Seeing Humans from the Outside

I like how this book looks at humans from the perspective of different sentient alien species. The reader seldom gets the chance to examine a human from their own point of view. Instead the main characters are the Homomdan Kabe, the Chelgrians Ziller and Quilan and the Hub at Masaq. For this reason, it is a great book with which to end the semester. It is a look at us from the outside, the other.

And we look very decadent, drenched in power and hypocritical, yet we seem to strive towards egalitarianism and democracy. As I mentioned in my last post, the humans in this book in the future are not much different than Americans today. They believe in their ideals – freedom, peace and democracy – yet engage in unsavory schemes of intervention to enforce our belief that all can choose their own destiny for themselves.

The hypocrisy does not escape the aliens in this book. However, some take to the Culture while others do not. There is an interesting dynamic here that also exists today – Kabe v. Quilan. There are those that love the Culture, America, and those that despise and seek to attack and destroy it. What leads each group, species or individual to their determination is fascinating. We know the Chelgrians were negatively affected by the Culture, it was the Culture’s intervention that lead to their horrible civil war. While, on the other hand, the Homomdan have no such animosity. In fact, Kabe prefers the Culture to his own race. I think it also has to do with how close the individual’s culture was to the Culture, a term that captures our hubris perfectly, manifest destiny with one thousand years of prosperity to back it up.

Like a great energy field the Culture, America, either pulls you in or repels you – it all depends on your original magnetic, ie- cultural, identity. It is also revealing of the Culture. The Culture has difficulty coexisting with races that have a caste system, indeed with any other ideological system. Yet this belief in one’s own cultural superiority is nothing new, it is here now. Indeed, it is what makes international development work so troubling for those who want to “help” but are aware of our belief in our own superiority.

Final Post: If Aliens Really Were Discovered

Of course, as the class wound down last night and we each added our own closing remarks, the discussion inevitably turned once again to what the best way to approach the discovery of aliens would be. All of the novels we read throughout the semester provided us with a number of examples and possibilities, but, as a few of us said in class, this does not truly provide us with any predictive information--aliens, if and when they are discovered, are likely to be something beyond any human imagining. As Professor Jackson said in class, we would like to think that they would appear in a recognizable form, but that is not very (if at all) likely to happen. There is really nothing we can know about an alien lifeform, other than the fact that if they come here first they are probably more technologically advance than us. Because the possible physical and social characteristics of an alien race are so beyond us, there is no knowing how first contact would play out. I think if I learned anything from this class (granted I did learn a lot more than this) it's that any encounter with aliens will turn out however chance decides. In the end that's the deciding factor; we could have really good intentions but, in the end, communication between us and an alien species could go either way.

All we can really do is attempt to go about any discovery with as much caution and goodwill as we possibly can. But, as someone pointed out in class, we should also be aware of the risks and keep in mind the outlook of Graff in Ender's Game. If aliens show up with guns blazing, obviously the best approach is not one of goodwill. This is where caution comes in; yes we want to make a strong attempt to communicate peacefully with the aliens, but we should be well aware of the chance that such an interaction will not be possible. I think that Andrew puts this together really well in his blog post, saying, "We must be humble as we tread into the universe, and recognize that which makes us human makes us capable of great conflict, but also makes up capable of great peace." It's not a very satisfying conclusion to come to, but this class has made me believe that maybe all we can do is hope for the best and do what we can.

The question that Professor Jackson posed at the end of class was: Which of the encounters we examined throughout the semester seemed like the best way to go? For me, it seemed that the film Contact showed an approach that was pretty level-headed and, in my mind, right. Mostly it was Ellie's approach that was the right one. She was so committed to finding alien life that she treated the discovery with the kind of earnestness and humility that it should be approached with (humility is just what Professor Jackson emphasized as the most important piece of an approach to other sentient life). And although the end of the film is a bit uncertain in how it turns out, the first contact between humans and aliens manages to be peaceful and without confrontation. I believe both Ellie and Professor Jackson have the right idea. As the professor told us, it's important to maintain a healthy dose of internal skepticism and critique in order to ensure that we are not forcing ourselves into one position and one approach.

New Millennium, Same Humans

In many ways Look to Windward is about new concepts and in other ways it is about nothing new at all. The technologies and advancements are incredible, nay revolutionary. Humans have invented artificial intelligences, notably the Hub, so sophisticated that they can rule worlds and study galaxies thousands of light years away, as the Hub of Masaq’Hub explains to Mahra Ziller (293). Humans can almost escape death, copying their personalities into artificial devices, though whether or not this is the same person is debatable, as Phil mentions in his post. Lastly, humans are perhaps preparing to ascend to a higher level of existence, “the Sublime,” as in Stargate SG-1, although such an evolution would be rather boring since the humans would no longer be involved in material affairs (198-201). Which leads me to my point: for all of our changes and technological advances, humans have not really changed much in the millennia plus from the present. We are at our old games.

The Culture intervention with the Chelgrians with the intent to end their caste system seems to me like a direct parallel to America’s intervention in the Middle East. The US threw billions of dollars into the area to prop up puppet governments to control it, much as the Culture attempted. The Culture is most comparable to America, an incredibly rich and advanced entity with a lot of power where “things have been going very well…but our power may have peaked; we may be becoming complacent, even decadent” (461). The description Hub gives to Quilan at the end of the book fits very well with the U.S. That is why the attack Quilan plans reminds me of 9/11 on a “billions of people” scale.

Because We Can

The human Culture found in Look to Windward is a fascinating imagining of what humanity could become if we had the kind of technology that Banks presents in the novel. Humans are able to build planets (or something close to planets), they have created AI, they use virtual reality, and, perhaps most importantly, they are able to store their minds for re-use if they die. Phil questions this practice in his post this week, saying that the person who comes back is really an incomplete copy of the original because it can never be exactly the same as the old one. This critique is interesting, but not really something I considered too deeply in reading the book. What did bother me in the novel, however, is that it seems that humans have all of this technology and use it because it exists, because they can. There is no question, on their part, whether they should save their minds for re-use or whether they should let everything be run by the Hub.

Quilan comes up with a possible answer to this in his musings over the nature of humans. He proposes that maybe humans left the "running of their civilization to the machines" because "they didn't trust themselves with the colossal powers and energies their science and technology had provided them with" (150). I feel like this is probably more noble of a gesture than humans are capable of given our history with new technology. If it can be used as a weapon, great! In this light it seems both very wise and very unlikely that humans would decide one day that they should not be controlling their own technology. Although, maybe if we were to reach the point that the humans do in Look to Windward, our views would be different. However, even the AIs that control most human worlds were actually created by humans, again, as Quilan remarks on, they were built simply because civilizations had the technology to do so.

So, this once again brings up the question of, if we can, should we? Is it the best policy to trust our biggest decisions to machines? While the Hub in the book is presented as impressively wise and aware of the damage he is able to do, does that mean we can trust him more than we can trust humans? This might not be a fair question because humans certainly haven't been proven to be very level-headed and wise when it comes to running their civilizations effectively and fairly. It is impossible to come to a definite conclusion either way, because neither humans nor machines created by humans can be said to be completely unbiased and competent. One thing is for sure, though, allowing one mind, the Hub, to control all of the functions of an entire world and its pieces scattered throughout the universe is a questionable move to make. One incident, like the one that Quilan attempted, could bring a civilization crashing down. To me, it's the extreme equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket.

The Point of Isaac’s God Music

I thoroughly enjoyed our class discussion on Children of God. I think the subject that was most unresolved was the question of Isaac and his DNA music. Essentially, our discussion went from the question ‘was it worth the whole struggle to gain that ambiguous harmony?’ to ‘was it just a way to find something to justify all of the struggles the characters went through?’

While I think it is in our human nature to try to find some sort of meaning out of calamity, some way to say ‘there is a purpose to or meaning in everything’ I think Issac’s discovery was more than Russell’s attempt to give the characters some sort of resolution. While it does seem a little ‘cheap’ that after all Emilio went through he reconciled with God after Isaac’s self-proclaimed discovery of “God’s Music,” his discovery says something profound about human nature.

Whether or not Isaac’s harmony is proof of God’s existence, it is proof of how much we cherish our similarities and connections. The music was so profound to Emilio and many others because it reinforced our view of the sanctity of our alikeness, the commonalities of our experience. It is so profound because it is perhaps our greatest duality. Our fear of the other is only triumphed by our yearning to find ourselves in the other. The realization of that goal is the ideal of most religions and is embodied by Isaac’s God music. It is Russell showing us our own greatest desires and the purpose of religions that strive for peace and harmony yet so often, perhaps unintentionally, take us down a path of fissure and difference. It is our greatest duality.

Synapses Between the Seen and Unseen

Eifelheim presents an interesting paradigm of seen v. unseen knowledge, as discussed on the wiki page. I find it fascinating that both the scientific and religious discourses in the novel involve the unseen. One would typically associate science with the seen and religion with the unseen. However, the multi-dimension and light speed theories Sharon is concerned with are incredibly intangible. The irony of science, a discourse that relies on ‘immutable’ laws, is that when it comes to the most advanced areas like quantum mechanics and theory all the rules cease to apply. I think Flynn, through interweaving Pastor Dietrich’s remarkably ‘seen’ theology and experiential/sensible way of understanding the world and Sharon’s complex science, is making synaptic connections at the chasm between the realms of science and religion. In other words, the two discourses may be more inseparable than previously thought since they both occupy 'hypothetical' and 'real' space.

This “thought experiment” reminds me of the musings of French phenomenologist philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty had a notion of the ‘flesh,’ a term which denotes the multilayered connectedness of things, the depth and texture of existence. He describes it in his book The Visible and the Invisible as the miraculous “dehiscence of the seeing into the visible and of the visible into the seeing…the thin pellicle of the quale, the surface of the visible…doubled up over its whole extension with an invisible reserve.”

Through this concept Merleau-Ponty illustrates the mutual interplay between tangible beings and the mute realm of ideas and thoughts. For example, in his book he writes that “a visible is…the surface of a depth, a cross section upon a massive being” and that “pure ideality is itself not without flesh…it lives of them.” Similar to the symbolic the visible is a surface beneath which lies the semiotic, the invisible depth of being. Therefore the two facets, the visible and the invisible, give rise to our full experience of being.

It is fascinating that both science and religion can at once be considered ideas, invisible and tangible experience, visible. Accordingly, ambiguity is central to Eifelheim; reality is absent of concrete distinctions between entities, between the perceptions of the “scientific” Krenken and the “theological” humans.

Intersections of Theology & Science in Eifelheim

In Eifelheim the humans were the primitive Runa of Rakhat and the Krenken the humans. This time the aliens expand our perception of the universe. While reading the book I constantly kept wondering what the Krenken must think of us, 14th century medieval humans. In today’s day and age it is not a period of time we look upon and remember fondly, especially for tolerance of the other. Yet, as has been pointed out by many other people in our class, of all the alien encounter stories we have read this seems to be the most peaceful one. Can we attribute this, as Jackie has said, to the humans’ ignorance and pure dumb luck? I would agree it has to do with our ignorance and lack of awareness. We did not understand the full implications of aliens then. We still had a very limited view of our own world and did not have any means of opposing the Krenken, save diplomacy. Maybe it also has to do with the importance of religion at that place and time, meaning perhaps religion can sometimes actually reduce the fear of the other and encourage kindness or in this case "Christian charity" (I know we don't often think of religion as such in this day and age, but in this story it seems to have such an effect on the villagers.)

I found the conversations between the Krenken and Dietrich fascinating. Some of the conversations seem like a dialogue between science and religion, revealing opportunities for intersections and agreements between the two. Take, for instance, Dietrich and Hans’ discussion of the beginning of the universe. Hans’ explanation of the big bang theory does not seem to entirely preclude Dietrich’s creationism argument. Perhaps there can be a place for theology in science? That seeming paradox is nothing new, Einstein was a profoundly religious or rather spiritual man, yet in the context of a human-alien encounter it is interesting.

According to Hans, “time began when this world and the other world touched… ‘that was the beginning of everything. Someday they will again clap, and all will begin anew (216).’” Essentially he is describing the big bang theory. Dietrich responds with creationism: “But, to press a thing, some actor must press upon it, since no motion exists save by a mover. How might we press upon time (216).” Somehow, after reading this passage, both the scientific and theological arguments seem valid at once to me.

Ignorance and Pure Dumb Luck

During our class discussion of Eifelheim, the question was raised: Why did this encounter between humans and aliens progress more peacefully and happily than most of the others we've read about this semester? In light of this, it hit me that perhaps it was because of the nature of the time and place in which the Krenken found themselves. In my opinion, the Krenken and the humans were able to get along relatively well because of the fact that the humans were unaware of the true implications of the existence of the Krenken. Most of the characters in the book believe that the Krenken are either demons or foreigners--they do not truly grasp the fact that they came from another planet. The very concept of other planets did not exist during this time period; even educated individuals from the Middle Ages believed that the heavens were a sphere that surrounded the Earth and moved around it. For this reason, the idea of aliens was not really comprehendible. And maybe this is the real reason that the humans more or less accepted the Krenken--they didn't have it in their natures to expect anything different from these strange beings.

As Andrew puts it in his blog post, "maybe there's something to that kind of innocence, or even ignorance." Andrew presents a really interesting view by comparing the humans in Eifelheim with the Runa in The Sparrow. Both are ignorant in some way because they do not recognize the new outsiders as truly alien and therefore don't "realize the full extent of [their] 'alien-ness' (Andrew's post). But, as Andrew points out, the lack of understanding that both the Runa and the 14th century Germans experience could easily go the other way and end miserably. Although I don't really like it, Andrew's idea that most things depend on chance is probably right. It all comes back to the idea of chance versus freewill. Do events play out according to our actions or do they happen in spite of our actions? This question relates back to Emilio's question of why The Sparrow ended the way it did. Was it because of something he did or was it all part of something out of his control? In Eifelhiem at least, it seems that the encounter ended successfully because the aliens just happened to land in that specific time and place.

Religion? Story-telling? What are those?

This week, in our discussion of Eifelheim, we focused again on what precipitates the failure to communicate, specifically how the Krenken and the Oberhochwald-ers fail to understand each other. The two groups are not only different species, but they inhabit entirely separate stages of development.

What is most staggering about the disconnect between the Krenken and the humans is the fact that the Krenken do not realize how technologically superior they are to the humans. Considering all the fictions humans have made about contact with alien species, one would expect that a space-faring species like the Krenken would have anticipated one day meeting aliens on another planet. Although their technology is sufficiently advanced to make most 14th century Germans think it is "the work of the Devil," their cultural and anthropological thinking seems to be right on 14th century Germany's level. Although Dietrich seems to have a grasp on nearly all scientific and philosophical thought in his time (as well as an uncanny ability to name future technologies) his presence alone shouldn't reassure the Krenken of humanity's competence. Instead they take it for granted that human stories about "God" who comes "from the sky" are literally tales of other space-faring beings who rule Earth.

The Krenken, although they avoid emotion and tend toward rational thought, somehow avoid rationality in relying on something of which they have no knowledge to save them. The Krenken, who apparently lack a story-telling tradition, do not understand the reason for telling fictions. In fact, they would probably be repulsed by the idea of "lying" to one another. They expect any human account of a savior to be literal. Without the cultural knowledge that some primitive peoples have religion, they lack the necessary tools to achieve "understanding" on a level that allows them to leave Earth alive.

A Genetic Gap in Understanding

Eifelheim is an interesting book to read, as it once again throws us into a situation where humans of the Christian faith make first contact with aliens whose culture is extremely hierarchical. Even compared to feudal Germany, the Krenken have a rigid class system, the laws of which they dare not break. This time though, it is the aliens who are marooned on the primitive planet Earth.

One of the most remarkable parts of the book is the Krenkens’ inability to understand human religious thought. They believe that servants should serve their superiors because the strong should always rule the weak. When they find out that “God, our master who lives in heaven, will come back to save us” they naturally believe that these humans have been contacted by another extraterrestrial race that rules over them. What they initially fail to believe is that humans would make up and spread a story that cannot is not literally true.

While the Krenken hierarchy relies on an order built into their genetic code, humans need a reason to serve other humans. The idea that someone all-powerful individually loves them and plans to reward them after death allows humans to ignore the fact that they have no upward social mobility. Without the reassurance of God (and sometimes with it) humans tend to rebel against or overthrow the hierarchy. The Krenken have no understanding that, for humans, a code of ideas and information informs their culture as heavily as the genetic code informs their physiological make-up.

Freedom and Bloodshed: Not Mutually Exclusive

This week in class (4/15) we talked about Children of God, and one of the interesting topics that came up for discussion was the idea of “freedom.” Are the Runa more “free” now that they dominate the planet and have subjugated the Jana’ata? One answer is that this idea of “freedom” that Sophia and Supaari bring to the Runa is actually an ideal native to human, or Western, thought. On Rakhat, this freedom might be detrimental. When Sophia remembers the quote “do not do unto others what is hateful to you,” (p146) she immediately thinks back to the bloodshed that has marked Earth’s history. Somehow, human ideals of freedom and equality lead to suffering and war.

Maybe the perfect balance of Rakhat civilization was achieved by the realization that not all people are equal. Certainly, the Jana’ata were a predating species and the Runa were a prey species, but there were further distinctions within Jana’ata society. Not all Jana’ata could have children, because the “freedom” of child-bearing would encumber society itself. This brings to mind Todorov’s distinction between sacrifice and massacre. Where humans commit genocide (massacre) as an act of war, the Jana’ata sacrifice their own and others’ lives to prevent the bloating of society that leads to discontent and conflict. What if the humans, believing that they set the other species free, merely led them into a historically unprecedented chaos?

Inter-Species Dynamics- How Groups Adapt to Survive

Children of God followed up on all the questions left by The Sparrow. We finally see all the workings of Jana’ata society from the inside, we see first-hand the Runa insurrection, we see the way alien contact works out with mercenaries instead of priests, and we see the dynamics of groups composed of multiple races against groups composed of a single race. What I thought was most interesting about the book was the way it forces us to re-examine our pre-existing notions about the Jana’ata.

The most interesting quote was on page 225, where Shetri reminds Danny Iron-Horse that “it was not only the Runa who were born to their fate- we all were!” Our sympathies are reversed. The Runa, who were once pitiable in their subservience to the Jana’ata, are now blood-thirsty rebels who follow Sophia and Supaari’s vengeful whims. The Jana’ata, who knew as little that they were doing wrong by eating children as the Runa knew they were by giving up children, are forced onto “reservations.” Their proud hunter society is forced to bow to the wishes of its prey.

The second interesting point of this book is the different alliances of species, and how they manage to work together. It seems that the two most dynamic groups in the novel are the Runa resistance and the Isaac/Ha’anala/Shetri party, both of which are composed of many different species. The strange fact that the Runa resistance is headed by a human being and a Jana’ata outcast leads me to think that the very impressionable Runa are being exploited for human and Jana’ata interests. When Supaari and Sophia both die, perhaps the Runa will be manipulated to some other purpose. Perhaps they are little better than intelligent pack-animals. But perhaps they are the more survivable species because they are better able to adapt.

Ha’anala and Isaac’s group is more complicated because it is led by a Jana’ata and a human who were raised in a Runa camp. They head a party that is mostly Jana’ata, is accepting of all species, and refuses to needlessly kill any sentient being. Somehow, the most morally righteous group in the whole book ends up being a group of disenfranchised Jana’ata, led by a Jana’ata and an autistic human who were both raised in a militant Runa camp. It seems that in Children of God, the most successful groups as well as the most sympathetic, are those that are able to adapt most quickly to changing species-relations.

Darmok, Understanding, and Communication

On Thursday (4/8) we watched “Darmok,” an episode of Star Trek that illustrates the difficulties of communicating with an alien species that has a language structured completely differently from human languages. This brought up the question “what is communication?”

Even the Starfleet universal translator failed to interpret the Darmok language because it used references to Darmok legends in order to communicate abstractions or emotions. As a consequence, the only way to understand the Darmok would be to spend time learning their myths and stories, as well as the syntactical methods of interpreting their meanings.

This lesson of understanding might be useful in some of the other novels we read. In order to make Picard understand, the Darmok force him to engage in a Darmok bonding ritual. Many of our novels involve attempts at understanding species whose languages are known. As Sandoz says in The Sparrow, “The ability to speak a language perfectly does not necessarily convey any understanding of it.” (p232) In a way, the Stella Maris crew understands as little about Rakhati culture as the Enterprise crew does about Darmok. Even after living with the Runa, the humans don’t know anything of Jana’ata-Runa relations, and they attempt to involve themselves in them before having a complete understanding. This strikes me as a failure to communicate.

Cultural Infection in The Sparrow

Ok I've been putting it off for a long time, but here's the Conquest of America post. Even though everyone knows slow and steady wins the race, I really need to get up to speed on my blogging. One of the most interesting concepts that Todorov puts forth in Conquest of America is the distinction that the Spaniards make between themselves and the Aztecs. On page 153, he quotes an account that compares the natives to women, children, and monkeys. Each station denotes a greater differentiation from the status "man."

One of the great difficulties we’ve been having talking about the Jana’ata from The Sparrow is that we have been trying to judge them as we would judge humans. Unlike the Aztecs, who were humans, the Jana’ata and Runa are unequivocally not human. Like the Aztecs, they are alien and, to our sensibilities, sometimes savage. Of course they are not exactly animals either. But the flaw in our approach to the aliens is to misidentify them with humans.

Introducing technology, agriculture, and rebellion to the alien culture was nearly as fatal in The Sparrow as the Spaniards’ introduction of their own culture (and diseases and warfare) to Mexico. What the humans failed to realize is that, as the (potentially) dominant species, their influence would inevitably dominate the other species’ ways of life. Now civil violence and overpopulation are blighting the formerly placid Rakhat civilization. They might have saved some trouble by sending an army.