Gender and Sexuality

    The story "Day Million" By Fredrik Pohl is an interesting take on the future development of the human race. Pohl asserts that one day we will have moved beyond the restrictions of gender and become a species that doesn't have any need for conventional reproduction. At our present point as a species our only real purpose in life is to reproduce. Freud saw this and developed his entire method of psychoanalysis upon it. The idea that reproduction is the only real driving force behind human beings makes sense when you really think about it. What other purpose do we all have on this earth other than to make more humans? We certainly didn't get to this point because we dreamed that one day we could all communicate with eachother worldwide through a vast network of interconnected computers and hypertext documents. We got here because there is an innate animal like desire to keep the species going. All other thoughts and dreams are secondary to that primary desire. That being said it is interesting to think about a world like Pohl's where human beings have moved beyond that innate desire to reproduce and can identify as male or female without persecution. Pohl's world is one where like in the case of Don and Dora, one can identify as male and the other as female or vise versa without it mattering to anyone.
     "When it changed" by Joanna Russ is a story that has become cliche over the years. The overwhelming theme in all of these stories is a society of women encounters the first men they've ever seen and chaos reigns. What makes this story a little different is that the possibilty of human parthenogenesis is added to the equation which cuts out any need of men for reproduction. I found that the question posed in this story is whether or not men and women need to exist together. If reproduction is possible in a single gender race then why should bipolarity need to exist? I don't think the author is stating that men don't need to exist. She is only posing the question as to whether men are needed in a society of all women.

Philip K. Dick

     The idea that memories could be implanted or altered doesn't seem to be a complete impossibility. The human brain is a very complex organ but given time I think that we as a species could figure out exactly where these memories are held and how to manipulate that region. The implications of such manipulation would be staggering. If a human being commits a murder and has his or her memories altered to forget a murder was ever committed then how would a jury be able to convict them. If an insanity plea can release a human being from a murder charge than why wouldn't a temporary lapse of memory hold up in court? Entire heads of companies could have their memories altered in the case of embezzlement so that no new information could be found out from bringing them into custody.
      I pretty much feel the same way bout every movie Arnold Schwarzenegger is cast for. I think Arnold is the worst actor on planet earth but his acting is so bad that it's good. He has the personality of fly paper but somehow it comes off so funny that the movie is entertaining. He makes all the other actors in the movie look like they deserve acadamy awards. You'll have a scene like the one where the doctor guy is in his hotel room and he'll have all this emotion trying to convince Arnold to leave the simulation and the only emotion that Arnold can muster is "I will shoot you now." Say it in the Arnold voice it will sound funnier that way.
     Anytime you adapt something that is initially 20 pages or so and turn it into a two hour long movie you're going to have to add content. So that means a lot more chases involving ironside trying to kill you and everyone who's unlucky enough to be riding an escalator at the time. I think in all they adapted the short story to the movie pretty well. There is the time difference from when it was written to when it was produced into a movie but I think we can all agree that if it was made into a movie during the sixties it would be just as cheesy as it was in the eighties.

Darwin Among The Machines By Samuel Butler

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-ButFir-t1-g1-t1-g1-t4-body.html

Computers and Virtual Reality

     The idea of uploaded consciousness has been with us since ancient times. From Plato's theory of forms to Descartes' dualism, the desire to leave the body behind and become an entirely incorporeal entity has been the dream of every learned man and woman since the gift of sentience was endowed upon mankind. With the revelation brought forth by the internet some very intelligent people have begun to consider the very real possibility of leaving our bodies behind and living entirely in cyberspace. One of the champions of this dream is Ray Kurzweil whose predictions, though seen as radical by some, may come to pass in the short amount of time that he has proposed. The idea of cyberspace consciousness has been pioneered by men like Philip K. Dick and William Gibson. The stories "Burning Chrome" by Gibson and "Computer Friendly" by Eileen Gunn, though very different, explore the same themes relating to uploaded consciousness.

     "Burning Chrome" is about the illegal aspects that will take form when uploading consciousness becomes a reality. Gibson is known for his dark and gritty take on the future. Much of his fiction is cyberpunk which is a dark and gritty world with very high standard of technology while simultaneously maintaining a very low standard of living. Though Gibson didn't have the foresight to imagine a world where humans lived out their entire lives in a computer he did have the foresight to predict that most of human activities would take place in cyberspace, In this world their will be criminals just like at any other time but the criminals in this time are hackers who steal money online. Chrome is the target for the theft that our two hackers Bobby and Jack are trying to commit. The only issue is that a love interest is thrown into the mix and a third wheel always tends to disrupt the harmony in any operation,

     "Computer Friendly" is a different take on the singularity. The view put forth in Computer friendly is that the future of every human being is going to be decided by machines. The humans that don't fit the particular mold are exterminated in order to make room for humans that do fit the mold. This story is obviously a critic on much of the public school system with its overemphasis on standardized testing and rules that encourage uniformity. The Chickenheart at the end represents the need for diversity in opposition to unification.

Robots Robots Robots

     Robots in science fiction hold a very special place in my heart. Robot stories allow for a unique kind of introspection that can't be done with most science fiction stories. As far back as ancient times  human beings have speculated about creating life and the implications of living alongside artificial beings. It wasn't until 1920 however that Karel Capek gave the word robot to the world. Since the premiere of capek's play "Rossum's Universal Robots," Automatons have been a massive part of science fiction who's most well known contributor was Isaac Asimov. Asimov's anthology "I, Robot" changed everything for scfi. It raised the bar for what was acceptable work and what was not. Later Brian Aldiss contributed to robot stories by writing "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" which impressed Stanley Kubrick enough that he decided to base a movie after the story. Stephen Spielberg would later finish what Kubrick started by producing and directing A.I.
     In Asimov's story "Reason" we encounter the first robot with the ability to think for itself. The robot believes itself to be superior to human beings and does not believe that humans create robots. However the robot is still beholden to the three laws of robotics. The robot claims that it does not take orders from humans yet it does stop the electron storm from hitting the Earth because that is what its programming commands it to do. The robot never violates the second law of robotics. The second law states that a robot must obey all orders given to it by human beings unless these orders conflict with the first law. The first law of robotics states that a robot must never harm a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. Therefore when the robot does not allow the humans to operate the equipment in the control room it is obeying the second law by not taking orders that would possibly bring a human being to harm. The story as a whole however is Cartesian in nature. What is real? Are humans just machines or do we truly have free will? Does the robot have free will as it says it does or is it just carrying out its programming like Descartes said we humans do?
     Aldiss' story is more pessimistic than Asimov's stories are. Aldiss' world is one where overpopulation has cultivated a detachment human beings feel for other human beings. This detachment results in the creation of robots that are more human than humans. These robots keep people company and offer them a sense of companionship. The humans in this world have drifted out of touch and have stopped asking the questions that we used to ask. Questions like where did we come from? How did we get here? Where are we going? Do we matter? Only the robots ask these questions now. The pivotal moment in this story is when the David's owners find out to their jubilation that they are allowed to produce a child. David is viewed as a commodity and nothing more.

Update:

Last class made me think about the development of Artificial intelligence and whether or not it's ethical to pursue the development of A.I. I think that the question to whether A.I. is ethical or not isn't relevant to human progress.Human's move forward with technology no matter who tries to stop them. All cultures that rejected progress in any way were inevitably consumed or destroyed by cultures that did progress technologically. The law of accelerating returns states that exponential growth is inevitable in the universe. That means that ethical or no there is nothing we can do to stop the progression of technology. The only thing we can hope for is the solace that comes with rational and/or benevolent players developing this technology.