Marie France’s vision of achievable immortality is fascinating precisely because it couldn’t be more unlike the clone-and-freeze method favored by Ashpool. She conceives of freedom from death as occurring through the medium of personality, testing her theory with the construction of Neuromancer -- an intelligent RAM construct capable of simulations designed to elicit real human emotion. Whereas Ashpool couldn’t bring himself to let go of the ‘meat’ (not until his suicide, that is... his brand of immortality was apparently not much worth living for), M/F recognized that, via AI, she could let her body die without having to let go of the experience of living. Love, hate, fear, piss... it’s all there in the construct... only difference is, it’s forever.
Case, when given the choice to participate in this alternate reality, ultimately chooses the real thing -- even in spite of the fact that remaining in the N/M construct would allow him to spend eternity with the only person he ever really loved. As he explains to 3Jane, “‘I met Neuromancer. He talked about your mother. I think he’s something like a giant ROM construct, for recording personality, only it’s full RAM. The constructs think they’re real, like it’s real, but it just goes on forever.’” According to Case’s logic, nothing that lasts forever can be ‘real’ in any meaningful sense, as a big part of the experience of reality is the experience of change and uncertainty. So the concept of living forever by any method is, in his view, a false concept... at some point, the living ceases to be living in any familiar sense. When people talk about downloading an entire human personality onto a ROM or a RAM or some kind of hardware, they often add that doing so would grant that personality a kind of immortality. We may be getting close to attaining this technological capability... but in the end, would it really be all that desirable, living forever in a hermetically sealed system, impervious to change? It may be true, as many great writers have suggested, that life can only be conceived of in terms of variability and decay. Efforts to freeze reality in place, then, run somewhat counter to the nature of existence... the impulse to freeze is perfectly natural, but still... the efforts themselves never fully satisfy. So is there any real point in pursuing immortality? By way of a lot of money and effort, we’re steadily getting closer... and pursuing longevity is no doubt a good thing for discovering cures to major illnesses... but is the goal of living forever really worth all that much?
I agree that immortality is certainly enticing and pursuing it isn't inherently wrong, but I think you're right that the efforts never really deliver. Even if immortality were attainable, it would totally change how people lead their lives. I feel like if you really think about things, a lot of our desires and goals are driven by the fact that our time is limited. I'm not saying without death people would be lazy, but there's a lot more meaning in our actions because of our mortal nature.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that the idea of what living really is is paralleled in the book with the question of what humanity really is. If one could really "live" as a construct, could they have all the same traits that made them "human". Isn't being a human is also somewhat dependent on the physical, though? And if we look at it from the other direction. The construct is essentially a human, but the question is if he's really living.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing -- I thought there was a slight glint of hope at the end of the book. Where we started with Case, he wasn't someone many would say was "really living". In the end, I think he learned a lesson about the importance of living the life you have. In the end, he seems to conclude that there's something particularly special about being a human.
There is the interesting dichotomy between the immortality that Flatline experienced by being preserved in a ROM and the immortality of the Ashpool variety - being frozen and reanimated. I am not convinced that either of these is true immortality, however. Dixie was unable to have new experiences, gain new knowledge, etcetera, and I'm not convinced that a clone is as good as the original.
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