He, She, and It Reflection

While reading Chris' post, he mentions how the law prohibits human-shaped cyborgs. But why is it only human-shaped cyborgs? What if Avram made a cyborg in the shape of a little dog? A cyborg still possesses the same amount of intelligence no matter what shape it is. From the wording of the law, the society doesn't fear cyborgs, but anything that takes the shape of a human and is not biologically human. Maybe this is the equivalent to identity theft in 2059: a human cyborg looking exactly like you and taking over your life.

Also, I think the house is alive. Here's why: 1). Near the end of the chapter "Fifteen years before: The day of Alef", it offers Shira advice on love (although that could have been programmed by Malkah since she would program relationship advice into a computer). It's trying to help 13 year old Shira as any best friend or mother would. 2). The house seemed to show emotions like any other living being. Piercy writes, "The computer sounded hopeful" (End of chapter 5) or "I obey," the house said as if glumly (chapter 41). And when the house first meets Yod, Shira notes its disapproval.

The house reminded me of Joseph whenever Malkah or Shira gave a command, it would respond "I obey" just as Joseph did. Both couldn't disobey their commands, but the house found a way around the commands, not like Yod did by disobeying. The house would obey, but still show disapproval and resistance while obeying. For example, when Shira told the house to let Yod in for the nth time, the house "opened the door and kept it swinging back and forth all".

If the house is not considered alive like Mike in the Moon, then it certainly only a step or two away. Maybe it doesn't have enough "neuristors", but it shouldn't be disregarded like any plain computer.

Reflection on He, She, and It

Ok, a couple of fairly random thoughts: first, I think we may have been overlooking the importance of physical appearance and traits when discussing whether Yod was in fact a person. While it seems fairly superficial, I do think it needs to be emphasized. Honestly I thought that Mike behaved as much like a human as Yod, he clearly had a personality, he interacted with his environment, he was self aware, but because Mike was a box locked in a room, you never think of him as a person. A living entity yes, but a person, no. Maybe that's completely obvious to everyone, but I did feel like we were overlooking it. While Shira says that she doesn't think about what's under a man's skin, maybe the fact that Yod doesn't have a spleen does have an effect on whether he is a person. I think we also need to be careful with our definition of agency when using Jack's definition to define person-hood. If we define agency simply as the ability to affect change, we run the disturbing possibility of cutting out populations of humans from our definition of people. If we look only at people's ability to affect their own circumstances, where does that leave those living in slavery. I don't think that definition is necessarily flawed, but we do need to be careful with it.

Also, was did anyone else think of Alia while reading this? It strikes me that she was in a way fairly similar to Yod. She was born with all of the knowledge of the reverend mothers, just as Yod began with all of the knowledge that Avram programmed into him. The scene where Alia is describing her first awareness during the ceremony sounded very similar to Yod describing his first moments of conciousness, except Yod was without a Jessica figure to protect him. Later, Paul describes Alia off killing Sardaukar as being completely natural, almost like she was intended to be some sort of weapon (St. Alia of the Knife). There were several more parallels, but those are the ones that came immediately to mind. I'm not convinced that it's relevant, but the similarities struck me.

It happens that I was in the middle of the book when this was posted on xkcd last week(for anyone who does not regularly read xkcd you should). I think it offers interesting insight into the entire novel. I think, more than anything the book notes the unnatural nature, and consequences of, any man attempting to create life in his own image. The comic portrays a male desire or interest in this incapability, as well as our naivety to what it actually entails. The book shows the consequences of the Rabbi creating Joseph, Avram creating Yod, and God creating man (under the assumption that the destroyed, dystopiate world is the consequence of God creating man).

I will propose a biblical status for personhood (something I don't normally do, but I think it will be fun for this book)--an understanding of good and evil (morality). I suggest that Adam and Eve are not people until they eat the fruit, much like Joseph and Yod are not really people until the begin to understand good, evil , and morality, and children gain personhood as they learn a greater understanding of this.

What God, Avram, and Rabbi failed to realize is that one cannot create a something in our own image, with a high level of consciousness, without them grasping an understanding of these things. Piercy seems to contend that women do understand this, and understand the burden for emotional and moral development of their children.

Reflections on Class Discussion 2/26

Back to my Star Trek reference. After further review, the main reason Data was ruled a "sentient" being was because of his ability to self-program. Picard also brought up the idea of creating thousands of copies for labor was exactly the same as slave labor. Beings threated as property... sounds right. Piercy avoids this debate all together, there is no discussion with any of this. Yet, like mentioned in class nothing of this nature is aroused by the existence of Gimel. I see parallels to this with today's society. Gimel is piratically the same as an autistic person. Do we threat autism as a trait that makes someone sub-human? Not legally, but there are people in society that believe this. Personally, I think this is wrong and reinforces my disdain for society today.

In another sense, Yod is similar to someone in a vegetative coma. Not mentally, but psychically. Yod needs someone to repair his mechanic parts, similar to the machines being kept on a person in a coma. But his mind is just like any human, but greater. I know the two are different, but conceptually they are similar, the person in a coma relies on the machines to live while Yod himself is a machine.

I'll also bring up the human form as a major player as to the "is Yod human" debate. The house is not seen as a human. Perhaps what should be discussed is the sentience of Yod, Gimel and robots. Can something non organic be sentient? Sounds like a Star Trek episode to me. What is this social construct of sentience? You can debate that animals are sentient beings because they are somewhat self-aware.

I again will repeat that I hate the characters, and I dislike current society being just as, if not more, revolved around sex as the book.

He, She, and It

While making up the wiki page for He, She and It this week, I was wondering if the House was a character in the book. Unlike the other house computers, Malkah's house was programmed to be more personal. The house even offered advice to Shira when she was younger. But does that make the house a character or a very sophisticated piece of technology?

So Yod's a cyborg and we hear about apprehension of the human side, but the machine side doesn't put up much resistance. Gimel and the cleaning robots didn't seem to care (can they even care?) about Yod. The only resistance to Yod from techology comes from Malkah's House. I'm not sure what to call the House exactly, she or it?, but for the purpose of this post I'll refer to the House as she. She refuses to let Yod in or even call him Yod. To her, he is a machine and no amount of artificial intelligence can change that. Is this just how she's programmed? What separates her from Yod in terms of programming? Is it her inability to disobey orders?

I also found out that He, She And It has an alternate title Body of Glass for the UK version. Why would Piercy have two different titles? I can see why she would pick He, She And It but why Body of Glass?

Reflection 2/19

I've been putting this off since I didn't particularly like Weber. But he is the cornerstone of social science so it's hard to avoid him. In my Russian Revolution class today, the professor decided to do a Weberian analysis and suggested we read "Politics as a Vocation". His analysis didn't include any messiahs or anything like that, instead focusing around the three types of authority: traditional, charismatic, and legal.

I liked how we set up class with the pro/con list even though we didn't/couldn't come to any conclusions. The idea of a bad messiah really interested me. Does it mean s/he is bad at being a messiah or that his/her intentions as a messiah are bad? Is a bad messiah someone who is lazy and doesn't accept his vocation. I don't think that this is the case because a messiah couldn't be bad at being a messiah, otherwise they wouldn't be called a messiah. Plus, the few "messiahs" we have in histroy haven't accepted their vocation by saying they are a messiah.

He She and It

I think that this book takes our discussion of Mike and the morality of an artificial intelligence (intentional or otherwise) to a whole new level, but I have to admit what stood out to me most about this book was the environment in which it was set. To me it read like sci-fi meets some combination of An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring. The idea of only vultures, rats, snakes, insects and rabbits being left see med to me like a far more plausible and disturbing possibility than that of artificial intelligence and giant corporations replacing nation states. I thought the image of the skeletons of songbirds being sold in the glop as relics of days long gone was one of the most disturbing images of the entire book. While I realize this was not intended to be the focus of the book, the setting of the book (especially in sci-fi) is what makes the premise possible. Also the image of Malkah as a college student in Prague in 2008, and only 9 years later the world being nearly destroyed by a war starting in Israel was very disturbing to read about. In spite of the fact that this book was written 17 years ago it still seems plausible, not in the abstract but on the time line it sets, with a few possible exceptions of course. Still, I think that this was far more connected to our reality than anything we have read yet, and I found it making me consider the present far more than anything we have read yet.

Substinative-He She and It

I'll start of by noting I was bothered that Malkah and I were born in the same year.

I think we can add a new lecture to our expanded Vocation series--"Golem as a Vocation." Complete with discussions of types of Golems, a history of Golems including mysticism, oppression, and ghettos, and even a section on the proper self sacrificing ethic for a Golem.

A more important lecture, however, would be a discussion on the morality of life creation (For the purposes of this post the assumption will be made that Yod was,in fact, alive). Who, for example, should have the power to create life, or should this be something reserved for God alone? Was it inherently wrong for Y-S or the Multis to be endowed with this power or can a distinction be made between Aviram having the power and the Multis, or is it simply wrong all togther to create life? There is an interesting folly portrayed in having the Hubris to imitate God(specifically within Aviram), assuming, that one is good enough to take an action almost exclusively reserved for God. Which makes an interesting parallel to the Christian ideal of imitating and striving to become like God. Finally, the dystopiate state of the planet in the novel begs the question, was God even all that right to create humanity, given what we have done.

Finally, because this is Sci Fi, and because the potential creation of cybernetic organisms, human like AI, and such is a very real possibility it's worth discussing how humanity must handle itself as it moves closer to this ability. What sort of responsibility lies within the ability to act as God.

Tasha and Data or He, She and It?

While reading He, She and It I immediately thought of Tasha and Data from Star Trek: TNG. Shira and Yod and Tasha and Data had similar relationships. Yod is just like Data in the aspect of wanting to become human and being an artificially created. Yod eventually "dies" making him more human depending on your train of thought.

I can't help but sympathize with Shira. She remains me of someone I know, personality and relationship wise. Gadi himself seems to be reflective of the social construct of men today. The emphasis on sex, be it man or machine, has made me understand that men are pigs. It irritates me as a woman for there to be heavy emphasis on sex in the novel and in society today.

I also thought it was interesting that when I was talking to Scott about at Gamers' Club this past week about the book. He told me he related more to the novel from the perspective of the golem and not the characters. I found the parts focused on the golem rather confusing and dry. Perhaps you're sex/outlook on life influences the way the book is interpreted more so than the other books we have read thus far.

Also, I don't feel like Yod is a cyborg in the classically defined way. Yes he has biological parts, but when I hear cyborg I immediately think of the Borg in Star Trek. Starting from organic components then added mechanical attachments.

Now, if we only had our own version of the Wired.

Reflection on Weber and Messiahs

I think that one of the more relevant parts of our discussion on Tuesday might actually be the idea of the “messiah as a vocation.” It seems like many of the political candidates out there are trying to be messiahs rather than politicians. If only s/he is elected, the face of not only politics but America will be changed forever. And while that’s all well and good, I for one would appreciate a bit more practicality and a bit less prophesying.

It seems also that we’ve wedded ourselves to the idea that only the person who sits in the proverbial “big chair” can change the way things are. I think that ties in with what Phil is saying about a lack collective action in Dune and with messiahs in general; it seems as though most energized politicos are waiting for The Politician who is going to come along and right all of the wrongs in the world, when really they need to get up and do something about the issues they care about themselves. Instead, those who don’t wait for the right politicians are put into the activist box by most Americans, and consigned to the political fringes. While I’m not advocating for the Monkey Wrench Gang, I think a little work on the part of the people who are willing to cheer for the rock star politician, but not attempt to affect change themselves wouldn’t be amiss. Of course that borders on the idealism that Weber warns against, but then again his lecture is addressed to politicians, so maybe a little less cynicism on the part of the average citizen could actually be a positive thing. I for one would be interested to hear what he would have said about idealism on the part of the citizen rather than the citizen as voter.