Techno Drugs

I think the idea of drugs and technology interlinking is pretty relevant with the use of both today as well as in the past. The thought that drugs and technology both create a space of their own that is different than but similar to everyday life brings up many questions about drugs and technology.  If these two forms are somewhat similar is it possible to develop an addiction to technology just like an addiction to drugs?  I think that because it is very easy to lose yourself in technology the possibility of creating an addiction to it is pretty high.  Although the use of technology may not develop into a dependency, increased use definitely leads to habit and even though this habit of technology use may not be desired by the body because the brain is used to using it it is habit to use it again.  I guess continued use through habit is not addiction but more convenience.  

Interaction between the human brain and technology is very similar to the interaction between the brain and drugs.  Drugs and technology can both be used to ignore the thoughts, feelings, and happenings of everyday life and let the brain focus on something else than the users life.  This is not just a characteristic of illegal drugs but a characteristic of drugs used by much of the public everyday.  Caffeine for example lets the user step away from their own thoughts of being tired or moving slow in the morning and focus on what needs to be done.  Ibuprofen allows the user to ignore their aches and pains and continue being active. The internet also allows a user to step away from their own life by reading, scrolling and looking through pages a user can be mentally transported anywhere. 

Not only do technology and drugs both have the ability to transport the user away from day to day life but they also change the way that we work.  Technology allows for more efficiency, higher expectations and sometimes a seemingly easier work day.  Computers and the advanced communication brought on by cell phones and text messaging give office workers the ability to make more connections through communication, easier communications between business and overall a more efficient work day.  Caffeine allows laborers, office workers and many others start a work day early in the morning without drooping eyes, heavy breathing, and the threat of falling asleep. Acetametophine allows workers susceptible to headaches to work more efficiently without them.  Coca Leaves used by miners and other laborers in the Andes in South America allow the workers to combat the detrimental effects of high altitude and fatigue therefore allowing them to experience a longer work day. From these examples it is easy to see that drugs and technology change the way work is accomplished in similar ways.  The side effects of a work day, either combated through the use of technology or drugs, can be put aside and work can be managed more efficiently. 

Users of drugs and technology are similar in there need for progression and advancement.  Large drug companies spend enormous amounts of money on researching ways to produce drugs that are more efficient and have less side effects. Illegal drug manufacturers and growers strive to find cheaper ways to produce drugs that are stronger and create better highs for users. Drug users read about new medicines with less side effects.  Companies on the leading edge technology spend time and money to make computers or phones with less problems, longer battery life, and better connections but most importantly develop new software and constantly reinvent old technology. Technology users read articles and whole magazines focused on the development of new programs and software.  Surrounding both subjects there is an overall idea that there is always something better; a better drug, a better high, a better program.  Better technology and advancement of drugs create more desirable effects and in the end, ways to make work and life easier.

Miners chewing coca leaves

                 Worker using a computer                    

Skin

When I first heard about Shelly Jackson's "Skin" project I did not understand how word tattoos distributed between thousands of people would result in a book.  So many aspects make this project's end result of a book almost impossible to achieve. It would be very difficult to organize the people who were tattooed to make the story readable for anyone else than Shelly Jackson.  Then I started to think that maybe Shelly Jackson does not care about making a book, or even a story distributed among thousands of people, but instead came up with this idea as a story in itself.  Perhaps the text when put together person by person, tattoo by tattoo is meaningless and the only meaning lies in the willingness of people all over the world to be involved in a project that they have no idea what the underlying meaning is.  I think the amount of people involved in this project show that many people are so attracted to the idea of being part of something different, or even being part of a work of art, that they are willing to participate without knowing anything.  Having a word tattooed on the body for this project does not just allow a person to be a lasting part of a work or even give the person a lasting mark of Jackson's writing but allows the participant to claim originality in the project.  Each person who is tattooed with a word is a piece of an original document.  People are fascinated with original documents; song ideas scrawled on pieces of paper, the birth of a story handwritten on note paper, auctioned off and held in public view as valuable.  It is as if these original documents give the fan insight or a glimpse at the genius that created the document.  In some ways Jackson's project gives living people the chance to be a part of the praised original document, ink on a crumpled piece of paper.  However, due to the reproduction limits of the project, the people and their tattoos that make up the story are not only the original document but the only document, giving the participants even more reason to join the project. Perhaps no one joined Shelly Jackson's project for the reason of being a part of an original document, but it seems like reasonable motivation to join. 

Another interesting idea brought up in class surrounding this project is the idea of distribution. Essentially, Jackson's project once tattooed and finished is nothing but a story distributed among thousands and thousands of different people.  By distributing a work that is commonly found within hundreds of pages right next to each other, Jackson is making the distribution of not only her own book but everything in the world easier to see.  Each word in a story has been developed separately and among many different people.  As time advances words do not change but the connotations of words do, and this change in feelings surrounding each word is created through many different people, in many different places.  This development of a word shows that the meaning of each word in a book is distributed throughout the world, creating different ideas about a book over different times as well as between different places.   

 

Lipogram: Do Re Mi (without Guthrie)

You want to buy you a home or a farm, that can't deal nobody harm,
Or take your vacation by the mountains or sea.
Don't swap your old cow for a car, you better stay right where you are,
Better take this little tip from me.
'Cause I look through the want ads every day

But the headlines on the papers always say

Yo wan o by yo a om o a fam, a can' dal nobody am,

O ak yo vacaon by monans or sa.

Don' swap yor old cow fo a ca, yo bee say w yo a,

B ak s ll p fom m.

'Cas I look o wan ads vy day

B adlns on paps always say:

Wastes of Time

In class on Tuesday there was a discussion surrounding the use of comic books and video games and society's perception of these two forms of media being a waste of time.  Some argued that comic books are not seen as a worthy form of reading or media in society, but that they actually held worthwhile content.  Although I understand that graphic novels and comic books can be a worthwhile read for some, many people in society do not.  I believe that this aversion to comic books and not thinking of them as worthwhile is created in many people because of their understanding of what a comic book is.  Many people see comic books as on pretty low level when it comes to content and meaning, and dismiss them as fluff. This may be because the average person's normal interaction with anything close to a comic book is a lighthearted strip about nothing every Sunday in the local newspaper. Many people do not understand that comic books have evolved into a meaningful form of media, a form of media that is engaging and deeper than the fluff commonly found in the comics section of the newspaper. The same goes for society's common perception of video games and their regular users.  Most people who do not play video games see that they are a waste of time, an activity that has no worth or positive effect.  Mindless hand movements in response to visuals on a screen. Perhaps this is because a person who does not play video games and is not around them very much interacts with actual video games very little.  The "non-gamer" interacts much more with trivial studies about video game users or lighthearted news stories about excessive Playstation use leading to sores on the hands of users. This information fed into the heads of non users of video games shapes their ideas about the worth of spending time clicking buttons in front of a screen.  Perhaps these trivial studies and stories have shaped my perception of video games; because as someone who does not play video games, the only worth I can see in playing them is the slight relaxation a person gains from sitting down.  My understanding that video games are a waste of time probably is fostered by growing up in a society that values work. Looking at the very end of the spectrum of video game users I can understand more about why I see little worth in playing them.  

A teenage girl plays World of Warcraft for extended periods of time without eating, drinking, sleeping or taking care of her body until the point of death.

A man dies in an accident while working on the construction of a dam.

Which is a waste of time? 

Maybe it is both a waste of time, work or play, but I have a heard time believing that the time that girl spent in front of the computer all day was worthwhile.

"Awakenings" and its connections

While watching the movie "Awakenings" with Robert De Niro and Robin Williams yesterday it seemed pretty relevant to the idea of trances brought on by technology, trances like we watched in the video of people's faces as they played video games.  This movie is about Robin Williams and his effort to help a group of people who have been catatonic for many years after suffering from an encephalitis epidemic. A new doctor in a psychiatric ward, Robin Williams' character is disturbed by the amount of comatose patients who have had no sense of hope for the majority of their lives.  Robin Williams is convinced that these people are living inside and works to find a drug to bring them out of their comatose states. Over time Williams' character finds a chemical that is able to bring one of the patients out of his coma named L-Dopa.  This chemical continues to work but must keep being administered to the patient to keep them out of their coma. Over continued use the drug is less effective and the patient needs more and more of the drug to stay out of their normal catatonic state.

This movie got me thinking about the trance like states brought on by engaging with different forms of media.  When listening to radio, watching television or playing a video game it can be seen that a human gets in some sort of trance even if it is very subtle.  The intensity of the trance is due to the reality of the media that one is engaged in.  Because a book on tape or a story told over the radio is easy to dismiss as not real, the trance it brings on is perhaps less intense than the heavy trance sometimes brought on by very realistic video games or a 3-d movie.  In the video of people playing video games watched in class some of the kids seemed to be in a very heavy trance. For example the child who's eyes were watering was in such a heavy trance that he would not even blink when his eyes needed moisture. Other kids in the video were effected differently by interacting with media, such as the boy who was muttering almost about stabbing and killing.  No matter what kind of state of mind a realistic form of media puts a human in, the human on the receiving end of the media becomes farther and farther away from real life.  Even though the argument could be made that a trance state that a video game brings on is an equal form of life as walking around and engaging with the natural environment, I do not think it is.  If someone believes this is true than they would also believe that spending 16 hours a day playing World of Warcraft would be more worthwhile than reading a book.

If human daily involvement with technology continues to become more realistic, the catatonic states of humans will also deepen.  If humans enter deep comatose states due to increased realistic technology it is no different than the group of catatonic humans living in a psychiatric ward in "Awakenings."  On a large scale, this would lead to a nation full of comatose humans living in another world, away from their human bodies and possibly only able to be woken up by a huge dose of L-Dopa.

Polygenism: Machines Humans and Their Same Origin

Polygeny is the theory that different races of humans evolved from separate sets of ancestors. This theory came into mainstream use in the United States when slave owners used it to justify slavery. The idea that different races are from different origins, making their genetic make-up separate, is no longer used because it has been proven there is more genetic difference within race than between race. If machines are developed to act like humans, or even become humans through mixture of man and machine, the act of classifying them as different is not far off from polygenism used to justify slavery. 

Humans and machines are both made up of atoms and those atoms are made up of sub-atomic particles, therefore making their deepest of origins the same. I cannot think of a more precise way to trace a being's origins by looking at the smallest unit of what the being is made of. This idea can be stretched to say that everything is the same on the smallest base level therefore making the classification of different beings worthless.  I do not necessarily believe that classifying plants different from animals and humans from machines is pointless; what I do believe is that one must look at classification as a human invention that focuses on difference between species, allowing humans to avoid the idea of being just another substance, just the same as everything else. 

I couldn't find a machine versus human classification sheet to compare the above with but I imagine it wouldn't look much different than this.

 

Percent of a Species

The idea of machines mixing with humans to make people who are as much machine as human and machines who are for the most part human, creates many different problems in categorization of species.  Mixing two different types of life results in a creation of an ambiguous being, and in the end the categorization or percent make up of these beings does not matter.

Measuring the exact percentage of human vs. machine in a being is not only a ridiculously difficult, and tedious task but also one that is not worth doing.  To some extent it is desired to know where a certain living being came from, but only a general knowledge of the origins of some thing are needed, extensive looks into where exactly some thing came from is overkill. For example, if a human happens to be part French, German, Hungarian and Scandinavian tracking the percentage of each heritage is not worthwhile. Even though this person may have a mix of different origins and having ancestry in these certain places may affect the way they speak or act breaking down this person into some percent French versus some percent Scandinavian is irrelevant.  Even though this percentage of a human's heritage may be able to be found it is trivial. 

At the point where humans and machines are being mended together into one creature, crossbreeding or cross manufacturing, the differences between human and machine will slowly decrease. Before technology reaches a point where machines and computers surpass human life, machine life will be very close to human life. As technology increases, the gap between human and machine will be slowly closed to a point where human and machine are almost the same. The difference between human and machine in the future may be so little that it mirrors the difference between a person with French heritage and a person with Scandinavian heritage.  If it is known that a being is part machine and part human and their actions do not distinguish the being as either one specifically, then the percentage of human versus machine simply does not matter.  This is a scary thought though, thousands of people with indistinguishable origins, and almost no way of tracing them.  As startling as this may be to human life, this idea of a whole planet filled with unidentifiable machine-people must be accepted before machines are mended with human life. To accept the combination of human and machine, it must also be accepted that the human race and machine life is no longer separate at all, but combined in all aspects, and indistinguishable from each other.

However, this period of indistinguishable life between man and machine is only temporary.  The amount of time that it takes for this period of ambiguity to pass is dependent wholly on human development as well as development of technology.  Looking back to what I proposed earlier, just as the gap between human life and machine life will slowly be closed to the point of being the same, once human life and machines become equal, machines will surpass the intelligence of human life, unless there is a great development in human intelligence, which I see as unlikely. After the equality point, machine life will become more and more different from human life again but, as superior. This makes the difference between humans and machines easier to distinguish, but still difficult to pinpoint when it comes to percent human and percent machine.  Even if a being that is more machine than human that is easily viewed as superior, it is difficult and almost pointless to try and figure out the percentage of how much of this being is human and how much is it machine.  This enforces the idea that the percent human versus percent machine simply makes no difference in the long run because of the development of technology and the changing relationship between human life and machines.  

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Pinpointing the Root of Disgust

When asked why is something disgusting it seems almost impossible and unreasonable to pinpoint the root of the disgust.  That is until you realize that different things disgust different people and therefore disgust is not universal but personal. When looking up disgust in the dictionary it defines it as a "feeling of revulsion or profound disapproval by something unpleasant or offensive." This leads to the question of what makes something offensive.  The answer cannot be simply found in the dictionary because under offensive the definition loops back around to repulsive and disgusting. 

One idea that I pondered over is that disgust roots itself in something that is unusual, something that a person who is offended does not see everyday. In the case of Burroughs and "The Ticket That Exploded" he writes about situations that a human does not encounter from day to day, or maybe even ever.  These ideas can cause shock, which in some cases is offensive and therefore makes the reading material disgusting. The idea of a "Happy Cloak" consuming a human while they are hidden from what is going on in their pleasure is a situation the average reader does not come across from day to day.  What furthers the disgust in the reader is the fact that this idea, although not literally convincing that it would happen to the reader, mirrors situations that the reader faces in life.  For example, a reader may make the choice to abstain from certain addicting substances that have the potential to consume a human while they are masked in their pleasure from the substance, just like the idea of the happy cloak. But if a reader finds the idea of the happy cloak disgusting due to the fact that it is a near real idea, they should be equally disgusted by substances that have the same consuming effect (meth, alcohol, and other drugs).  If this is true than perhaps fear is a better word to use than disgust.

Thinking further about the root of disgust in situations that are not familiar I started thinking about things that disgust me.  The other week I was encountered with a clogged disposal at my house, after letting it drain and a weeks worth of garbage food sitting in the drain un-disposed of I was disgusted at the idea of reaching my hand in and clearing the clog.  I ended up not having to which was good because I would have definitely gagged, or been bodily disgusted.  Being disgusted at clearing soggy food that I eat every day discredited my idea that disgust comes from unfamiliarity.   I also realized there are many different levels of disgust.  Burroughs' book does not give me a sense of bodily disgust like the disposal in the sink. By bodily disgust I mean physical symptoms, gagging, feeling uneasy. This almost seems as if it is an innate reflex. Burroughs' book on the other hand does not cause me to gag but be disinterested.  The disgust in this book leads me to set the book down rather than feel sick or gag.  However, I cannot pinpoint why it is disgusting.

Style vs. Content

While reading "The Ticket That Exploded" I have come to realize that Burroughs' cut-up style of writing is much easier to pay attention to than the content of the actual story. I have come to this realization not because the cut-up style is necessarily appealing to me but because I cannot seem to connect the content of one chapter to the next, thus leaving my memory of what I have read as a mash up of words that rarely connect themselves in my brain.  I do not consider myself a good reader, maybe the trouble I am experiencing in this book has to do with my skill level but I have also considered that Burroughs had no problem with, or possibly even intended to write a book that turned the reader away from the content to focus on his writing style. 

After finishing a couple chapters I set the book down and tried to remember what I had just read.  I knew that the content of what I absorbed had to do with ejaculation, sperm, gilled frog boys, anal penetration, touch and sensations and a few other keywords, but past those I had come out of it with no cohesive story line or content that was relevant or meant anything to me.  At that point I read the reviews on the back of the book to try and figure out why this book is required for english 238 or even regarded as worthwhile. Many of the reviews on the back cover of the book praise William S. Burroughs for his writing and his cut-up style, but one review stuck out to me. It reads, "Burroughs seems to revel in a new medium...a medium totally fantastic, spaceless, timeless, in which the normal sentence is fractured, the cosmic tries to push its way through the bawdry, and the author shakes the reader as a dog shakes a rat," -Anthony Burgess.  This review makes a lot of sense to me as it is essentially saying because Burroughs style is new (cut-up), the reader is forced to push themselves through the reading that is often obscene. After all is said and done Burroughs is in control of the reader like a dog who holds a rat in its mouth; there is no hope for the reader, except for the possibility that Burroughs will let us live through this horrible experience only to be left on the ground battered with images of anal penetration filling our heads.

Perhaps suggesting there is no hope for the reader to understand is taking it too far, but I believe that Burroughs' intention, to some degree, is to turn the reader away from his subject matter so the reader can only focus on his 'brilliant' writing style.  Burroughs accomplishes the distraction away from the story line in many ways, one of which is writing more of odd sexual situations, such as anally inserted eggs that ejaculate frog tadpoles, than anything else.  By writing of subjects that turn most people away in disgust Burroughs develops a fear, or in some cases a hate of the subject matter in the reader.  If a reader develops this disgust in comprehending what Burroughs is writing, they will be turned off to his content and focus more on his unique writing style.  Another way in which Burroughs turns his reader away from comprehension and towards paying attention to the way he writes is through writing chapters that do not seem to connect to each other.  It is difficult to read different sections of the book that do not relate and try to tie them together on ones own.  After reading three sections that do not relate it is easier for the reader to change the focus of their reading away from comprehension and towards William S. Burroughs writing style.  If the difficulty in connecting ideas and sections can only be achieved by few, the rest of the readers are left with a concentration on his writing style.  If this is what Burroughs hoped for and accomplished than I accept that this idea is truly brilliant.  

Again I do not consider myself very good at reading comprehension so perhaps there is a cohesive set of ideas that tie together to make a story. Even if there is a story and a meaning, the difficulty in achieving comprehension of this book leaves me focused on Burroughs writing style, be it brilliant and innovative or not. 

My other thought is that Burroughs wanted to push the boundaries of what could be published.  Maybe he got his kicks through having publishers read and publish his grotesque ideas about sex and men. 

More Morel Thoughts

One line in the book that I felt linked directly to the idea of "Invention of Morel" and the movie "Groundhog Day" being somewhat similar was when the says, "Even if we left tomorrow, we would be here eternally, repeating consecutively the moments of this week"(76). When I read this I instantly thought of Bill Murray stuck in his endless February 2nd. I don't have much more to go with that one since we discussed it in class.

After reading the narrators findings on the projections that not only the people were recorded and projected but also the state of the buildings at the time of recording are projected I found some faults in his ideas of what to do with the projections. The narrator writes, "It is impossible to open the doors-even the unlocked ones-(because if they were closed when the scene was recorded, they must be closed when it is projected)"(79).  This poses quite a few problems for the practical use of these recordings.  Because a successful projection depends on the surroundings of the projections being exactly the same as they were when recoded, Morel's machine brings up many problems of limited use. First of all, these projections can only properly function in a completely unchanging, and predictable environment.  If the projections were to keep trying to function while there were changing variables it would bring up problems.  At the simplest level of change, the projections would be interacting in a time when perhaps the weather is not the same as when the images were recorded.  The narrator even observes this when he recalls that the images danced on the grassy hill during a rain storm as if it weren't there.  These small levels of change do not pose a threat to the success of the enduring projections, however when you get into longer term, bigger changes more problems occur. One example is if an image is recorded walking on a beach that is eroded or under water during time of projection, what becomes of that projected person? Are they simply projected walking on the water or is the ground projected over a moving ocean? This thought brings into play so many problems of projected images, overlying other images and eventually overlying the real earth.  To a living observer, they would not be able to tell what was real and what was a projection, making life almost impossible. Could a living person eat projected food? If so why not make unlimited supplies of food that was there in the past. Could cars run on projected fuel? Maybe only if the fuel was projected as running through an engine. The possibilities of this invention are limited but if it were possible to work out the kinks it would make the possibilities endless.

The last bit of this book that troubles me is when writing about the limited life of the projections the narrator mentions that a projections eternity is based completely on the functioning of a real machine. He also writes, "And what if Morel had thought to photograph the motors"(91).  This idea of making safety back ups of back ups of what is perceived as life is dangerous, because it makes such a clutter of information that it would be difficult to follow. Not only would this be near impossible to manage but to make a recording of a machine that is projecting you would need a manual operator to make sure that the back up machine records and stops at the correct times.  I can think about all of this and try to follow Morel and the narrator's ideas but in the end all it does is blow my mind. 

"Invention of Morel"

This book has created some odd highs and lows in my thinking and interest in the story. From the beginning to page 47 the ideas presented and the mystery in it were very entertaining and kept me on my toes, but from page 47 to around page seventy the book lost my interest. This may have been due to the fact that I wasn't thinking about it completely or just not into it but I believe my disinterest was pricked at the point where the narrator explains his reasoning for what may be happening on the island (bottom of page 52).  Being presented with several explanations for what is going on blocks the reader's creativity in their own idea of what is going on.  Realizing the book still had 30 pages to save itself I kept reading and it did exactly that.  After the page fifty to page seventy section that left me in stagnant thought the book picked up quickly to a point where I would read a couple lines and then think about everything coming together, not only in the book but in class as well.  

After finishing the book and coming back to what the narrator wrote on page 52 I have a hard time understanding why he is still caught up on spending time with Faustine. He explains, "I do not believe that a dream should necessarily be taken for reality, or reality for madness"(52). Doesn't this quote mean that at the point where the narrator figured out that everything he knew of Faustine was a projection of what once was, he should have not taken this reality as simply madness but realized it is merely a dream.  Dreams, although sometimes seemingly nonsensical and out there can also be the brain recreating recent events and 'projecting' them in our sleep.  Although this idea is somewhat a stretch, the similarities between dreams and Morel's projections are there.  If the narrator had realized this perhaps he would have not taken the projections as reality, in other words not taken a dream for reality. Thinking about it more putting Morel's projections under the same umbrella  dreams is not correct.  Although the projections have similar characteristics to dreams, they are simply living history.  Because these projections are nearly dreams now, it does not discredit the fact that the images or projections being shown were in fact once real.  After coming around to this thought that the projections are more than a dream but living history, I understand that the narrator is hung up on the idea that what he sees of Faustine was once real. Because of this it is just as reasonable that he is hung up on Faustine, as it is for one of us to yearn for reliving a memorable weekend.   Thats it for now...classtime.

Commence Nanotext Blog

yep.