"The Story of Your Life"

More interesting was the fact that Heptapod B was changing the way I thought...My internal voice normally spoke in English, but that wasn't a requirement. The summer after my senior year in high school, I attended a total immersion program for learning Russian; by the end of the summer, I was thinking and even dreaming in Russian. But it was always spoken Russian. Different language, same mode: a voice speaking silently aloud. 157
I had a friend born of Deaf parents; he grew up using American Sign Language, and he told me he often thought in ASL instead of English. I used to wonder what it was like to have one's thoughts be manually coded, to reason with an inner pair of hands instead of an inner voice. 158
Freshman year of high school I remember my Latin teacher proudly making a comment to the class along the lines of, "I knew that I was proficient in Latin when I had my first dream entirely in the language." This idea fascinated the entire class and became the new standard in my mind for language proficiency. The idea itself was ridiculous in a practical sense, for if there was ever a language that's hard to imagine in conversation or within the context of the dreams that I have, it's this one. In class for the six years that I took part in this particular field, I spent so little time actually speaking the language out loud that when I mentioned to others that I took the class I would do so in a hush and mumbled tone that others would mistake for modesty but I and the others in my class understood to be a completely appropriate tone for discussing something you never want to be brought up again. I take Latin, but I really don't know any Latin, I would repeat to anyone who asked me which of my high school's offered languages I took. And this absolutely true. In fact, the only thing that I remember from my first year of high school Latin is (literally) this comment that my professor made about his own understanding of Latin. Suffice it to say, I have yet to have a Latin dreaming experience. 
         This is all to say that I am both fascinated with the ideas presented in this story and specifically in the above quote and at the same time I could not be more disconnected from this type of experience. The rule that one must do something for 10,000 hours to become an expert in it seems more within my grasp than the idea that at some point in the year that I spent pretending that The Aeneid was completely comprehensible to me I might have reached a level of understanding that might infect my subconscious. But this story takes this idea to a level that I can't even put in terms of my lingual experience. The idea that a mind can be transformed through language to understand the universe on a completely different standard of fundamental context and truth is like the definition of mind-boggling. And yet, Chiang presents a situation that requires nothing more than a single new experience to what already exists. His story draws upon the unique and yet plausible experiences of individuals, such as in the quotes above, and simply takes them one step further, into the unknown. 
        The narrative style of the story keeps the reader guessing to the very end, and wraps itself into the last lines of the story so that the full understanding can only come when one sees the piece as a whole. One must know the end of this piece to understand the beginning and one must understand the context of the writing to comprehend the perspective. Where have I heard that before?

Bridesicle Entry

Had she really been able to effortlessly pull up memories when she was alive or was that just how she remembered it?           

Mira tried to imagine what this man could possibly say that would lead her to choose death over his company.

Mira had been in line a long time. It didn’t seem that way, though. It had only been, what, about an hour of life since she died?

Far too soon, Lycan said goodbye. He told Mira he would see her on Tuesday, and killed her.

            Not only is the idea of this story incredibly creative and interesting, what’s more is that the concepts are carried into the wit and intelligence of the language to an extent that is both satisfying an amusing to a reader such as myself. The very title of this piece, a word that made absolutely no sense in the context of our world, had me joyously slapping my knee once I understood how much sense it could make. The ingenuity that goes in to creating a world like this makes me wonder first whether I would be capable of realizing something as unconventional as this as successfully as McIntosh does. The next thing I wonder is what the process McIntosh went through in writing this consisted of. Did this word pop into his head, “bridesicle,” and a process of creating a world around it begin. Or more likely, did the process start with McIntosh contemplating the expanding role of science in affecting our lifespans, and this scenario play out as a possible future development of our world and how we would deal with such technology. A recurring question in our studies of science fiction is “what changes?” and at the same time, “what remains the same?” In the case of this story, we see the people as remaining the same, to a great extent. Hundreds of years after the time that is conceivably ours, the reader can completely understand the mindset and thought process of the protagonist in this scenario. We understand what gay is and how this plays into existing (and still existing) social dynamics. We try to understand the perspective of being not dead and dead at the same time, and we feel that Mira’s reactions and sensations are genuine to this situation that we will (likely) never understand. And at the same time, the whole world has been stripped from under us and been replaced by orange people, warehouses full of dead potential brides and transparent shoes. While it’s on my mind, having imagined a giant warehouse full of women in coffins, where are all the frozen men? Is there a similar process for women to choose to revive men or are the men unable to become a commodity so immediately as women and thus only revived by well-off families. Another thing that hasn’t changed seems to be the tendency to build families around the decisions of a man, and this process seems to realize this social dynamic to a greater extent than in our modern and progressive world. It’s as if with this new technological advancement comes a regression further into past and still existing stereotypes, as if the only way we know how to deal with something new is to fit it into the social molds, however archaic, that we are familiar with. As the world advances further, the people, too caught up in the new technology to consider its implications, regress further, and their minds, always opens to new invention, close further and further to new views of the world. While this theory requires more substantive backing than these initial postulations, I think that stories such as Lathe and Androids suggest similar trends in the advancement of their respective societies.

            Apart from the social implications that arise from this and any other great sci-fi story, this piece was just (as previously mentioned) quite well done. The only thing the quotes I chose have in common is their complete dedication to the concept of “bridesicle” that Will conceives, and their use of all the super cool and witty implications of this idea to its greatest extent. McIntosh succeeds in pointing out some excellent, humorous ironies, universally human feelings and jarringly insightful observations in the perspective of his protagonist, Mira. For these reasons, apart from all subjective implications, “Bridesicle” is simply a great story. 

"A Habit of Waste" Question Response

"A Habit of Waste" is ultimately a story about a woman's conflicting relationship with her body. What might you point to that supports this reading of the story? How do we see this issue throughout the story? Does the protagonist change or come to some realization about her body by the end of the story? What do you think the story is trying to communicate about body image or our relationship to our bodies?
        There was a simplicity to this story that caught me off guard from about the second page. The story takes off from the first line in a very in media res fashion and it isn't until the mention of "MediPerfection" that I even remember that I'm reading science fiction. However, by the time I get to the mention of "downloading her brain" I have shifted back to the science fiction perspective, and am quite honestly ready to get hit over the head by this new world, new time, new perspective--just like in all the other sci-fi piece that i feel like I have to dig myself out of just to understand the perspective of the characters. Instead, after this short and abrupt suggestion of a futuristic context, the rest of the story feels entirely familiar. Not necessarily from the perspective of "I am exactly like this protagonist," and definitely not from the perspective of "I aspire to be this protagonist" but she seems to embody a perspective that we've all seen played out, and maybe even one that every person can identify with for a single moment, or maybe just a really bad day. The Cynthia's character takes off as superficial, insecure and jealous, basically embodying the clear opposite of what we know should be one's perspective on body image. However, through a very clear-cut transformational experience, Cynthia (whose name is mentioned rarely, possibly to enforce an "everywoman" quality of the message), begins to see herself in a new way, and treat her body in a different way as well. 
        Doubtless, there are many ways to view Mr Morris's influence on Cynthia and the transformation that takes place because of it, but the first definition of this change that comes to my mind is a movement towards a more natural, healthy way of life, from one that is regimented, stale and, because of these qualities, seemingly unhealthy. The story itself seems to redefine the word healthy, and even the world life, in a way that points out that maybe words such as these are more complex than we assume, and defined subjectively by one's values. It is safe to say that on a caloric level, and as far as the socially designated norms and goals of consumption go, Cynthia was probably healthier at the beginning of her journey. But psychologically and emotionally, Cynthia grew exponentially by making the decision to eat more naturally, robustly, flavorfully and let her happiness be a factor in her body awareness and treatment. In this story, Hopkins suggests that happiness, ostensibly the end goal of such situations as the one Cynthia starts with, is likely displaced and misunderstood by such social expectations. Instead, at least in Cynthia's case, being happy means accepting what comes naturally to her, and doing things for herself rather than to herself. The simplicity and clear applicability of this message does not make it especially original, but also presents the point as something that we should never let ourselves forget.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Part 2

        Watching, Rick thought, My god; there's something worse about my situation than his. Mercer doesn't have to do anything alien to him. He suffers but at least he isn't required to violate his own identity. 178
  ...   The old man said, "You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some point, every create that lives must do so. 179


        What a coincidence, both of these quotes happen to deal with the idea of identity and what its origin might be. Just kidding, I did that on purpose. As Rick considers his situation and reflects on the circumstance's of Mercer's endless toil, he comes to the conclusion above. When I first read this I found it immediately interesting. However, the more I consider the implications of what Rick could mean, and what Mercer says to him about the necessity of doing wrong, the more disoriented I become. Thus, this blog entry serves not only to walk through a concept of identity openly conveyed in this text but also as a tool for myself to work through an unfinished thought and reach a conclusion regarding Rick's personal identity.
        My biggest issue with Rick's comment about violating his identity is the perspective from which it comes. While the words sound like a vast wisdom is being uncovered, Rick's general mood of self-pity that has pervaded his outlook at this point in his struggle to reckon with his newfound empathy for the androids calls into question the shrewdness of his comment. In one sense, Rick could just be saying that Mercer's life is better than his because it is constant and thus holds no surprising revelations that might complicate it. In this sense, the word identity is just thrown in as a melodramatic rhetorical tool to convey the extent to which this man is conflicted. If the reader is to take Rick's comment seriously, and wonder what he and, further, Dick, mean by this statement, the word identity becomes quite a bit more complex in this context. Rick uses the word identity to mean an essential quality of his being--maybe even the aspect of him that defines what one would consider to be his soul.
        As we study through different works the notion of identity and what it is, Rick's version of identity i not to be taken for granted. In other contexts it seems that the characters identify themselves and their surroundings not inherently but through experience and gradual understanding. The argument could even be made that one's identity is something that is imposed upon her by the society/family etc that one is a part of. And especially in the context of this story, Rick's "identity" is something that becomes clear to him through a process of interactions, feelings and reflections. Was Rick violating his identity when he wasn't even aware of it yet or did his emotional response to his job emerge over time? This changeability or constance seems to be the axis of the identity crisis and clearly I have not begun to answer the question by posing so many of my own. I would argue that Dick sends mixed messages in his portrayal of these characters' identities to the point that I wonder whether the concept can ever be pinpointed to a specific origin. Maybe it's something that we have thought up to explain ourselves without thinking through the implications of. For the sake of my paper I hope that this is not true.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Part 1

        He thought, too, about his need for a real animal; within him an actual hatred once more manifested itself towards his electric sheep, which he had to tend, had to care about, as if it lived. The tyranny of an object, he thought. It doesn't know I exist. Like the androids, it had no ability to appreciate the existence of another. He had never thought of this before, the similarity between an electric animal and an andy.
        
        Before I actually get down to business with the above quotation , I'd just like to mention that, while at some point I know that I did have this information in my head, when I began this novel with no recollection of the fact that the movie Blade Runner was based on it. So a few weeks ago, after reading the article on Science Fiction that mentioned that the movie was a classic, I actually laid down in my bed and watched the movie, or at least the first half. Flash forward about three weeks and I'm reading the first pages of Electric Sheep, feeling almost immediately that something really odd is going on in my mind. A bounty hunter for android humans? Where have I heard that before... I'm ashamed to say it took me about 30 pages to make the connection in full, I honestly thought until that point that the movie writers had simply ripped off this book, and that I was the first one to notice.
        Reading the second half of the assignment with this knowledge, I began to recognize the reasons why it had taken me so long to feel certain that there was a connection between the movie and the novel. There are significant portions of the book that were removed in order to create its cinematic equivalent. Namely, the title. There are no sheep in movie Blade Runner. And more specifically, there is no concept of this status symbol--or any of its implications to the plot--in the movie adaptation. Another elimination is the whole theological concept of Mercer and Mercerism (and, accordingly, all the implications that this phenomenon has to the development of the society and the characters in the novel). Hmm, they take out the religious aspect of the story...and the social status aspect of the story...and they throw in Harrison Ford (as a rugged andy-killing bachelor, in the case of the movie). No wonder I didn't accept the movie as this book's equivalent. All of the literary aspects were removed so that all was left was a slightly cerebral sci-fi action movie focused solely on the "androids are more complex than a single-minded bounty hunter might initially think" vein of the story.
        On the one hand, I feel like some essential threads of the literary version are pulled right out of the story's tapestry. But at the same time, as the novel's introducer points out, there are so many themes, so many questions asked, strung out in single paragraphs of this novel that you can't blame Hollywood for just picking a couple--at times I feel like I'm getting mental whiplash just trying to transition between contemplations.
         Ok, ok ok ok. Now to the theme I chose to focus on in this first entry. I chose the quote that is at the top of this entry, not for it's insight, but for the doubt it raises in my mind in light of the experiences Rick has in the pages that follow. Focused in the beginning of the story on his own problems, and considering the Androids in terms of how many he can "retire" for his own monetary benefit, Rick is in the perfect place for his life to get really complicated, really quickly. The quote above represents how much room Rick has to grow and change his perception, to begin to wonder more about the andys in light of the Nexus-6 development and the research he must conduct. Thus, this quote represents a prediction, and a point of perspective for the future. By my next entry, I suspect that Rick will be a bit less able to equate the capacities of an andy to the capabilities of his electric sheep. And maybe he'll even be questioning what truly defines the difference between a biological human and an android, and whether the quantitative distinctions really make the android--fearing for its very real life--any less human or worthy of being treated as one. I'm pretty sure I will.

Entry 4-Bloodchild

        The whole procedure was wrong, alien. I wouldn't have thought anything about her could seem alien to me.          pg 17

       The word "alien" in this passage takes on a meaning that mocks the meaning that our society has given it. In the world that we live in, something that is alien can be defined by a creature with "three meters of body", at least "six or seven limbs" and the ability to sting narcotic fluid into humans. However, in the scientifically fictional world created by Octavia Butler, all of these features are typical of the most successful creatures on the planet. And, in an ironic twist, the very idea of this alien being "alien", or in other words shockingly unfamiliar, is an idea that is itself alien to the main character of this story, a human adolescent named Gan. And in a way, the new meaning given to this word is only the tip of the iceberg. There are more redefined social conventions in this story than in any other context I have seen. Notions of race are questioned by this entirely new species, the Tlic, now dominating the Terrans who we recognize as all of humanity, suddenly "not much more than convenient, big, warm-blooded animals" (9). The notions of gender that are considered prominent in our culture are now redefined by the opinions that the Tlic (as the dominant species) have regarding the importance of each gender to their own needs. Even the socially constructed unit of "family" has been tampered with, as the Tlic create a new dynamic in order to integrate themselves into units that combine their reproductive needs with the familial notions necessary for the humans to accept them. Finally, the entire process of birth that humans consider normal and natural, and is indeed necessary to our continued existence, is juxtaposed in this story with a different process of birth. All of the new social conventions that the Tlic have adapted, in some way or another, revolved around this somewhat parasitic relationship that is necessary to the survival of the Tlic race.
     There are so many ways to approach each of these redefinitions of our very cultural understanding. But in the interest of keeping the big picture in mind, the question that all of these adaptations bring to my mind is twofold. What is necessary to completely redefine the outlook of a civilization, in the way that the above quote shows a shift in the perception of what is normal? I believe that this text suggests that the power base defines the culture, just as one might say the winners write history. The second question that arises is why social norms and notions of common sense exist in the first place? In this case, the familial relationship between the Tlic and their human families is created in order to put the needs of the Tlic in terms that humans understand. As we see, this relationship causes an emotional connection to emerge between these couples, which makes the acceptance of this painful and unwarranted process possible. But the question remains, is this emotional response something that has been designed in order to facilitate the essential process of reproduction? And even if these emotions are fabricated, does it matter?
       Are social conventions in general necessary to our existence? Probably not. But they serve an important function in our culture, nonetheless. They give us structure, an understood purpose, that leads to our happiness and fulfillment. So maybe social problems don't emerge because of our need for structure, but rather when our society becomes too rigid to accept change and adaptation to circumstances that create tension. Because if some day we're going to be invaded by aliens who can easily choose to dominate us and turn us into "little more than convenient, big animals", I believe that adaptation is favorable to suppression. Survival of the fittest, baby.

Entry 3-The Essays of Anne Fausto-Sterling

I would argue further that sex is a vast, infinitely malleable continuum that defies the constraints of even five categories --"The Five Sexes"

Only if we conceptualize sexuality as part of a developmental system which reaches from our cultural and social history to the cells in our bodies can we learn how we move from outside to inside and back out again, without ever lifting our feet from the [Mobius] strip's surface. --"Sexing the Body"

        Choosing a passage, or in this case passages, for this entry was more difficult than it has been for any reading to this point in the course. Going back through the article and trying to pick out the pieces that intrigued me the most I recognized for the first time the unique difference between these readings and other readings from this class--I have almost literally never thought about any of this before. The question of "What is a sex?", which I tried to embody the essence of in my chosen passages, is simply not something I had previously gotten around to asking myself, or at least not so openly. Naturally, then, I find myself a bit overwhelmed by the implications of this question, one so imperative to understanding the complexity of society. Even more overwhelming is the realization that this woman, Anne Fausto-Sterling, has dedicated her professional life to this question. It seems that I'm just breaking the surface of the implications involved. 
         Luckily for me, Fausto-Sterling has compiled an excellent introduction, and I feel that now I can at least begin to question this social construct that I believe to be more complex than any other. More complex because, when you think about it, there's really nothing else out there like gender. It is at once anatomical, personal, socially held, individually known (and often questioned), emotional, instinctual and-- now I learning-- all-together constructed. And even after learning more about this concept than I had in my first 18 years, I'm still considering the most fundamental question of all: Does it even exist?