Aren't you a bit Jung for this?

So as we close on a few novels this week I have been distracted by the attempt to make sense of this class. Our discussions seem to bounce around, and I don't really get the point.

We have this virus, this small organism that can and will bring down our entire way of life. It is unlikely that we can stop it (ie "the oil treatment"), and as we watch our impending doom we can only hope that the success of the virus does not totally erase our history.

From there we add The Filth, Ribofunk, and Dust. These books have all explored the idea of nano technology taking over in one way or another. They have also, surprisingly, drawn into their stories a sort of religious moral. The Filth gave us love, Ribofunk the all one, and Dust a smattering of Christian archetypes. So my question is, why?

This nano apocalypse seems to allude to the same question we have been trying to answer since the dawn of man. Nanotechnology takes the question of "why are we here?" and twists the perspective to "why were we here?". There is some intrinsic value to human life and concisousness that we cannot explain. The reoccurance of archetypes in these pieces of literature illustrate this nature of patterns in thought, that we can relate to in so many different forms, but in the end we have not answered the question. We acknowledge that patterns exist, and we act in a fairly predictable manner, but why?

I want to write more, I want to say something in class that will make everyone stop and think about the big instead of the small, just for a moment. The more think about it the further I stray from inspiration.

So BLAh.... you can't plurk to save karma, you can't flirt when you don't feel confident, the real inspiration hits when you don't expect it, and it will always be the small that drives the big.

Reboot

The reality of the Ribofunk world is taking a while to sink in...

The speech shared on plurk about Homo evolutis makes A LOT of sense. It is the scary possibility that I don't want to see, but I cannot stop. It is my brothers World of Warcraft against my dream of being a farmer. If we can program cells, we take control over creation. This is really happening!?!

So the Filth plays into this in a peculiar way, we have agreed that it is relatively tame; in all it's perverse stories the likes of which would have my grandmother turning in her grave, I am unphased. I even made the comment that it is predictable. It is predictable, because it is within the realm of contemporary fantasy. It is well within the realm of narrative fantasy 50 years ago. HOLY SHIT! It doesn't matter that I love to ride my bike, and climb rocks, and garden. It doesn't matter that scientists are not allowed to harvest stem cells, technology is greater than these values and Darwin said it 200 years ago. Evolution is the natural order, and we are accelerating towards god-like.

What can I say? I am not ready for this, yet it already seems obvious. We are ready for this, and it is already happening. This is the other distilled from our greatest minds, so far greater than us, yet limited to our realization. Will war accelerate faster than benevolence? Will greed overcome community? These are timeless dilemmas that are almost as scary as the possibility that we will go beyond such turmoil. Scary because then we are truly beyond what I might predict... radical

The Other

The Radical Alterity has given me a lot to think about. The "other" takes so many forms and seems to represent romantic ideals, esoteric knowledge, and a higher plane of functioning. The text is sometimes difficult to fully grasp, but the examples ring true, and the discussion of Japan's treatment of the other really grabbed me. I was reminded of the Dharma Bums, Alan Watts, and my own fascination with "eastern" culture, which is truly the most seductive "other". Somehow I was also brought to a new understanding of the alure of farming, the other great romantic force in my life.

My mother is from a large farm family, but I was brought up in the suburbs. For my entire life I have wished to return to the simple life of a farmer. To hunt and slaughter, to draw sustenance from the environment, and to "live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life". It was encouraged by "Into the Wild" and I gave this dream validity when I moved to Washington after high school. I committed a year to the "other" when I studied friluftsliv (free air living) in Norway. Now I am to be married and how appropriate would it be if we do actually move to northern Norway and find our place between the fjords and mountains, raising chickens and making cheese. Tomatoes and spinach grown in my own garden, wool spun from our sheep, this is my other, this is what drives me to abandon what I know, and will captivate me until it is a reality.

But then what?

Science Reality

My thoughts about the readings have been dominated by the idea that even if we can become god-like in our ability to process information, our physical forms, and overcome mortality, we will still be subject to very human dramas. Both Ribofunk and Dust play out human dilemmas with the radical addition of special abilities, splices, and future slang. The film we watched in class (Technopalypse?) warns of the dangers of the god-like power and the unlimited potential of technology, yet I think Ribofunk is accurate in illustrating that the advancements in technology will not take away our desire for acceptance, love, and freedom. These are the emotions that technology cannot emulate or overcome. Our drama, our lives, and our stories are always driven by this, no matter how much technology influences our abilities, appearances, or daily life.

Chopped and Screwed

The discussion of "The Ticket That Exploded" seems to lack a lot of direct reference to portions of the novel. This may be because the messages are buried and cut up but within the reoccurring scenes and messages directed to the reader we have drawn out the virus that is the "Other Half". This "Other Half" is identified as the inner voice that we cannot silence, Burroughs suggests that by recording and replaying, cutting and mixing, we can play out this incessant noise and perhaps cut them up "into air into thin air".

The reoccurring images and plots of the newtboys, orgasm death skin, addicts, and nova police are the "Other Half" of WSB. This view into his fantasies, the writings from his immutable parasitic organism, seems like another attempt at flushing out the subconcsious, sub-vocal speech. "The Ticket" has a reoccuring reference of the body being split down the middle and spliced with another, and as with the recordings, one may take over the other half through splicing and if one can brake the link between the actual body and the sub-vocal speech they can free themselves physical death.

Really the only other reference to death seems to be the "Old Doctor", who lifting his old blue hands and bringing them down slow, quietung the marks, but if you call him twice he quiets you.

I think that to silence our "other half" may be something we desire, but what would life be without our virus, it is so ingrained into our existance that we justify our superiority over other life on having this other half or "sentience". So we have one romatic ideal of a return to the natural simple being yet the end results precludes such romaticism.

The result of all this is what? It is the same as sitting in the lotus position for 100 years... you get nowhere (I think).