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Transcendence and Technology in Neuromancer
"Where do we go from here?" Case asks near the conclusion of William Gibson's novel Neuromancer (259). One answer suggested throughout most of the narrative is nowhere. True, geographically we are whisked around the urban centers of Earth in the near future, Chiba City, the Sprawl, Istanbul, and then to the orbital pleasure domes and corporate stronghold of Freeside and Straylight. The kind of movement to which I am referring is not overtly physical, though. Neuromancer articulates a motion inward, its attention focused upon subtle interiors; it is implosive rather than expansive, choosing to examine how technology affects the universe of self, individual consciousness, rather than the universe at large (Csicsery 188).
Every human character in the novel remains psychologically static, wired into a predetermined behavior pattern, a seemingly inescapable identity. Human characters seem unaware or incapable of forming or reforming an individual, provisional, less than absolute notion of self. Wintermute, an Artificial Intelligence, a computer, however, acknowledges and attempts to transcend itself. The boundaries between humanity and the machines it produces are blurred. Old paradigms of self, of identity seem obsolete. The character who possesses the greatest capacity for change in the novel is a machine. This is neither an indictment of humanity nor an endorsement of technology. Instead, the novel remains steadfastly ambivalent toward what Gibson himself calls "the very mixed blessings of technology" (Interview 274).
The novel asks us to consider the issue of individual identity apart from physical human existence, within a techn...
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...e UP, 1992. 263-285.
Grant, Glenn. "Transcendence Through Detournement in William Gibson's Neuromancer." Science Fiction Studies. 17 (1990). 41-49.
Hollinger, Veronica. "Cybernetic Deconstruction." Storming the Reality Studio. Larry McCaffrey, ed. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1992.
Jameson, Frederick. "Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of
Late Capitalism" New Left Review. 146 (July-August 1984) Rpt in Storming the Reality Studio. Larry McCaffrey, ed. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1992.
McCaffrey, Larry. Introduction: Desert of the Real. Storming the Reality Studio. Larry McCaffrey, ed. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1992. 1-16.
Porush, David. "Frothing in the Synaptic Bath." Storming the Reality Studio. Larry McCaffrey, ed. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1992.
Slusser, George. "Literary MTV." Storming the Reality Studio. Larry McCaffrey, ed. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1992.
Franklin, R. F. "The Awakening and the Failure of Psyche" American Literature 56 (Summer 1984): 510-526.
People all around agree that technology is changing how we think, but is it changing us for the better? Clive Thompson definitely thinks so and this book is his collection of why that is. As an avid fiction reader I wasn’t sure this book would captivate me, but the 352 pages seemingly flew past me. The book is a whirlwind of interesting ideas, captivating people, and fascinating thoughts on how technology is changing how we work and think.
"Deinstitutionalization: A Psychiatric "titanic"" PBS. WGBH Educational Foundation, 10 May 2005. Web. 01 Dec. 2013.
5)Groff, S. Realms of the Human Unconcious: Observations from LSD Research. Jeremy Tarcher Inc., LA. 1980, pp 87-99.
Rush, Benjamin. Medical Inquiries and Observations, upon the Diseases of the Mind. Diss. Philadelphia: Kimber and Richardson, 1812. Print.
In The Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin recounts the many paramount experiences throughout his life that shaped him into great American figure he was known to be. On the opening page, Franklin reveals the book’s epistolary format by writing, “Dear Son,” going on to admit that he’s made some mistakes in the past and to recollect that past is a way to relive it. By divulging his desire to “change some sinister Accidents & Events” (Franklin 3) the author indicates how important it is for his son to observe as he amends his mistakes. Pride, virtue and vanity play a pivotal role in Benjamin Franklin’s life and the way he portrays himself to others. Instances occur where the author is shown gloating about his great accomplishments and he puts emphasis on his need to live a virtuous and morally perfect life. Throughout his story, Benjamin Franklin tells his son of his many virtuous acts and momentous achievements, motivating the question as to whether he seeks his own approval more so than the approval of his peers.
Heilbroner, Robert L. “Don’t Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgments.” Emerging Voices: Readings in the American Experience. Ed. Sara M. Blake and Janet Madden Orlando: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1993. 436-442.
Artificial Intelligence is a term not too widely used in today’s society. With today’s technology we haven’t found a way to enable someone to leave their physical body and let their mind survive within a computer. Could it be possible? Maybe someday, but for now it’s just in theory. The novel by William Gibson, Neuromancer, has touched greatly on the idea of artificial intelligence. He describes it as a world where many things are possible. By simply logging on the computer, it opens up a world we could never comprehend. The possibilities are endless in the world of William Gibson.
Heath, Joseph, and Andrew Potter. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can’t be jammed. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2004. Print.
Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” conveys a story about the terrors of the future and how man eventually will lose their personality. Leonard Mead, a simple man, walks aimlessly during the night because it is calming to him. “For thousands of miles, [Mead] had never met another person walking, not once in all that time,” but on one fateful night, a mechanical police officer sent Leonard away because of his odd behavior (Bradbury, Ray). This story shows what the future will bring to mankind. During the time of Bradbury, 1920 to 2012, technology began evolving from very simple mechanics to very complex systems that we know today. Bradbury feared that some day, technology will take over and send mankind into a state of anarchy and despair. Bradbury, influenced by society, wrote “The Pedestrian” to warn people about the danger of technology resulting in loss of personality.
Levine, Robert S., ed. Martin R. Delaney: A Documentary Reader. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Morford Mark, Lenardon Robert, and Sham Michael. Classical Mythology, International Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2011. Print. 830 pages.
In conclusion, technology has evolved and influenced our society drastically when it comes to human interaction. William Gibson’s Burning Chrome is a postmodernism/cyberpunk story that blurs the boundaries between what is being human. The story also blurs the line between the physical and the virtual that a human being interacts. The advances we had made with our technology have gotten to the point where it has entwined with human anatomy. Gibson’s novel was partly based on how our civilization is more and more coming together with technology. Another thing Gibson portrayed was how a person’s mind is transferred into a whole new world with the use of our modern devices. In the end, our society’s interaction with both machines and humans is getting to the furuturistic virtural world that Burning Chrome depicts in its text.
Indispensable to understanding the complexity of the problem of technology, in both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and William Gibson's Neuromancer, is the historical context in which the two were written. Whereas Frankenstein was written in a period of dramatic change - that of the Industrial revolution, in Neuromancer, Gibson echoes the opinion of economists who believe that we are currently experiencing the beginning of a profound economic revolution, due to the breakthroughs in information and communication technology, and which some believe is equal in magnitude to the industrial revolution. The second leitmotif of my research is that of nature in reference to technology. Here I describe the relation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to technology and some of the crucial issues co...
In Conclusion William Gibson created a cyberpunk/ postmodernism tale that has blurred not only the physical state between mechanics and human anatomy, but has as well blurred the line between the natural and virtual world. He is making the reader contemplate how both software and hardware have influenced the natural world. Gibson’s fictional world would have not been possible without the existence of software and hardware, that is why the distinction between them is very crucial and play a different part within the text. Without these two things, the reader would not be able to comprehend and relate to Gibson’s view on how our society is interlocking with the advances of technology and the normality of today will no longer exist in the future.