Category Archives: Group 2

Are we human, or are we…just a brain?

“Jesus, Siri. People aren’t rational. You aren’t rational. We’re not thinking machines, we’re– we’re feeling machines that happen to think.” (231-232). Reading Young Park’s blogpost (which can be read here: http://samplereality.com/gmu/451/author/youngpark/) about consciousness being “costly and inefficient” brought my mind … Continue reading Continue reading

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“Life isn’t either/or. It’s a matter of degree.” (250)

As I conclude my reading of Blindsight by Peter Watts, my thoughts continually reflect back to the lines “Life isn’t either/or.  It’s a matter of degree.” (250) spoken by Robert Cunningham to Siri Keeton.  Their specific discussion involves a debate about whether the scrambler creatures from Rorschach should be considered alive in the absence of […] Continue reading

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Forty Six & 2

 ”That’s evolution for you; one stupid linked mutation and the whole natural order falls apart, intelligence and self-awareness stuck in counterproductive lock-step for half a million years.” – Page 362 –      As I finished the book, this line … Continue reading Continue reading

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I’m pork, therefore I’m ham.

“I wastes energy and processing power, self-obsesses to the point of psychosis. Scramblers have no need of it, scramblers are more parsimonious. With simpler biochemistries, with smaller brains—deprived of tools, of their ship, even of parts of their own metabolism—they think rings around you. They hide their language in plain sight, even when you know […] Continue reading

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Hope.

God. I don’t even know why I bother writing in here anymore. Catharsis? Habit? Yori says keeping a journal reduces stress. Says it’ll be good for my “mental health,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. We all know there’s nothing I can do to stave off my Huntington’s, short of going back to those […] Continue reading

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My Unexpected Son

Historical Letter from the First Awakened to the First Human-born Male.  Located in the Ruins of Lo on May 3, 2957: “My dearest Akin, I wanted to write to you in case I do not survive long enough for us to fully know each other.  Life has been difficult as we attempt to reclaim Earth.  […] Continue reading

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To Akin

My dearest Akin, It is with great impatience, hope, and love that I write this letter to you. I am impatient because I have spent months waiting for you, my unborn son, and I am eager to know you and … Continue reading Continue reading

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…To Those Who Wait

Sure, I could choose to write about the easy “alien” elements of Octavia E. Butler’s Lilith’s Brood: Dawn.  There are plenty of strange things in the story like a living spaceship or creatures covered with writhing tentacles and no eyes or ears.  Or I could focus on the shifting walls of the vessel and the […] Continue reading

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It’s All in the…Tentacles

Eyes are important in science fiction. In any fiction, really, but with a particular emphasis on the sci-fi genre, with its regular analysis of what exactly it is to be human and, conversely, what it is to be non-human. We’ve discussed this many times in class. The monster in Frankenstein had his vibrant peepers that […] Continue reading

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Agency in Dawn- Not for Humans!

After finishing Dawn by Octavia Butler, I am curious to see where the next novel will take Lilith and the others- is it possible, as Lilith suggests at the end, that “a few fertile people might slip through and find … Continue reading Continue reading

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