline,” in effect creating a series of photographic doubles. While it is not yet a perfect representation, it is possible to travel to any point on that timeline and view what the member was doing at that time. In a way, it resembles a movie, with many still clips meshed together to show a representation of the whole. The image is two dimensional, and only shows the actions originally recorded (similar to a virtual Morel copy). Add to this the endless stream of cookies, browser histories, downloaded content, credit card statements, various permanent records, and the many other websites we contribute to on a daily basis (facebook, myspace, twitter, blogs, email servers) and the image starts to flesh out. Add to this the house, the room, the car, the belongings of a person (their physical records) and the image takes on even more depth. It is becoming possible to know a person by looking only at what they leave in their wake. In other words, their “footprints” are becoming full fledged doubles.
This can become problematic, however, when one considers that the internet allows for almost complete anonymity. It is possible, even easy, to have multiple personas, be it multiple email addresses or screen names or avatars. There are many instances of people preferring to use the names of their online Doppelgangers in the real world. For example, I am more familiar with Tony Prichard as nanotext, but it is possible that he has many other doubles, perhaps even some within the Plurk community. These identities are more similar to The Filth’s parapersonalities because we put them on only when we need them, temporarily becoming something or someone else.
Where the double is to be used also dramatically changes its personality. If a parapersonality were to be used on an “adult dating service” website, for example, the user would probably exaggerate their sexual prowess, shaping themselves to be more outgoing and desirable. On online games, players are often much more aggressive and assertive than they are outside that venue. “Analogue” doppelgangers, such as graffiti artists, are only represented in their art, using false names to avoid giving out any information into age, sex, race, features, etc. We shape our Doppelgangers to be useful, or to have more desirable characteristics. How long, though, before out digital doubles start to live lives of their own? The trend seems to be towards longer and longer “tails,” as technology grows to accommodate them. The more a person leaves behind, the easier it is to know them. The more a person is known, the better one can predict their actions. The more accurately one can predict actions, the more accurately they can be simulated. It is said that the entire human body is replaced every 6 years. How long before actual copies of ourselves are created from the dust we leave behind?
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