Humans and Computers

I am really interested in the possibility that humans and computers are merging together as one.

I have been doing research on this topic for another class, but I think it is completely relevant to our exploration.

Computers have become intertwined with contemporary life. As this technology rapidly evolves users have become absorbed, and wonder: where will the computer take us? It seems as if beneath the screen their is an alternate world of endless knowledge. The novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson describes a “future” where humans live between two closely related dimensions: Reality and the Metaverse, a virtual reality experienced through the computer. Though completely fictional, there is a lot of truth behind many of the concepts Stephenson explores, ideas that writers such as: Lev Manovich, Henry Jenkins, and Marshall McLuhan grapple with. Humans have become increasingly dependent on computers to provide information, social connections, and interactive cultural experiences; as this dependence strengthens, the computer begins to act as an extension of the human brain and subsequently, the line between computers and humans has become increasingly ambiguous
 
The ways in which humans interact with computers, or the human-computer interface, has only increased with advances in technology (Manovich, The Language of New Media). This is because computer software targets convenience, allowing people to utilize applications in order to communicate and save information. This is the concept of “cultural software” which Manovich describes as: “deeply woven into contemporary life. . . in manners both obvious and nearly invisible.” The computer has, in other words, become essential to modern culture. Software can now assist us with: “creating, sharing and accessing cultural artifacts which contain representations, ideas, beliefs, and aesthetic values”, “engaging in interactive cultural experiences (for instance, playing a computer game)”, “creating and sharing information and knowledge (for instance, writing an article for Wikipedia, adding places in Google Earth)” and, “communicating with other people (email, instant message, voice over IP, online text and video chat, social networking features such as wall postings, pokes, events, photo tags, notes, places, etc.” (Manovich, Cultural Software). Manovich’s ideas of the “human-computer interface” and “cultural software” show the human dependence on computer technology. Many of our everyday activities, listed above, are made possible through electronic media. It seems as though the human and the computer, once two separate entities, have begun to merge together as one. We now transfer our information, our “software”, to another platform. Our understanding of the world, our “data”, is being hosted outside of out bodies, extending our knowledge, linking us to different hardware.

This transfer of information, from the brain to electronic media, has allowed humans to share and access information quickly and without pause. Suddenly, we are all able to contribute parts of our “software” and host it on an expansive and growing platform. This is Jenkin’s idea of “collective intelligence.” Humans now have the ability to know, access, and control this massive accumulation of knowledge, this collective brain (the computer). This accessibility of information has redefined knowledge. People are now able to acquire endless information, without the need to remember it. This transition belittles the human capacity to remember. Our intellectual selves are being stored elsewhere. In this sense, electronic media is an extension of the human being. This extension of the self means that beings are no longer completely contained within their own bodies.

Marshall McLuhan writes of media as extensions of the human. He furthers this discussion by exploring “the final phase of the extensions of man”. “Today, after more than a century of electronic technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned. Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extensions of man - the technological simulation of consciousness.” McLuhan’s argument is connected to Jenkin’s idea of “collective intelligence”. McLuhan emphasizes that the “creative process of knowing” will be “extended to the whole of human society”. McLuhan then advances this idea through his belief that this extension is more than a transfer of information, but rather, “we have extended our central nervous system itself”. McLuhan’s argument, of this extension, is that we have created technological consciousness. This artificial consciousness is not tethered to the human realities of both space and time, subsequently “the globe is no more than a village.” Through becoming involved with electronic media, people are now able to learn about or view a place, without ever physically going there. This creates a virtual reality that makes it possible to know everything and experience nothing. 

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson shows a world in which this extension is complete. A world where people can live vicariously through an avatar.  This simulation of reality is what Stephenson calls the Metaverse. Hiro Protagonist, the main character and skilled computer hacker, lives in a “big nice house in the Metaverse” (24) but in reality he lives in a small room with a “concrete slab floor” (18). The Metaverse is similar to McLuhan’s global village in that people from all over the world are able to connect at one “place” without ever having to leave their couch. “Hiro in the U-Stor-It in L.A. and the four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago, each with their own laptop. But they probably won’t talk to each other, anymore than they would in Reality” (33). This quote emphasizes how the Metaverse constructs the illusion that they are having an experience, becoming something larger than their small suburban lives; but at the same time, nothing really changes. Some people utilize the Metaverse for the “experience”, Hiro uses the Metaverse to gain “knowledge” of the world around him. He has his own “office” and his own “Librarian daemon” who is computer software translated to appear as a “pleasant, fiftyish, silver-haired, bearded man with bright blue eyes” (99). Everything about the Metaverse is a rendition of reality, furthering the illusion of life, but eventually everyone has to take off their goggles, and face their physical concrete beings.

The Metaverse, though a platform for communication and knowledge, also becomes an escape from reality. The Metaverse’s realism allows its participants to construct an alternate world. Some characters are extremely dependent on the Metaverse, making this two demential space their primary form of existence. This is the case for the character Ng, who, in reality, has broken “hardware”. “Everything else, from the temples down, is encased in enormous goggle/mask/headphone/feeding-tube unit, held onto his head by a smart strap that are constantly tightening and loosening themselves to keep the device comfortable and properly positioned” (210). This description of Ng shows how he has created a situation that allows him to stay in the Metaverse, never needing to remove his goggles. Why is Ng so dependent on his avatar? Perhaps because the Metaverse, like the final extension of man, transcends both time and space, allowing people to manipulate “space” and travel through “time” in order to exist within an ideal. This is the case for Ng who, in reality, has a body that is formed by “huge bundles of wires, fiber optics, and tubes” (210). In contrast, Ng’s avatar “is a small, very dapper Vietnamese man in his fifties” (206). It seems as though the Metaverse allows people to alter their visual identity, and live a life of imaginary wealth and success. Despite how hard Ng tries, there is still a disconnect between reality and this human extension. This barrier is the inevitable realization that the Metaverse is a man-made concept, a two dimensional space, translated and transcribed by a computer; without the human “software” such a reality would be essentially impossible. 

The idea that computers are man-made alludes to the conception that humans can alter computers but not the reverse. McLuhan writes that computers have “extended our central nervous system”, this suggests that there is more than just a transfer of information, and that perhaps there is a transfer of behavior and means of existence. Snow Crash delves deeper into McLuhan’s text by demonstrating how computers can actually act upon humans. The central conflict in Snow Crash is a computer virus that can infiltrate into the “deep-structures” of the human mind. Interestingly, the nature of this virus does nothing to the physical brain, the “hardware”, rather it effects the “deep structures”, or the “software”. The virus itself targets people with specific knowledge; in this case Snow Crash targets computer hackers: “‘Da5id’s not a computer. He can’t read binary code.” “He’s a hacker. He messes with binary code for a living. That ability to firm-wire into the deep structures of his brain. So he’s susceptible to that form of information””(189). This reverse manipulation bridges the gap between computer software and human consciousness, suggesting that computers will eventually transcend the description of “an extension of man” and instead form “the technological simulation of consciousness”. In some ways Snow Crash goes beyond the “final extension of man” through the computer’s ability to implant its information within the human mind and subsequently reform human software.  It is through this transfer the the human becomes an extension of the computer.