Frankenstein continues to occupy the popular imagination as a monstrous scientist. Analyse some of the ways in which Frankenstein continues to haunt discussions of recent technologies.
1. Rochlin's article [1] argued that the computers and computerization have been embedded into our lives swiftly and successfully than any other technology. Restricting our experience with the real world, narrowing our scope of our choices and declining our modes of control, eventually, we may probably lose our capability of living without the assistance of technology. The computer trap what Rochlin mentioned can be divided into four parts: the lure, the snare, the costs, and the long-term consequences. The lure is simply the trend of continuously upgrading tools with simpler and more user-friendly interfaces. The snare is usually raised afterwards. Once invested greatly on the computerization on the core tasks, new capacities and potentials would then be expected by organizations and individuals alike, whether the investment is found out valued or not eventually. The costs contain an unlimited desire for catching up the technological change which is sometimes unnecessary and a dependence on the producers of hardware and software. Finally, an extremely rapid speed of response and a lack of alternatives make human manipulation or intervention difficulty at best when (and not if) something breaks down.
The "net" in the title is not the Internet but, rather, the all pervasive network of computers and networks that surround us. The "trap", according to Rochlin, refers to “shorthand for the elaborate, long-term, collective effects of the possibly inevitable and largely unexamined desire to computerize and network everything and anything where efficiency or economic performance might thereby be improved." Limited in understanding of the potential vulnerabilities the technology is creating, we begin to have fears about the unknown. This book is suitable for discussing recent technologies and how people react to the imaginary fears of science.
2. Wilson's article [2] suggested that postmodernism is a breakdown of boundaries and a playful creation of new meanings from old forms enables the realization of a posthuman (cyborg) condition. We are posthuman, and the way we think about that condition is considered as postmodernism. The discussion outlined the relationship between the human body and technology. Technology extended the ability of the human body since the emergence of the virtually reality games in video arcades, meanwhile, the perceived boundaries of human have been increased. However, it is no longer the technology used to simply extend the reach of the human body. For example,Wilson
Wilson
3. Squier's article [3] points out, “Modern representations of reproductive technology built on the romantic separation of developing fetus from machine-like mother to serve ends not political but productive, and ultimately industrial. The emerging political technologies of the body in the wake of postmodernity-technologies apparent in medicine, entertainment industries, politics, and the arts, etc…” The development of bio-medical technologies reduced or violated the nature of motherhood. Freezing the fetus, the surrogate mother, the test tube baby, and the pregnant man became achievable. Reproduction is the object of expert knowledge and power rather than an inborn ability. Being a mother is not fatal to a woman anymore. For those, Squier illustrates, “provide bodily sites for potentially oppressive scientific/technical interventions, yet the (re)construction of the human being is not uniformly negative, however returning to “nature” is no longer possible.”
4. Rothenberg's article [4] claims, “Nowadays, much criticism of technology tends to fall into on of two camps. On the one hand, it fears technology as an impersonal megamechanism, rejecting it as a threat to human beings. On the other hand, it imagines technology to be an entity separate from humanity, but one that will most fulfill human purpose when it is allowed to pursue its own inner logic.” Fears of the unexpected power of technologies and anxiety of not knowing how far they can reach threaten the extinction of human beings as well as the nature. However, the author believes that human is the creator of the technology. It is totally under control. He assisted that technology does not exist without the human intent that drives it. Besides, technology is an extension of what it is to be human, at a deep level, and that the way we see nature is powerfully influenced by our technologies.
Rothenberg’s article is very thoughtful of the relationship between the nature, human and technology. These three elements are powerful and they are also interdependent. The way we observe and understand the nature is highly relied on the advanced technology. He also strongly agreed that we “use” technologies to receive the world. We control the technologies like we drive a car. A car cannot move by itself and also cannot work without fuel or without a driver. Human is the one who operates it and if it hits on someone or something, it is driven by a human instead of its own mind. We can turn technology to be good and evil which is open to our determination.
5. Melzer's article [5] concerns “technology appears to be more than a mere collection of means, subordinate to human choice, but is an independent force with its own logic or destiny to which humanity is compelled to submit. This claim introduces the conceptions of technology as the most determinative or fundamental phenomenon. We not only have more technologies, but somehow we are more technological.” Human life as such is so inseparable from technology that modern man is commonly distinguished as ‘the tool-making animal’. We somehow are unable to resist but addicted to technologies. We tend to dig out more latent energy of science and challenge the extremity of ourselves.
6. Redmond's article [6]studies the social relation of science and technology, including crucially the systems of myth and meanings structuring our imaginations. He also explains, “Haraway’s idea of Cyborg which is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self.” He raised some examples of fantasy films, regarding the fears of machines or of technology, usually negatively allege the social values such as freedom, individualism and the family. Technology, base on his observation of various texts, is a metaphor for everything that threatened ‘natural’ social orders and traditional values.
References
[1] Gene I. Rochlin. Trapped in the Net: The Unanticipated Consequences of Computerization, (1997)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=GzzttDF1spcC&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&ots=F9JcAcQnxm&sig=2qBf_3TKFqKS9379b1kR34gkmGo#PPP13,M1(accessed 25 March 2008).
[2] Jennifer Wilson. “Of Machines and Meat: Cyberpunk, the Postmodern Condition and a Posthuman Reality”,
http://www.athabascau.ca/courses/engl/491/wilson.pdf (accessed 25 March 2008).
[3] Susan M. Squier. “Reproducing the Posthuman Body: Ectogenetic Fetus, Surrogate Mother, Pregnant Man”, Posthuman Bodies, (1995)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=MkQPztA7TTIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA113&dq=monstrous+scientist&ots=3u7QDG2gbx&sig=4qwBP8UMf0TOQfL4Zim-rHKoNJM#PPA113,M1 (accessed 28 March 2008).
[4] David Rothenberg. Hand's End: Technology and the Limits of Nature, (1995)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=BKV0na-v2wMC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=fear+between+humanity+and+technology&ots=zTDWbb3BXq&sig=nBTIv3hyOrFi6vu3OyQq2Zfl3y8#PPR12,M1 (accessed 28 March 2008).
[5] Arthur M. Melzer. “The Problem with the “Problem of Technology”, http://64.233.179.104/scholar?hl=zh-TW&lr=&q=cache:He9juPrgF4AJ:www.mgimo.ru/fileserver/2004/kafedry/eng7/The_problem.doc+fear+between+humanity+and+technology (accessed 29 March 2008).
[6] Sean Redmond. Liquid Metal: The Science Fiction Film Reader, (2004) http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=ha5O_0BCCrgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA158&dq=monstrous+technology&ots=VEOzYfBGEu&sig=Zj1mx98nLcUGsF5p_yjlDSRAjQU#PPA165,M1 (accessed 29 March 2008).
1. Rochlin's article [1] argued that the computers and computerization have been embedded into our lives swiftly and successfully than any other technology. Restricting our experience with the real world, narrowing our scope of our choices and declining our modes of control, eventually, we may probably lose our capability of living without the assistance of technology. The computer trap what Rochlin mentioned can be divided into four parts: the lure, the snare, the costs, and the long-term consequences. The lure is simply the trend of continuously upgrading tools with simpler and more user-friendly interfaces. The snare is usually raised afterwards. Once invested greatly on the computerization on the core tasks, new capacities and potentials would then be expected by organizations and individuals alike, whether the investment is found out valued or not eventually. The costs contain an unlimited desire for catching up the technological change which is sometimes unnecessary and a dependence on the producers of hardware and software. Finally, an extremely rapid speed of response and a lack of alternatives make human manipulation or intervention difficulty at best when (and not if) something breaks down.
The "net" in the title is not the Internet but, rather, the all pervasive network of computers and networks that surround us. The "trap", according to Rochlin, refers to “shorthand for the elaborate, long-term, collective effects of the possibly inevitable and largely unexamined desire to computerize and network everything and anything where efficiency or economic performance might thereby be improved." Limited in understanding of the potential vulnerabilities the technology is creating, we begin to have fears about the unknown. This book is suitable for discussing recent technologies and how people react to the imaginary fears of science.
2. Wilson's article [2] suggested that postmodernism is a breakdown of boundaries and a playful creation of new meanings from old forms enables the realization of a posthuman (cyborg) condition. We are posthuman, and the way we think about that condition is considered as postmodernism. The discussion outlined the relationship between the human body and technology. Technology extended the ability of the human body since the emergence of the virtually reality games in video arcades, meanwhile, the perceived boundaries of human have been increased. However, it is no longer the technology used to simply extend the reach of the human body. For example,
Wilson
3. Squier's article [3] points out, “Modern representations of reproductive technology built on the romantic separation of developing fetus from machine-like mother to serve ends not political but productive, and ultimately industrial. The emerging political technologies of the body in the wake of postmodernity-technologies apparent in medicine, entertainment industries, politics, and the arts, etc…” The development of bio-medical technologies reduced or violated the nature of motherhood. Freezing the fetus, the surrogate mother, the test tube baby, and the pregnant man became achievable. Reproduction is the object of expert knowledge and power rather than an inborn ability. Being a mother is not fatal to a woman anymore. For those, Squier illustrates, “provide bodily sites for potentially oppressive scientific/technical interventions, yet the (re)construction of the human being is not uniformly negative, however returning to “nature” is no longer possible.”
4. Rothenberg's article [4] claims, “Nowadays, much criticism of technology tends to fall into on of two camps. On the one hand, it fears technology as an impersonal megamechanism, rejecting it as a threat to human beings. On the other hand, it imagines technology to be an entity separate from humanity, but one that will most fulfill human purpose when it is allowed to pursue its own inner logic.” Fears of the unexpected power of technologies and anxiety of not knowing how far they can reach threaten the extinction of human beings as well as the nature. However, the author believes that human is the creator of the technology. It is totally under control. He assisted that technology does not exist without the human intent that drives it. Besides, technology is an extension of what it is to be human, at a deep level, and that the way we see nature is powerfully influenced by our technologies.
Rothenberg’s article is very thoughtful of the relationship between the nature, human and technology. These three elements are powerful and they are also interdependent. The way we observe and understand the nature is highly relied on the advanced technology. He also strongly agreed that we “use” technologies to receive the world. We control the technologies like we drive a car. A car cannot move by itself and also cannot work without fuel or without a driver. Human is the one who operates it and if it hits on someone or something, it is driven by a human instead of its own mind. We can turn technology to be good and evil which is open to our determination.
5. Melzer's article [5] concerns “technology appears to be more than a mere collection of means, subordinate to human choice, but is an independent force with its own logic or destiny to which humanity is compelled to submit. This claim introduces the conceptions of technology as the most determinative or fundamental phenomenon. We not only have more technologies, but somehow we are more technological.” Human life as such is so inseparable from technology that modern man is commonly distinguished as ‘the tool-making animal’. We somehow are unable to resist but addicted to technologies. We tend to dig out more latent energy of science and challenge the extremity of ourselves.
6. Redmond's article [6]studies the social relation of science and technology, including crucially the systems of myth and meanings structuring our imaginations. He also explains, “Haraway’s idea of Cyborg which is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self.” He raised some examples of fantasy films, regarding the fears of machines or of technology, usually negatively allege the social values such as freedom, individualism and the family. Technology, base on his observation of various texts, is a metaphor for everything that threatened ‘natural’ social orders and traditional values.
References
[1] Gene I. Rochlin. Trapped in the Net: The Unanticipated Consequences of Computerization, (1997)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=GzzttDF1spcC&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&ots=F9JcAcQnxm&sig=2qBf_3TKFqKS9379b1kR34gkmGo#PPP13,M1(accessed 25 March 2008).
[2] Jennifer Wilson. “Of Machines and Meat: Cyberpunk, the Postmodern Condition and a Posthuman Reality”,
http://www.athabascau.ca/courses/engl/491/wilson.pdf (accessed 25 March 2008).
[3] Susan M. Squier. “Reproducing the Posthuman Body: Ectogenetic Fetus, Surrogate Mother, Pregnant Man”, Posthuman Bodies, (1995)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=MkQPztA7TTIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA113&dq=monstrous+scientist&ots=3u7QDG2gbx&sig=4qwBP8UMf0TOQfL4Zim-rHKoNJM#PPA113,M1 (accessed 28 March 2008).
[4] David Rothenberg. Hand's End: Technology and the Limits of Nature, (1995)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=BKV0na-v2wMC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=fear+between+humanity+and+technology&ots=zTDWbb3BXq&sig=nBTIv3hyOrFi6vu3OyQq2Zfl3y8#PPR12,M1 (accessed 28 March 2008).
[5] Arthur M. Melzer. “The Problem with the “Problem of Technology”, http://64.233.179.104/scholar?hl=zh-TW&lr=&q=cache:He9juPrgF4AJ:www.mgimo.ru/fileserver/2004/kafedry/eng7/The_problem.doc+fear+between+humanity+and+technology (accessed 29 March 2008).
[6] Sean Redmond. Liquid Metal: The Science Fiction Film Reader, (2004) http://books.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=ha5O_0BCCrgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA158&dq=monstrous+technology&ots=VEOzYfBGEu&sig=Zj1mx98nLcUGsF5p_yjlDSRAjQU#PPA165,M1 (accessed 29 March 2008).
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