The second part of Hiroshi Yamamoto’s science fiction work The Stories of Ibis reveals the reason for the downfall of the human civilization, and the truth is less sinister than our imaginations would lead to believe. In the telling of “The Day Shion Came” and “AI’s Story”, Yamamoto creates a world that is much more optimistic than the science fiction of the Western world.
As I thought about this story as a whole, words from our discussion of Shaviro kept coming to the forefront of my mind – science fiction creates an alternative world to examine what is wrong in the present. Yamamoto also presents this point when Ibis says “You recognize that fiction can’t simply be dismissed as ‘just fiction’ – that it is at times more powerful than the truth, that fiction has the power to transcend the truth” (290). With that thought in mind, I present the following quote for exploration:
Human thoughts are digital.
Most people see things as 0 or 1, as black or white. They see nothing in between. All chemicals are dangerous. You are either friend or foe. If you aren’t left-wing, you’re right. If you aren’t conservative, you’re liberal. Everything that great man says must be true. Everyone who thinks differently from us is evil. Everyone in that country – even the babies – is evil.
We TAIs find it surprising that humans have trouble understanding Fuzzy Concepts. When we say “Love (5+7i),” people incorrectly assume that means we only love at 50 percent, or fifty points out of a hundred total. They can’t understand that 5 is a Fuzzy Measurement. How could a concept like love possibly be expressed as an integer? (334-335)
The idea that human beings think in dichotomies has become a recurring theme in our class, but we have never compared it to being digital. It is a comparable concept, though, when examined. Right and wrong are the same as on and off, which all boils down to 0 or 1 in the digital language. What Phoebus asserts in this declaration seems to be that the TAIs in their ability to use “fuzzy measurements” are able to sense emotions in a more gradient and less extreme way. When something is neither the extreme of completely right or completely wrong, there is room for learning, growth, and development. In this way, Yamamoto signifies that our digital thinking is hindering us from reaching our full potential. If we could think in a more abstract way, utilize the Fuzzy Measurement system or at least not dismiss it as foolishness, we would be better off for it.
This is further expressed at the very end of “AI’s Story” when Ibis tells Hideo, “You don’t need to understand. Just accept it… Rather than avoid the things we do not understand, we can simply accept them. That alone will remove all conflict from the world. That is i.” (398) Instead of avoiding or labeling the unknown or different as “bad”, we can simply accept that it is unknown and different. From there, we can choose to learn more about it until we can create a knowledgeable fuzzy measurement for it or we can decide that it’s ok to remain unknown and move on. Both options are more reasonable than fear and the often negative reactions fear induces.
The artifact I would like to examine is the Lilith’s Brood trilogy by Octavia Butler. This includes the books Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago. I will more closely look at a quotation from Dawn, but I feel like the entire trilogy is pertinent to the discussion of Yamamoto. Lilith’s Brood has very similar themes to The Stories of Ibis, including what it means to be human. However, Butler’s tale is much darker and very pessimistic. This is a prime example of cultural differences in handling similar subject matter, as Octavia Butler was an African American woman who grew up in the time of the Civil Rights movement and, from that, had a very specific viewpoint.
Lilith’s Brood is set in a post-apocalyptic world. Instead of humanity realizing they are flawed and leaving the planet for beings more equipped to handle it as in The Stories of Ibis, the US and Russia have annihilated the planet in a nuclear war. Those that survived were rescued by an alien species known as the Oankali and kept in suspension on their spaceship while the Earth was restored. The first book follows Lilith Iyapo who is chosen by the Oankali to awaken the first group of people that are to be “mated” with the alien species and being again on Earth. She is met with fear, distrust, and physical violence. At one point, Lilith is discussing humanity with an Oankali and he mentions that humans have two fatally contrasting characteristics that lead to their demise. The first is intelligence, which he says is the newer characteristic. The second is my artifact, and is written so well that it deserves to be quoted at length:
You are hierarchical. That’s the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It’s a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all...That was like ignoring cancer. I think your people did not realize what a dangerous thing they were doing. (Butler, 38-39)
A hierarchy can be viewed the same as digital thoughts. In saying that this thing is better than that thing, you are creating rightness for one and wrongness in the other. In this example, that type of thinking lead to the destruction of a majority of Earth and humanity. The rebuilding of humanity is also hindered by this thinking as the survivors try to assign blame for their situation on the Oankali and Lilith without examining the hatred and lack of understanding that lead to the nuclear war in the first place.
The second book follows Lilith’s son, Akin, who is the first human-born male construct (half Oankali, half Human). Prior to his birth, all construct males were Oankali-born since they were afraid that human males were too unpredictable. Akin is abducted by a band of resisters that are allowed to live on their own, but have been genetically altered so that they cannot procreate. He spends 3 years with them, and comes to the conclusion that humans must be allowed to have their own society and children, and eventually convinces the Oankali (who operate in a hive-mind/consensus society) to allow the resisters to colonize Mars. This is a very hard decision for them to make, because they are certain the fatal dueling characteristics of humanity will prevail and the resisters will eventually destroy themselves entirely.
Both Yamamoto and Butler use their stories to explore flaws in human thinking. Looking through this artifact using the original lens of science fiction as a tool for revealing current problems in the world, I have come up with the following questions:
How can we use science fiction to disrupt the tendency towards binary thinking? Is it valuable to try to do so?
In examining this question, I decided to try a thought exercise. I started by mapping out some of the fuzzy measurements that Yamamoto mentions, such as Ibis’s perfect love for her master as (3+10i) (Yamamoto, 398). I was hoping that in by mapping these varying emotions, a pattern I could recognize or understand would emerge. It did not, but it did get me to examine emotions in a different way. From there, I began to think about a subject that raises my gedoshield, a concept Yamamoto describes as “the phenomenon of people who were convinced they knew the truth unconsciously shutting out information that would correct their misconceptions” (356) and something I had recently had a discussion about with my husband. We were talking about the current divide in the political climate of America, and he was criticizing how Republicans shut out facts at any cost to cling to their beliefs. I interjected that I was equally flawed. When presented with a statistic from a right-leaning institution, I immediately assume that it was taken out of context or question the legitimacy of the study itself. I am right and they are wrong, there is no room for compromise.
To critically analyze this phenomenon within myself, I took the emotion that I have for certain conservatives and attempted to turn it into a fuzzy measurement. I decided that (-8 – 10i) was my standard for the worst possible actions: rape, pedophilia, or genocide for example. Would I put Republicanism at the same level of revulsion? Certainly not, that would clearly be unreasonable. After consideration, I decided that my feeling for Republicans can be expressed as (-2 – 3i). I added this to the fuzzy concepts map and could almost feel my gedoshield weaken a little. My views on the subject have not changed and likely will not, but I feel more open to having dialogue with someone of the opposing viewpoint. By creating a physical representation for my emotions and acknowledging my own prejudices, I am able to recognize that labeling one party right and the other wrong is counterproductive. Hopefully, this will lead to a little less black and white and a little more “fuzziness” in my own mind. In this way, a concept from a science fiction book will have helped to disrupt my own binary thought processes.
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