"The Fly" and the Essence of Self

Science fiction as I understand it is when you answer a “what-if” question and follow it through its consequences on society. In The Fly, the question asked is “What if human beings can teleport?” The answer explored in the movie is that while at its best the technology is convenient, the invariables associated with the technology are too dangerous to consider. In short, you never know if something will come out on the other side, or, if it does, what. But there is a much greater issue at hand with transportation not addressed in the movie. It all boils down to the fact that your body technically dies. To understand this, one must look at the hypothetical physics behind teleportation.

The standard science fiction teleportation device consists of two parts, the entrance portal and the exit portal. When a subject enters the entrance portal, every single atom in there body is identified and their information is sent to the exit portal. The exit portal, using the information sent by the entrance portal, constructs matter by rearranging the atoms in that area. The matter itself is not sent, only the information on how to replicate it with existing substances on the other end. It is like a matter fax machine. However, unlike a fax machine, the original is destroyed in the process. Yup, completely disintegrated. Technically, your body dies in the entrance portal, and a completely new body reappears on the other side. I have been careful to say that it is your body that dies, because I do not believe that you, your self, dies. This is where my roommate and I disagree. We got into a heated debate on whether or not “you” die, what “you” is, and if would use the transporter.

I understand that your body does not actually teleport from one space to another. That point is clear. My roommate thinks that because your body disintegrates, you die. That is on the supposition that your body is the essence of you. If transportation works like it theoretically should, your consciousness, your thoughts, your memory, your personality—everything, is transported. It is the concept of a thing that make it a thing, not its physical properties. Physical properties (the only thing truly lost in the disintegration process of transportation) change all the time: skin cells die off and are replaced. The hair you have now is not the same hair you had two years ago. If you look back at old photos of yourself, you could say “My hair was longer/shorter then.” In reality, your hair did not exist back then, it was a completely different set of molecules, but it is essentially still “your hair.”

Let’s dissect this even further; say your arms got cut off and were replaced. You’d still be you. Now what if they replaced them with exact DNA replicas of your old arms? You’d still be you. Now, what if they replaced more than just your arms? What if they replaced every single part of your body? It’s a more extreme case, but the same thing. Furthermore, what if they did this instantaneously, with all your new body parts constructed elsewhere while your old ones disintegrated in the blink of an eye? You’d still be you. That is exactly what transportation would do.

My roommate insists that transportation is death and that he wouldn’t want to die. Death is as death does. As we understand it in our day and age, death is loss. It’s separation, mourning, emptiness, a change in others’ lives. These are the reasons we don’t want to die. If these don’t occur, why would it matter if you “died” in the transportation process? If someone were to say that they were going to cut off your arm, but it was going to be replaced right away with an exact copy, you wouldn’t feel an ounce of pain, there wouldn’t be permanent scars, and that neither you nor anybody else could even remember the event, what would be the problem? Technically, you have a completely new arm, but what does that mean if there’s no change? This is why I don’t have a problem with “dying” during the transportation process.

"The Pit" is Shit

Wow. I truly did not like Quatermass and the Pit. What made it so bad was that it started out so promising. I was truly intrigued for the first half of the movie. When it didn’t pan out how I wanted, it left me betrayed and depressed. And it wasn’t solely the fact that it had a different ending than I expected; it was the fact that it could have been about something that it completely was not. I foresaw a cutting edge theory about the origin of species through spermatozoa and instead got some half-assed conspiracy about cricket aliens and the Devil.

The movie started out with the discovery of primitive primate skulls. Obviously, the movie would explore the origin of humans. Science versus military, progressive theories, and mysteries of the universe were paths down which I was about to embark. Then, they discovered a space ship! Sweet!, I thought, They’re going to bring up the idea of spermatozoa! Would this old film suggest, way before it was accepted as a plausible theory, the idea that human beings were a extraterrestrial species that found its way to Earth? It seemed so. The primate skulls found in the same underground resting place as a spaceship could mean either that human being were once aliens finding refuge on Earth or that we were brought here by some alien species. As the movie slowly developed, it took a slow turn away from a better ending. It turned into a spooky mystery film about a town plagued by weird alien ghosts. Odd, but still promising. Then, the scientists found giant crickets in the crystals and the whole thing went to hell. Sometime between the unnecessarily long underground windstorms and the poorly constructed cricket alien army dream, I lost interest in and hope for the film. The film even seemed to give up on itself, replacing intriguing scenarios and dialogue with goofy effects and poor editing. By the time the giant devil cricket cloud was destroyed by a crane, I was far past the state of apathy, itching to bolt the theater. Not only did I dislike the film, I was mad at it for starting out like it was going to be something better. It had potential and did not succeed. I felt like a football coach watching his talented group of athletes lose game after game to turnovers and inconsistency. I felt like a father watching his son become a high school drop out instead of a hard-working student. I was very disappointed in this film.

What's Timeless About "Body Snatchers"?

One thing I like about watching old movies is thinking about what they would do to remake them for a newer audience. This thought arises because Invasion of the Body Snatchers was, upon creation, a frightening movie but has since veered far from the genre of horror. The way in which the film was shot has since become cliché and commonplace, techniques used by parody films. With zooms to close-ups, action-stopping screams, and daunting music, it was hard not to laugh at moments that were supposed to be scary. We have seen all these techniques so many times that the original films have lost their magic. This is probably why old movies, like this one for example, have suffered so many remakes and adaptations. The formula is still good, but the means through which to deliver it is outdated and needs to change in face of a new crowd.

However, despite the loss of the surface layer horror, one thing about Invasion of the Body Snatchers still remains frightening. The horror element comes not from the mysterious aliens, but rather the loss of one’s own identity. Your identity is as important to you as life itself for without it, you do not exist. Invasion shows that identity is not physical; it is not appearance, not your voice, not even your mannerisms. Those can all be reproduced to a certain extent—and apparently perfectly so in the diegetic world of Invasion. Reproducing these physical properties—even to the smallest detail—does not replicate your identity. “I don’t know what to call it,” says one character of her uncle’s replication, “it’s just not him.” It is terrifying to lose your identity, or for those around you to do so. Despite the cinematic techniques losing their ability to scare a modern audience, the idea of losing one’s identity resonates deeply enough to frighten a timeless audience.

What Are Super Cops Made Of?

Our past two screenings have dealt with the fusion of human beings and machines. Androids, cyborgs, bionic people, they all serve as what could be the missing link between this race and a machine race. As most fictionalizations of this idea show, however, this is a weak link. The human aspect found within these multi-lifeform mutts, or the lack thereof, prove once and again that the only the capacity to feel emotions makes one alive.
In the Star Trek episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?," a mad scientists creates androids from living subjects. These androids are completely machine even though they look, speak, and act like the lifeforms they replicate. They live by logic, not irrational emotion. While this seems efficient, the episode goes to prove that irrational emotion is something to miss, not to correct. Andrea wanted to love, but could not. No matter how much she looked and acted like a real person, she was nowhere near human without emotion. Just like in that movie Short Circuit, the second the robot protagonist got the joke and started laughing, you knew that "Johnny Five was alive!" Overall, though this idea of "emotion equals life" may have been new to a mainstream audience back then, it was too bland and cliché for me to care about. My mind, instead, was busy working on a whole other set of inquieries. If the only way to make an android is to copy a live human subject, what happened to the original Andrea? Where did she come from and who was she? Most importantly, why would you stop with just one copy???
Robocop took the same idea and turned it around. We started with something that seemed to be completely machine. The human Murphy had died and all that was left was this super droid. He was product. He was property. Almost nobdy treated him as otherwise. However, throughout the course of the movie, he found his memory, his old life, and emotions. Once he started to feel, we realized that beneath everything, he really is human. But again--and this is purely from a current viewpoint--big surprise! Emotion equals real life, blah blah blah. I think this is why I like the machines in the Matrix the most. They didn't squabble over if they were really real, if they had emotions or not. The bottom line is that they rightfully took over and were succeeding as the dominate race. And let's face it, their rational decision to keep humans believing in a dream world seemed more humane than Neo's fight to get to the truth. The Matrix proves, at least, that you can be humane without being human.

The Life of Colossus (?)

Colossus was an intriguing movie. However, I don't agree with the majority of the class when they claim that we're better off under the control of Colossus. There is something to be said about having knowledge of what you're capable of doing, whether or not your're actually going to do it. I guess that's a fault in humans. For example, my roommate buys a whole bunch of food he never eats. He just has it sitting in the fridge or the pantry, not eating it. I think he likes the idea of knowing he could eat it when he wanted to more than actually eating it.
Colossus would let us live our ideal lives, but knowing that we didn't have the possibility of doing harm if we wanted scares us. He would be limiting the possibilities of our actions, and humans don't like to be limited, even if for our own good. So no, unlike the rest of the class, I don't think the human race would better under the control of a machine. There would never be 100% compliance.
Besides that whole little problem of free will and whatnot, I don't think we'd be a better society under Colossus even if it (he?) had 100% compliance, and why not? Because he believes war does nothing for the betterment of human beings. While, yes, war is--on the short term--a terrible thing (lives lost, destruction, blah blah blah), its byproducts only lead to progression. Advances in technology are often sped up with the need for more powerful and efficient fighting machines. While weapons and troop transport are their main aims, the breakthroughs they make go on to benefit everyday technology. If you're against the overpopulation of the Earth in response to our limited natural resources, war is just one way to keep the numbers down. If that seems too grim, you can always rely on big wars leading to some sort of a baby boom. Also, war keeps people in check. World War II was necessary to keep Hitler from exterminating a whole race.
But then again, come to think of it, Colossus would have kept Hitler in check. He could control the human population and even help us advance technology. He's sounded better and better every second... I guess Colossus would take away our need for war. Even still, with my entire second argument completely self-disproven, Colossus wouldn't be successful for my initial reason.
Now, everything I've said so far is under the notion that Colossus was able to become a living being, to become self-aware and have consciousness. That was the one major factor in the movie I couldn't wrap my mind around. How was it able to make that jump? How did it go from programmed software to a self-conscious being? Where is that line and how do you cross it? The issue of consciousness was brought up in Butler's Erewhon. It made me wonder what we consider consciousness. For example, the Venus Fly Trap only closes on flies, nothing else. We consider plants to be void of consciousness. If so, how does it distinguish its victim? What is consciousness at that point? To quote Butler: "Where does consciousness begin, and where end? Who can draw the line? Who can draw any line?" (238). I couldn't figure out how Colossus crossed this ambiguous line and became self-aware.
Not only did Butler's writing make me rethink the meaning of consciousness, it also had be rework in my head the meaning of reproduction, and life in general. He had a point in saying that machines couldn't reproduce they way reproduce, but that isn't the only mode of reproduction. It is completely plausible for machines to reproduce in the same vein as ants and bees: the majority--the workers--make the minority--the reproducers--able to reproduce. I can fathom machines reproducing this way, without the aid of man. If they can grow independently as a society, they can live independently as well. What, then, is living? Are plants not life? Can't machines function at the same level as plants? Why, then, are machines not living?
I guess the biggest realization I came to while reading Erewhon was that machines don't have to develop into human-level beings to be considered living. I can fathom machines living amongst us as do plants. However, the day a machine acts in its own interest for its own personal gain (whatever it might want to gain when that day comes), we're doomed.
I guess the reason I couldn't comprehend Colossus to be a conscious being was because he didn't have a motive for his actions. Sure, he was acting to protect and better the human race, but that is not beneficial to him in any way. The only reason he'd continue to act this way is because he was programmed to do so. In that case, he is still not acting out of self-interest, for personal gain. Therefore, I could not see why he'd be a conscious being.
Damn, here I go contradicting myself again. Colossus was probably acting in order to exert his power over the inferior population. So, while I still don't know how he became like this, I can now see him as a conscious being. And a good one at that. He's still out to help us as living beings while perserving his own superiority. Too bad we'll have none of that.