Colin Randles

Journal Entry #8

We seem to be in a time of rapid development of technology. When I was a middle schooler, it was average for kids to get our flip phones in 6^th or 7^th grade. You couldn’t do much on them except for texting and calling. I also remember using a portable CD player and taking that to the pool as a child. The ipod/iphone changed everything, and now toddlers are listening to music and playing games on their parents phone, and getting one for them as soon as they can read and write. We are the last generation to have baby pictures that aren’t on iphones. The strides we have made in the evolution of pieces of technology such as computers, TV’s, music devices, appliances, etc.. is currently at an unprecedented rate. We are creating machines that are smarter than we are (the web – Delaney), and can compute/do things more efficiently than we can. Hopefully this technology will be limited to just enhancing our society, and not taking over, which is what Blackmore talks about in her memetics. This is a dangerous territory, as we are essentially removing ourselves as “the” apex predator and top of the food chain.

This development of technology has negative consequences that go along with the great things they have brought to society. Ewaste is becoming a huge issue in developing countries. Will talk about that more in the final paper, but did a project on it in environmental class. This stage of society reminds me of the late 19^th and early 20^th century when the worlds fair was held in Paris. This is the firm time people had seen artificial lighting, military technology exploded, people were introduced to new cultures etc… This new technology seemed great at first, but had negative consequences seen in the early 20^th century with an entire generation of young men wiped out in WW1.

This also reminds me of Connecticut Yankee, when Hank Morgan introduces new technology very quickly, attempting to bring 6^th century England up to 19^th century technology very quickly. Society ends up collapsing, because it is at such a fast and unnatural rate. Introducing things way over the heads of the people, or at such a fast rate can be detrimental, and as we are coming upon the third replicator, this could be what Blackmore was talking about that species wiped themselves out. This exact model played out in Connecticut Yankee.

Singularity is defined as the point at which a function reaches an infinite value. In humans this point is approaching for our information and technology. In the TED talk on Memes and “temes” Susan Blackmore talks about memetics and how information has an evolutionary algorithm the same way organic matter does. The pessimistic view of the future of humanity sheds an important light on how our technology isn’t always the positive that we think it is. While most people view technology as a way to improve our existence, it could actually cause the downfall of humans. It poses the question of whether or not we should be putting time and research into technology that could potentially cause us harm.

The idea of a perfect memory is an example of this. In class we talked about how no one wants perfect memory but it seems to be inevitable. Unfortunately most people don’t think critically about the development of technology beyond the immediate benefits. The idea of forgetting is viewed in a negative light most of the time but really it’s a necessary part of our existence. The personification of information helps understand how our development of new technology isn’t always positive. We need to keep thinking critically about new technology beyond just whether or not we can create something. Discussions need to be held in order to determine if we are willing to foot the costs.

Black Mirror’s episode The Entire History of You showed a possibility of a world with perfect memory using futuristic technology implanted into the brain. As the episode showed this could cause considerable problems with the way people interact with one another. No one could forget events unless they purposefully deleted the memory. People would be able to constantly look into one another’s past experiences and very little privacy would remain. Any mistake that you made could be held against you for the rest of your life even if you had changed considerably since then.

This not only could cause social problems but psychological problems as well. Being able to forget about traumatic or painful experiences is very important to a person’s mental wellbeing. The inability to forget a traumatic memory is one of the key components of PTSD. It could be beneficial for the person to be able to delete the memory mechanically when the brain refuses to forget it. However this would assume that the traumatic was not also stored in the organic brain. This brings up the issue of what is stored in the organic brain and what is stored on the electronic device. If everything is stored in the device and nothing is stored in the organic brain then the person would never be able to stop use of the device.  

This form of visual memory storage is actually very different from the way our brains store memories. Our brains do not actually store a memory as an image like this episode’s futuristic technology does but rather as a series of electrical signals. Not only that but different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain. Though we have a better understanding of how memory is stored it is not fully known exactly where different types of memories are stored. Without knowing exactly how the brain works this type of system could potentially cause problems in the function and development of the brain. If the device was implanted at birth like it seems to be in the episode of Black Mirror is could hinder the development of the brain further enhancing the inability to discontinue use of the device.

Our memories make us who we are. Each person has different experiences from one another and each one teaches us something different. Being able to delete a memory could change the way you look at the world and how you react. Though it may seem like a nice thing to be able to remember your 3rd birthday party the risks is poses would greatly outweigh the benefits. 

One day, Marq and Rat go on a dragon hunt. Korga expects that the hunt will end up in the killing of a dragon. However, he is mistaken. The dragon hunt is carried out with radar guided bows and rather than killing the dragon, hitting the dragon with an arrow allows one to share consciousness with the creature for a moment. Rat and Marq both succeed in the hunt and later sing songs together. Singing songs is known as the proper conclusion to dragon hunting on Velm. Later on at a dinner party, Rat Korga is smothered by attention because he is the sole survivor of Rhyonon. The Web sees this and eventually takes Korga away with spaceships of the XLV, an alien race. Marq becomes emotionally destroyed by the loss of Rat.

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is all about the travel between various worlds and their diverse cultures. The travel of love and heart is also depicted in the novel. Delaney was able to forsee and predict the World Wide Web through his discussion of GI. GI allows one to have the capability of knowing about everything in the universe. Since Rat under went radical anxiety termination, he is given a GI headset. This headset in turns gives him access to a vast amount of knowledge.

In Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delaney, Marq Dyeth is an industrial diplomat or trade facilitator. His profession involves the handling of interstellar and interspecies trading agreements. His home, planet Velm, is the planet home to six-legged creatures known as evelm, and also home to humans. The evelm and humans experience different reactions with each other in both the north and south areas of Velm. When Rat is sent to Velm, he is discovered by Marq. It soon becomes clear that these characters are the perfect erotic partners for eachother. Marq and Rat go on to have many sexual encounters. These encounters are shown through “sexual runs.” In the novel, there are various combinations of sexuality including hetero and homo sexual experiences.