Thursday, March 08, 2012

Response 2 to Melanie Smith and E.M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops'


It is a fascinating thing to watch/participate in the coming of age of the most advanced transhuman generation to have yet existed, and maybe even more so intimidating to consider what will come of the younger generations. Such generations whose childhood and developing years occurred at the same time as the greatest expanse in transhumanist qualities yet to be developed. So what is happening to these children, what is happening to us? I find it interesting to consider Melanie’s questions “Does becoming a transhuman make you less human?” with our current trends and relationship with technology. Her more detailed version of the question though seems to be the most provocative to our current understanding of the world - “Does becoming transhuman cause the individual to lose certain traits, generally ascribed to humanity at large, that would hinder them?” As we plunge deep into the seemingly shallow waters of facebook/twitter/google and interconnect our infinite web of intranets into an internet, what does/will it mean to have a human interactions?

When trying to define what the transhuman state is as related to the human state, we become wrapped up in the semantics of what separates us from any other creature. Melanie briefly describes it from Kuno’s point of view as being a way of life, to love, to have a sense of adventure; all which seem very dormant qualities within Forster’s The Machine Stops. The characters though do still hold on to many human traits, but only now in a neo-cultural sense. I find this to be a crucial point in understanding what it is to be human - that we are a part of a larger and developing culture, and further even educated/raised within a certain cultural view point. To then explore what it is to be a transhuman, one would be merging with machine to heighten and extend their cultural understanding. This is a broad sense, spanning the military industrial complex to the pretentiousness of the art world. All are adapting transhuman tendencies by incorporating their existence with machine/computers - lenses, gears, timers, communication, sight, etc. These are not actual combinations between human and mechanism either. My point here is that we are exploring transhumanism as a way to extend our abilities from a cultural perspective, and what may change as Melanie references in the Dresdan Codex is the human culture.

In the culture change of Human to Transhuman, a story such as The Machine Stops has the most relevance and importance. Yes, there might be the possibility of the plunge into Forster’s imagined world, but these culture shifts will also occur on the surface level. The most immediate and over-played argument of our contemporary time is how our personal relationships are effected. I find myself most fascinated with what we consider art, craft, and trade service. In the transhumanist life, these parts of our existence are being collaboratively understood with the machine - the problem being that a machine understands the world in different light, which was so eloquently illustrated by the japanese author Yamamoto. This is important because while our brains are not setup like a computer system to run through programs by nature; we are creature affected by the nurturance of society. Such it is that we are already limited by our languages and abilities to express ourselves that we might be able to elevate our understanding of the world through transhumanist tendencies. This is ultimately our current direction, but as we are limited it is also important that we understand the limits of the machine. It might be that the transhumans are the one who are able to experience the greatest sense of existence(enlightenment?) if a diversity between man and machine/computer can be asserted - and the posthuman whose embrace of hyper  cultural functionality may be the most limited and confined.


Could the transhuman existence actually be an enlightenment of both human and machine? Then is there an optimistic future for the posthuman?


In transhuman living, your are able to visualize a subject while a machine is only processing code. How can humans capitalize on the use of machine with out being confined to the limits of a machines capabilites?



Response 1 to Melanie Smith on E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops"


          The question posed in regards to “The Machine Stops” was, “Does becoming transhuman make you less human?” This is an incredibly difficult question. To really answer this question, you have to analyze what it means to be human. Philosophers, theologists, and scientists have been struggling with this question for centuries and haven’t really found a concrete answer. I initially posited in class that we were differentiated from other species by our propensity for tool use. It was quickly brought to my attention that many other animals could use tools as well. While humans are definitely more famous for this, chimps and even ravens definitely use tools. Other animals also demonstrate problem-solving skills like humans. As I began to reflect on what it means to be human, I started to realize it was more of a philosophy. In fact, philosophy is a distinctly human idea. It is then that I began to realize that it isn’t necessarily the use of tools or problem solving that makes humanity very different, but more our imagination.

Our advanced technology is really only a reality because someone along the line dared to believe it could exist. The reason we are able to launch satellites and men and women into space is because our ancestors looked to the stars and said, “I want to go THERE.” People usually strive to be something better than themselves, and this behavior only exists because people can imagine that they truly CAN be something better, something greater. Now, saying imagination is the reason we are different from other animals is a very difficult point to prove. After all, we can create tests to determine the different ways chimps and other reasonably intelligent animals can think about things, and we might be able to take brain scans and all that stuff, but we’ll never know for sure what a chimp is thinking. For all I know, many animals have imaginations… but they definitely haven’t acted on them on the scale that we have.

This concept of imagination being what separates humanity from other animals ties in very well with the story in that a lack of imagination was the downfall of the humans in “The Machine Stops.” The Machine was, presumably, born from human imagination, specifically the idea that people could create and live in a society free of scarcity. This seemingly accomplished the idea of instant communication across all walks of life too. The humans before the Machine seemed to be much like the humans today; they were filled with imagination and pride, constantly trying to become better than nature itself. Then, they became slaves to the Machine. This happened, however, not because of the Machine itself, but rather the pervasive apathy that began to rule their lives after living removed from a challenging life and removed from each other.  They lost their imaginations, their drives to be more than a lump of flesh, and thusly they were unable to imagine a world where the Machine didn’t exist. They were unable to imagine that the Machine could fail, and THAT is why they met such a catastrophic end. In that way, I suppose becoming a transhuman correlated to a loss of humanity, but I don’t think one can necessarily blame the technology for this. The humans in the Machine made a choice to abandon imagination and ambition.

Much like with other science fiction stories, it was the peoples’ own shortcomings – their complacency and close-mindedness in this case – and not the technology itself that led to their downfall. In this fictional world, some humans made the choice to surrender their autonomy and their imagination to the comforting womb of the Machine. I suppose then that this story isn’t necessarily an anti-technology story, but rather a parable about the human condition, specifically the worst parts of it. It could also be seen as a cautionary tale about taking the "easy way out"of life and other situations, especially because of how nonchalantly people in the story made the decision to be euthanized. In this way, I don’t believe that this story necessarily suggests that transhumanity equates to a lack of humanity. Putting it rather crudely, making the choice to abandon what made the humans in the story human is what made them less human. I remain unconvinced that technology and humanity are opposed, and continue to support the idea that to be human is to use technology in some way or at least dream about it.



Questions-

   1.      In “The Machine Stops,” it was insinuated that the Machine was using the humans. This is a fairly prophetic statement, as it also appeared in The Matrix several years later. In what way are the technologies of today using us? Do we have a symbiotic relationship with technology or a parasitic one?

   2.     The machine that caused all the trouble in this story was known simply as the Machine, but the airships played a prominent role as well. Are the ways humanity used to use airships fundamentally different from the ways it uses the Machine, or are they one in the same?


Links-

This is a Wired article containing several different reactions to the question, “What does it mean to be human.” This provides some very interesting viewpoints of credentialed individuals on the very topic we discussed in class.

As further proof that humans aren’t the only tool-using animal (or even primates for that matter) here is a video of a crow using 3 tools in sequence. I’m not sure how long it took for this bird to figure out how to do this, but the fact that he can shows a much higher level of intelligence than we give birds credit for.

Seeing as we talked about LSD a bit in class, I checked out the first few pages of this book and did some digging on LSD and spirituality. There’s quite a lot of research on it out there, too. I didn’t read the whole book, but a 40-some-odd page preview should be enough to pique your interest.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Hey everyone. I saw this article and thought some of you may find it interesting. It is about technological development and the risk of human extinction.

Melanie Smith on E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops"

“"Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops--but not on our lies. The Machine proceeds--but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die. Oh, I have no remedy--or, at least, only one--to tell men again and again that I have seen the hills of Wessex as Alfrid saw them when he overthrew the Danes” (13-14).

Far flung from the hopeful world Hiroshi Yamamoto would write about nearly 100 years later, E.M. Forster paints a bleak picture of humanity’s future with technology. 

In 1909, when The Machine Stops was first published, technology was a much different matter than it is today. Radio technology was still in its infancy.  The telephone was still relatively new, with Alexander Graham Bell having patented it only 33 years prior. The historic flight of the Wright Brothers had only occurred a mere 6 years before. It’s interesting to keep in mind what technologies Forster was surrounded with when writing this bleak tale of technology killing humanity. He did not need supercomputers and ubiquitous networking to feel fear for the coming future. 

Forster is arguing that technology is seeking to remove us from the natural world, stripping humans of their very humanity. Human contact, love, and direct experience are all being stripped away in favor of the mechanical. This seems like a fear of becoming Transhuman; the fear that if humanity starts to augment itself with technology, it will become something altogether different and alien. 

The term “transhumanism” was first coined in 1957 by Sir Julian Huxley, an evolutionary biologist and humanist, and brother of the science-fiction writer Aldous Huxley. When he coined the term, he envisioned it as a way for humanity to better itself through science and technology. He left open the possibility that eugenics may be one way to approach this, but transhumanism has since come to refer to any science that may help humans better themselves. 

This is something that The Machine Stops is on the border of, but since the idea had not come to fruition yet, the story stops short of invoking transhumanism. The humans in The Machine Stops are completely cocooned by technology from birth to death, which in its own way can still be seen as transhumanism. They are, after all, using technology to better the lives of the people, at least in the common person’s point of view. However, technology has not become a part of their physical bodies, and does not seem to have augmented their bodies in any way, as we normally think of transhumans.

The question I would like to ask is “Does becoming a transhuman make you less human?” One could argue about the true meaning of “human,” but the question could be rephrased “Does becoming transhuman cause the individual to lose certain traits, generally ascribed to humanity at large, that would hinder them?”  Kuno certainly seems to think so, when he makes the speech above to his mother, Vashti.

Kuno makes it very clear that he believes that humanity is dying because of its dependence on the Machine. Humans no longer touch each other now, as is shown in the scenes where Vashti is on her trip in the airships. She is outright appalled when the flight attended reaches to steady her and keep her from falling. Kuno also drives home this tendency when he talks about the Machine “narrow[ing] down love to a carnal act.” We do not hear much about reproduction in this story, other than the fact that one must apply to become a parent, and that upon birth a parent’s responsibilities are officially over. In short, even the process of falling in love, marriage, and bearing children has now been eliminated and mechanized. There is no more need for love, and perhaps not even sex, in the new mechanized world. 

Furthermore, Kuno believes that humanity is now nothing more than “blood corpuscles,” serving as part of the Machine as a way to keep it going rather than the other way around, similar to how humanity is treated in The Matrix. Humans created machines to serve them, but now they are simply the fuel that sustains them.

In this speech, Kuno references the lecturers, the people within the society who study various subjects and transmit their speeches to others. This group of the population is fascinating enough on its own, and, at points, seems deserving of Kuno’s criticisms. From observing Vashti, we can see that she is very far removed from the real world (the planet’s surface, ocean, stars, etc.) though her fellow lecturers are not all as such. She references that some of the lecturers do get permits to explore the outside land or the ocean to further their knowledge on the subject. While it’s not illegal, Vashti makes it clear that is not something “spiritually minded people do” (10). Her reaction seems like it is most likely not isolated to her, and may be something that is widely accepted from the academic community. Later, when travel outside of the Machine becomes forbidden, most do not find this distressing. In fact, it causes one lecturer to give a speech about how first-hand knowledge is not needed, but also not preferable. “Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element--direct observation.” (16). This point of view, however, is in stark contrast to Kuno’s speech, as he believes the only way to restore humanity is to tell them of his exploits on the hills of Wessex. On one side, direct experience is condemned, and on the other direct experience is the only way to become truly human. 

The artifact I would like to bring in then is the webcomic The Dresden Codak; specifically the Hob storyline. The storyline starts with this comic:  http://dresdencodak.com/2007/02/08/pom/. I highly recommend everyone read the whole comic, especially those interested in transhumanism, futurism, or just science and philosophy. However, I’m going to point out two specific comic strips from the Hob series. The first is “Metropolis” http://dresdencodak.com/2007/09/21/metropolis/. Not to give away too much of the plot, this strip explains things that happen in the future (or rather an alternate future) relative to the time of the main plot. They explain that humans created technology to meet all of their needs, and soon they became dependent on it and grew unable to understand it, as the humans did in The Machine Stops. Unlike them, however, in this future world they had the transhumans, humans that had integrated machines into their body, and were able to speak the machine language and act as intermediaries. As far as those that were not augmented were concerned, the machines turned against them, and the resulting war destroyed the mother computer and left the world in ruins. 

The next strip I’d like to bring up is “Eloi” http://dresdencodak.com/2008/06/07/eloi/. It explains the story from a transhuman point of view. The humans are coming to beg for their problems to be solved, but the transhuman alludes to the fact that humans are dying out anyway. It’s clear though that everything she says goes straight over the human’s heads, especially when one utters, “Who is homosapiens? I don’t understand.” The chilling part of this strip, though, is when the transhuman dismisses the humans with the cold line, “We can give you anything you want. Save relevance.”

The transhuman in “Eloi” may seem cold and uncaring, but from her point of view humanity has reduced her role to that of a glorified babysitter. Think back to the strip “Metropolis” where the story was told from the point of view of the human survivors who destroyed the machines. Think about how they refer to the transhumans. They say that they “sacrificed their humanity” and that their only role was to “ensure that the ever-expanding net still served humanity.” It shows that the common human did not view the transhumans as one of them, and only saw them as another way that the machines would serve them. Not only does that not seem fair, it does not seem to be how the transhuman in “Eloi” would see herself.  

With both works, The Machine Stops and The Dreden Codak’s “Hob,” we see two differing points of view on transhumanity. In The Machine Stops, transhumanity is commonly viewed as a good thing as people even begin to worship the Machine that gives them everything they could need. In “Hob,” people still enjoy what machines can do for them, but those that bridge the gap into transhumanity are seen as giving up something, to become mere servants to the “real” humans. Both situations end in the destruction of the world. 

However, the question I asked earlier is still valid: Does becoming a transhuman make one less human? Putting aside the destruction of the world for a moment, the people in The Machine Stops had large advantages in technology. It seemed that sickness, hunger, and poverty had all been eliminated, except of course for those who were exiled. Their society had lost a lot of what we, and Kuno, might describe as humanity; love, sense of adventure, etc. all seemed to be missing in the humans of that age. But does that make them worse off than people of today? One could argue that love and adventure are dangerous or potential harmful concepts, and perhaps they are worth trading for technology that could end starvation and other problems. 

As for the transhumans in “Hob,” they are obviously mentally superior to their human counterparts, and likely superior in other ways such as physical strength. They were able to understand the changes that were going on in the evolution of their people, and saw that humans were becoming outdated. The cold and callous way that they treated the humans may seem inhumane, but humanity is obviously capable of similar callousness. For whatever reason, people of today often to prefer not to think about poverty, sickness, and starvation going on in other countries. The cold manner of the transhumans is not far flung from that. 

The end of “Hob” has a more positive outcome than The Machine Stops, insinuating that both man and machine are needed in order for the two to advance to something greater. In a way, this could also be taken from The Machine Stops; the Machine could not run all by itself, and ultimately needed human’s help in order for both to continue co-existing. The difference between the two works is that in The Machine Stops, humanity never got the chance to work past its ignorance and work in true partnership with the Machine.

Personally, I think humanity can only benefit from the pursuit of science, and using what we learn from science to better the lives of people. Certainly, technological advances can cause us to lose certain traits. Even now, we see diseases like obesity linked with new technologies like television and internet as people begin to have less reason to leave their homes for entertainment or information. But the internet is a valuable tool for knowledge and communication, something that most people would not give up for anything. Some would argue that a connection to nature is essential to humanity; farming, hunting, etc. was a way of life for all of our ancestors, though now a much smaller group participates in these activities. Society at large no longer has to work for our food. We have been disconnected from something that was very closely tied to the life of all people in the past, and that disconnect could be seen as a loss for humanity. But to me, it seems we’ve gained more than anything we may have lost. The average person may have no idea the work that goes into bringing food to the supermarkets, but I don’t think that makes them disconnected from the human condition. If anything, this allows people to open up to new ways to be human, new ways to express ideas and live life. But if The Machine Stops is teaching us anything, it is that we can’t become too disconnected from the knowledge of these vital roots, or our society could crumble just as easily.