Tuned to a dead channel

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

William Gibson, Neuromancer, 1984

Transfer of memory, of consciousness to the distributed system maintained by the AI. Imagine being mingled so completely with another, you no longer need your physical self – you’re one.

Esther, Kill Switch, 1998

Imagine being so infatuated with technology that you actually believe the future of the human race lies in discarding our physical bodies in order to meld with a computer. What does it take to turn humanity away from itself? To reach a point where the physical becomes superfluous?

As romantic as it sounds, to lose self in order to become ‘one’ is death. Great achievement is not born out of being one amorphous mess. It is a perversion of the sense of self.

By definition, romance is the coming together of two. Despite the difficulties of families or fate, two individuals believe they are meant to be together so much that they are willing to forego family, friends and convention. Without two distinct beings willing to struggle to find their own way of being together and then struggling continuously to be able to stay together, above and beyond their idiosyncrasies, there is no romance. One doubts whether there is even existence worthy of the word.

The value of human life is to be found in difference. Those who would have us conform to sameness are in search of personal power, validation, and purpose. They cannot find it within themselves so they find it by inflicting themselves on others. It is perfectly normal that serial killers tend to select victims of a particular type. As they achieve for themselves a sense of power, they impose anonymity on their victims by making them nothing but a type.

In a meeting to decide the recipients of school awards, the Vice Principal rejected the teachers’ nomination because, despite the student’s easily meeting the criteria, she was deemed unsuitable because she “doesn’t smile”. Needless to say, the Vice Principal was an American. The smile was important because it would show that the student accepted all that the school deemed necessary to be seen as successful. That she didn’t smile indicated she was happily individual, unconcerned with the necessity to conform.

Individuality is born from the opposition to the norm. It need not be antagonistic opposition, there does not need to be continuous strife. There simply needs to be an awareness that the norm strives to impose the rule upon one who is unwilling to be so bound. The profound individual will find a way to live in the world of the inhuman. The inhuman will never find a way to live with the individual.

Wanting to lose oneself inside a purely inhuman machine is suicide.

There is an argument for finding oneness with God. The mystics have been striving for such a union for centuries and leaving for the rest of us sublimely beautiful writings. ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’ is a perfect example of which I speak. Beautifully frightening. St. John of the Cross was another who sought mystic union with God. And left us sublimely beautiful poetry. I have a thing for the mystics. To me they are the scariest of roller-coaster rides and every horror movie that’s ever sent you to bed fearful of finding monsters under the bed. I love them as much as I fear them.

For those of us who can never hope to meet God face to face there is the computer. What Esther seeks is nothing less than what St John of the Cross sought. It is mysticism for the technological age.

And just as frightening!