Essay: The Question of What it Means to be Human in William Gibson’s Neuromancer

The cyberspace matrix was actually a drastic simplification of the human sensorium, at least in terms of presentation, but simstim itself struck him as a gratuitous multiplication of flesh input.

With regards to examining the relationship between technology and the body in William Gibson’s Neuromancer, the quote above is an apt summary of the indissoluble nature between these two factors in the book, linking the human brain to the world of computers. In context, Neuromancer was written in 1984 during a period of ground-breaking development in the industries of science and technology with personal computers, digital gaming systems and portable telecommunication at the forefront, examples of electronic goods made newly available to consumers to enhance their formerly mechanical and inconvenient lives. Another prominent feature of the era that the book was written in is political unrest: several wars, nuclear threats, and crippling economic reform just to name a few examples that motivated civil discontent. Both of these elements interconnect in Neuromancer to create arguably the first example of cyberpunk literature, a genre transcending the happy endings and strong moral character associated with traditional science fiction, and instead features a corrupt and corporation-ran dystopia, set far into a future saturated with technology, and operated by every class of society for a vast number of purposes.

When the reader is introduced to Neuromancer’s protagonist Henry Dorsett Case, he is portrayed to have hit rock bottom having to hustle and drug deal in order to survive – an existence resultant in his severance from technology, a neural-damaging mycotoxin punishment for hoodwinking his employers. Case’s role as a ‘console cowboy’ involved embezzling information from corporations by connecting his brain to a computer, using dermatrodes which enabled total sensory interface with the ‘matrix’, the complex digital cyberspace world where all electronic data is stored. His desperation to be literally physically reunited with technology is evident in the numerous fruitless consultations and procedures he undertakes that leaves him destitute, and in his prompt acceptance of Armitage’s proposal to work for him as a console cowboy without question.

Case is approached for the assignment through street samurai Molly Millions who like him has a devoted bond with technology, except hers is corporeal and permanent. She committed to several procedures that allowed for substantial body modifications including retractable razorblades from her fingernails, superhuman fighting abilities and mirrored insets, a ‘Silicon, coat of pyrolytic carbons. A clock…low-temp isotropic carbons’ or in other words had a computer with two monitors surgically installed in front of her eyes. Both Case and Molly use technology as a tool in order to carry out their occupations efficiently which appears to be a necessity in Gibson’s futuristic world. However, it is not just technological transformation that takes place in Neuromancer but also technological manipulation, and this is personified particularly through the character of Armitage.

Originally a colonel for the U.S. Special Forces, ‘Willis Corto’ partook in a high-level data disruption operation named Screaming Fist that eventually left him severely injured as the only survivor and driven insane by the betrayal of his superiors. The modern technology of Neuromancer allowed psychologists to fashion a new functional personality, named Armitage, to operate Corto’s body whilst his schizophrenic mind lay dormant. However, all the while a powerful and invasive artificial intelligence, Wintermute, was driving the procedure the whole time as he needed to use Armitage as a pawn that he would later kill to meet his own ends.

This raises another issue in the blurred boundaries of the body and the self. Wintermute is one half of an omniscient super A.I. created for unknown reasons by the Tessier-Ashpool’s, a powerful dynastic family that own and reside a space habitat known as Freeside – an ironically futuristic environment bespotted with archaic baubles, and attitudes. As part of this universe, their production and possession of Wintermute is monitored the Turing police, a regulatory body whose sole responsibility is to prevent and eliminate total autonomy in artificial intelligences. The body is aptly named after the British computer scientist famously known for his code-breaking efforts against the Nazis during the Second World War, but also later underlined the importance of preventing artificial intelligences from autonomy and introduced the Turing test which measured machine behaviours for human-like characteristics.

The Tessier-Ashpool’s were able to avoid suspicion by creating two diametric A.I.s: Wintermute is a calculating programme that can only communicate by projecting from the memories of those it communicates with, and Neuromancer whose programming orientates around personality due to the high level of Random Access Memory (RAM) it consists of, and is capable of manipulating the memories and personalities of people. Despite Wintermute’s ‘innate’ desire to merge with Neuromancer it appears to be a highly intelligent and alive entity, raising the question of at what point does something stop becoming technology and start becoming bodily even though it lacks a physical form?

Certainly, although Case is definitely considered human, he detests the fleshly form and according to David G. Mead, ‘Case is in his own estimation, alive only when he is jacked into c-space; everything outside cyberspace is just a “meat thing.” For Case, to be severed from c-space is to be dead.’ Furthermore, Molly is also guilty of having used technology as a form of escape as she submitted her body to prostitution at a ‘meat puppet place’, in order to pay for her modifications, with the help of a neural ‘cut-out chip’ which replaces consciousness with software that meets the desires of her clients. In both instances, these characters allow technology to take over their fundamental sense of self as a coping mechanism for when reality becomes unpalatable. This surrendering of autonomy by Case and Molly challenges their authority as real and living beings over Wintermute and Neuromancer who demonstrate a great deal more self-sufficiency and independence than they do.

Counter to these human beings who are immersed in a technological world are the Rastafarian inhabitants of the Zion space-station. These characters represent an alternative state of being as they live freely in accordance with spirituality and as a result are disconnected from the technology that binds the other characters to a paranoid and agitated mentality. When Case offers Aerol a glimpse into the Matrix: ‘Babylon,’ Aerol said, sadly, handing him the trodes and kicking off down the corridor.’ Babylon is the term the Rastas use when referring to Earth and is defined by their faith as, ‘the degenerate or oppressive nature of white culture’. The use of accent in the Rastafarian’s dialogue, as well as their difference in dress and demeanour further distinguishes their enormous difference from the Earth-dwellers.

Although it appears to be obvious that people of this futuristic time in Neuromancer reject the limited capabilities of their human bodies, they are still used to perform necessary functions, and aid the main characters throughout the book. In the first place, Case severely takes for granted his sexual nature and is described to have had sex at least three times, an essential carnal and innate act unaided by technology, and something that cannot be achieved in cyberspace. Having said this, with each encounter he does not demonstrate lust like he does for technology simply engaging with Molly and Linda as matter of habit with an almost apathetic air. In addition, Molly, Riviera and even 3Jane are also described in the book as being sexual beings making sex a consistent theme and illustrating the hankering need for bodily function which may reflect Gibson’s notions of what it is to be real, alive and sentient.

On the other hand, the instinctive desire to procreate is abused for the sake of pleasure and there is no mention of organic reproduction in Neuromancer. In Timo Siivonen’s ‘Cyborgs and Generic Oxymorons: The Body and Technology in William Gibson’s Cyberspace Trilogy’, he explores humanity’s gradual aim of ‘withdrawal from its biological and “natural” body’. Siivonen’s argument describes the conflict between essentialism and culturalism, or in other words between what fundamentally ‘is’ and what society has created, and the obscurity between the two. In Neuromancer this translates as the relationship between technology and the body. He cites Mark Seltzer’s Bodies and Machines where he analyses the endeavour to replace the feminine capacity to produce:

The central problem [in Neuromancer] is the redefinition of the concept of “production.” In this new definition, production is understood as being a certain masculine compensation for the feminine capacity for procreation. At the same time, this compensatory form brings to the fore the “‘culturalist’ desire to devise an anti-natural and anti-biological countermode of making.

This futuristic transcendence of the necessity to multiply is reiterated in the only example ‘family’ detailed in the book, the Tessier-Ashpool’s. All generations of the household are clones and are systematically placed in cryogenic stasis, all programmed to wake up at different intervals to reign over Freeside. Ethically, this is problematic as the Tessier-Ashpool’s conduct incestuous relationships and are completely unable to evolve thus demonstrating the limitations of using technology to replicate essential and evolutionary organic processes.

Another example of the necessity for humanity devoid of technology can be seen in Wintermute’s ironic pursuit to provoke unadulterated fury in his human pawns to serve their motivation in completing the mission. The A.I. individually manipulates the emotions of each human character on the team by prizing incredibly personal and triggering events from their memory and project them back at them. For example, he gets to Molly by persuading Riviera through Armitage to perform a ‘theatrical piece’ at Le Restaurant Vingtime Sicle where he holographically projects an image of Molly and proceeds to have sex with it, and is then torn to pieces by her razors – reminding her of the exploitation he was victim to at the puppet house. With Case, it is more complicated as is illuminated in his discussion with Molly of Wintermute’s intentions, `Maybe it wants you to hate something too.' `Maybe I hate it.' `Maybe you hate yourself, Case.' This conversation reminds the reader of Case’s suicidal tendencies that are seen at the beginning of Neuromancer as he struggles to live without technology, and questions whether this was actually his motive for killing himself as he continues to put his life in danger throughout the book. However, through what is conclusively thought to be Neuromancer’s vile projections of Linda Lee, Case garners the anger he needs to fuel his dedication to destroying the Tessier-Ashpool cybernetic infrastructure.

In conclusion, the relationship between technology and the body, and what the body even means is a confused and uncertain one. It is clear that in many aspects, technology serves to positively enhance human bodies in Neuromancer to achieve greatness both mentally and physically but it also robs these characters of their ability to function without it resulting in crippling addiction. Eventually, Wintermute and Neuromancer unite in a way that transcends all human or A.I. comprehension and grants them free reign over the matrix, but prior to this their position as beings, bodily or not, and their superiority in independence over humans causes an indistinguishability in the book between who is and who is not alive.

Bibliography

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Hodges, Andrew, ‘Turing, Alan Mathison (1912–1954)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004)<http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36578>[accessed 8 May 2015].

Mead, David G., ‘Technological Transfiguration in William Gibson’s Sprawl Novels: Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive’, Extrapolation 32 (1991) pp.350-360.

Pordzik, Ralph, ‘The Posthuman Future of Man: Anthropocentrism and the Other of Technology in Anglo-American Science Fiction’, Utopian Studies 23 (2012), pp.142-162.

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