Keely Coufal

Final exam: Future Literature

Time: 9:00am.

It is the intensity of technology driving forth a new era of life that builds stories and ideas of futuristic thinking. The world is exploring concepts of government and society with technological applications that are fascinating and intimidating. Science and technology are pushing forward revolutionary ideas of systematic and virtual realities adapted within society as well as applying these concepts to forms of government. The future is wide open for radical changes within the structure of a civilization. The notion of living, communicating, and working all within the boundaries of computers has implications that could be detrimental in many ways. Governments may be able to regulate and control individuals with greater efficiency and invasiveness. A computer dominant society may bring forth isolation and less social contact. The design of a high tech, organized, impersonal, and perfect society cannot exist when the natural design of humans is that of organic, emotional, messy, and fallible. More important, the essence of human behavior is based on the need for interactive, sensory, and personal development. Humans cannot be incorporated into a computer database and turn off all that makes the species unique. Society can develop a technological basis in which we learn from, but not actually become a part of. Much of what futuristic stories develop is the dynamics of human relationships and how fragile it can be against a mechanical, uniformed, and suppressive technical world.

Most of the stories that portray the futuristic computer age seldom offer a vision of utopian existence in which people have successfully blended the force of technological development in with human behavior. The catalyst seems to be perfect systems that are flawed by the influence of imperfect people. Humans are often seen vulnerable and dependent on computers to fill a void or give them a sense of happiness. Instead the enlightened age of technology is presented as an aseptic, cold, and unfriendly place that can never replace what humans crave and need for living. In theory the development of a utopian society based on technology seems ideal, however because humans thrive on spontaneity, impulsiveness, and emotions we can never truly adapt to a mechanical existence. In the introduction of Future Primitive the author puts it nicely saying," …we grew bodies and minds that crave certain kinds of experiences--we shifted away from lives that gave us these satisfactions, and the "sublimated" pleasures of industrial existence cannot replace them." It is not just the physical experiences that differentiate humans from machines, but the spirit, essence, or soul of people that cannot be duplicated or incorporated into a technical existence. In House of Bones the narrator describes himself as a holy fool that was humored and accepted into the primitive tribe that he describes as, "Their bodies and their minds are pure Homo sapiens but their souls are different from ours by twenty thousand years." It is this soul like quality that the reader sees not barbarism, but artists, singers, and poets all emotionally expressive people. At the end of this story he realizes that people have always had the innate ability to care and love others. He tells B.J, "You wanted to see if I was really human, right? If I had compassion, if I could treat a lost stranger the way I was treated myself". If these traits are always present in human beings then it makes it very difficult to apply an emotional character into a non-expressive world. The projected high tech world is leaves no room for laughter, tears, tantrums, and compassion. These emotions cannot be calibrated into a computer. In the story The Onion and I the father must show his son that if a computer cannot design the imperfections and uniqueness of something as simple as an onion then it will never be able to develop a human being that has so many variations and distinctions individually that it would be impossible to create. The onion becomes a symbol as to how computers can apply layers of information and data to create a duplicate of something living, but if there is nothing inside the core of this creation then it simply is not the real thing. In fact, by trying to invent a living being and stripping away what makes it special it will no longer exist. The father says, " Should you try to remove the layers, you would destroy the life that waits inside," Another way to put it would be to say the essence of who we are is internal and by trying to dismantle that beauty and quality which we hold special would be to rob the spirit. In this way technology seems threatening as it encroaches on what the perfect plan is of humanity is, which is an imperfect being.

The other threatening aspect of this technology is what a formed disciplined government could do to reign in the differences of humanity. The story Drapes and Folds is an example of how controlling such a New Society could be for the lives of this world. Pearl understands that consequentially because of diseases and tampering with the food supply that government would continue to botch things up and steal the individuality of each person. Like sheep, the people had to conform to absolute uniformity, with no mode of expression and creativity. She clings to her clothes because she knows they are an extension of who she is. Referring to her clothes she says, "Maybe that's when it started for me, connecting warmth and affection with texture and design," By sacrificing individuality, one has to become unrecognizable and blend together as one functioning organism. The trade off is to give up living life in exchange for merely existing in life. In Newton's Sleep the word Reason becomes the explanation of why their world must function as on uniformed society. It was necessary that the Spec mission streamline their applicants to only the finest and smartest people, without sentiment or emotional attachment to their choices. Unfortunately Reason cannot be applied when the human element is involved. Being human means for most, having a conscious and feelings of guilt, remorse, and sadness. These are equations that cannot be factored out of a master design of reason. The father in this story describes that he wants a rational happiness and complains about things like the weather because it is unpredictable and cannot be controlled. He goes on to say, "When you work hard not to give in to irrational impulses, it was discouraging to get no response at all but emotionality." The conscious of this society catches up with them when all that they tried to ignore and leave behind began to materialize within their cocoon of safety. There is nothing rational or controllable about the psychological aspect of being human.

Break 10:50

Back 11:00

In The Logical Legend of Heliopause and Cyberfiddle , Pryer becomes a student of regression when attempting to build something as tangible and real as a violin. The static language of computer jargon gives such a creepy impersonal image of Pryer as he asks questions about what the real world is. When he asks why is cybereality so much better the computer responses, "Because there is an inevitable progression from the concrete to the abstract, from the material to the ethereal, from the mechanical to the conceptual, from the gross to the nano." What a disheartening view of a world that is defined as only conceptual without substance or matter. The story is redeemed when the end shows Pryer crying real tears and imagines he has a soul, and his soul soars on to the stars, past Heliopause.

It is the imagery of the heavens tied to the spirit that is used frequently in the stories of technology and people. In Hinterlands, fear is the driving force that leads Toby to understand what is best left unknown and to embrace what is hovering out there without discovering it's purpose. The author ties the sea with the heavens when Toby says, "Damn all the ones who bring things home, who keep us here waiting, who fill Wards, who bring us the Fear. But cling to this dark, warm and close, to the rhythm of the sea, you get high enough out here; you'll hear the sea." The heavens are symbolic to the spirit as in the story Men on the Moon. The Native American grandfather who sees the mission to the moon as fruitless and feels that knowledge is not going to be found in rocks or science, but that it is spiritual. He dreams of the mahkina as threatening as it plows through the land without conscious or thought of the nature it destroys around it. The mahkina is man's machine that wants to uncover the truths of the universe, instead of accepting it's majesty and reverence. The technology he sees is foreboding to humanity and the balance of nature and man.

If the human condition could be calculated, programmed, and formatted then there would be no point of existence. It is the ebbs and flows in the human spirit that gives us life. Technology is a neat formulated idea of absolute certainties and results. Thank goodness we as humans cannot be certain about anything. It is the ability to move without restraints and predictions that gives flavor to people. We thrive in the movements of our life, the smell of a baby on the back of his neck, the delight in hearing the distant recorded music of the ice cream truck coming down the road as sweaty little hands reach out to take money from you. We are defined by how we respond to life, not by an orderly life that will define us. Technology will continue to burn paths into our future giving us opportunities to learn more and create more, however it will never be able to substitute what humans are.

11:40 Ending.