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EXPLORING the TRANSHUMANIST VISION of MAN-MACHINE SYMBIOSIS in FOUR MODERN, HARD SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS Indrajit Patra (Research Scholar, Dept

EXPLORING the TRANSHUMANIST VISION of MAN-MACHINE SYMBIOSIS in FOUR MODERN, HARD SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS Indrajit Patra (Research Scholar, Dept

VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) Vol.5 Issue 1 An International Peer Reviewed Journal 2018 http://www.joell.in

RESEARCH ARTICLE

EXPLORING THE TRANSHUMANIST VISION OF MAN-MACHINE SYMBIOSIS IN FOUR MODERN, HARD NOVELS Indrajit Patra (Research Scholar, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences,National Institute of Technology, Durgapur (NITD), India.)

ABSTRACT In this paper my aim is to analyze four 21st Century novels, which are ’ ‘’, Alastair Reynolds’ ‘Revelation Space’, Iain M. Banks’ ‘Surface Details’ and Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds’ collaborative work ‘The Medusa Chronicles’ to explore various aspects of a Post-Singular, and machine-dominated future driven by an essentially Transhumanist vision of uplifting and elevating humanself by a deep and thorough man-machine symbiosis. The analysis of these novels will help us to see how science fictional works portray a technologically driven future of exponential growth where the only way for the mankind to stay relevant to the cascading impact of constantly accelerating machine intelligence will be to merge their and body with the machines. This will, perforce, bring an end to many binary dualistic oppositions based on which the corpus of our present day epistemic system thrives. The paper also includes a discussion of the probability of occurrence of an event like Technological Singularity and the possible ramifications of such an event upon future mankind from an objective and scientific viewpoint.

Keywords: Science Fiction,Posthumanism, , Contemporary Literature, Neo-Marxist Approach.

Citation:

APA Patra,I.(2018). Exploring the transhumanist vision of Man-Machine symbiosis in Four Modern, Hard Science Fiction Novels.Veda’s Journal of English Language and Literature-JOELL, 5(1), 282-293. MLA Patra,Indrajit. “Exploring the transhumanist vision of Man-Machine symbiosis in Four Modern, Hard Science Fiction Novels.”Veda’s Journal of English Language and Literature JOELL, Vol.5, no.1, 2018, pp.282-293.

.Author(s) retain the copyright of this article Copyright © 2018 VEDA Publications Author(s) agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License . 282 Indrajit Patra

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INTRODUCTION complete interlinking and interfusion between mind A possible synthesis between man and and the digital world of , as well as machine is already underway when increasingly between man and the machine. sophisticated implants and modified extensions are AS A MACHINE OR A SIMULATION AND being added to the for augmenting the MARX’S THEORY OF ALIENATION virtual experiences or for helping a man to tide over The idea that our universe is a simulation is his physical and mental limitations. Bionic also deeply rooted in comprehending the cosmos in technologies have been used to enhance people’s terms of a massive, self-aware and self-contained lives which range from robotic limbs to electronic calculating entity or hardware on which stories of eyes. But in the context of analyzing the man- physical events are being written and run like machine symbiosis and interfusion we should keep programs and softwares. This study will attempt to our open toward the variouspossibilities which look into and analyze the portrayals of the possible a deep-level manmachine synthesis could bring consequences of man-machine interaction as before mankind. Here machines will cease to be presented in various modern hard science fiction passive, mechanical objects whose existence is novels. The primary methodological framework of bound within obeying the laws of his human master; this paper is Marx’s theory of alienation between the rather the machines presented in these futuristic individual and his work or between the individual and hard science fiction novels are often self-aware, the machineries. Marx said that in the pre-Industrial superintelligent, powerful and weakly or fully godlike age (before 19the century) the relation between the beings who are capable of replicating themselves into workers and their apparatuses were different than infinite forms and can also simulate any physical what they would become in the Industrial era (626). forms into minutely detailed simulations which are Then the machines were thought of as appendages indistinguishable from their original counterpart. or extensions of the laborer himself while in the post- Sciencefictionnovels not only tell us stories about a Industrial age the machines started to assume the Post-Singular and Post-Human man-machine role of one single ‘powerful organism’ whose synthesis but also imply that the entire universe appendages the human beings started to become. could very well be a titanic instantiation of a The entire world is then set in motion by the will of relentlessly calculating machine in which it is possible the machine itself which has assumed the form of to achieve unthinkable breakthroughs and one self-aware and self-evolving automaton unforeseen miracles by altering the rules of consisting of a number of mechanical and intellectual computation. So to fully extract the endless organs. In the Posthuman era this automaton potentialities of our universe we should be able to technology naturally is bound to assume enormous discover the ultimate, indivisible and fundamental proportions and will control the course of events to building blocks or ‘bits’ from which almost every an unprecedented extent. This is what is depicted in st forms of creation emerge. Marx’s theory which posits most of the 21 century works of dystopian science that in an industrially advanced age machines will fiction where by various means and ways the cease to be mere extensions or accessories of human machines are portrayed as gradually ascending to the beings; rather they will be self-dependant, self-aware role of a powerful sentient organism which can appendages able to control and regulate even their control, regulate and determine the events on a human masters. In this changing scenario man will universal scale. Marx in his ‘Manifesto of the grow slaves to these technologies or mechanical Communist Party’ (1848) reflects on this aspect of implants and the machines will become his new alienation among individuals owing to the rise of master. Assimov’s three laws which generally form machines in industry, "Owing to the extensive use of the basis of all in a pre-Singular era will also machinery and to division of labour, the work of the start to lose its relevance in the Post-Singular era proletarians has lost all individual character, and when distinction between man and machine will also consequently all charm for the workman. He grow highly irrelevant as a result of a seamless and becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only

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VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) Vol.5 Issue 1 An International Peer Reviewed Journal 2018 http://www.joell.in the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily determine how far or close we are to such a ground- acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the breaking event like a Technological Singularity. cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost Problems like dealing with man-machine synthesis entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires also expose the difficulties that we face at present as for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his a result of our predominantly reductionist scientific race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore approach which seeks to reduce and disassemble an also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In object to its fundamental, reducible components and proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the then analyze them. The problem of mind and work increases, the wage decreases." The Pre- machine can be tackled most effectively only when industrial tools were thought of as extensions of the we are fully aware of their real nature and origin and expert human body whereas in the Post-industrial can trace their evolution thoroughly and era the worker himself becomes an extension of the independently – the organic core of machines and machines or the tools. The living machinic system machinic framework of biological substrates: “The assumes the form of a ‘living organism’ and the problem is that embodied cognition that reduces working population becomes the limbs to it. In body to a mere physical instantiation of sensory ‘Grundrisse’ (1857-1858) Marx observes, “the motor loops does not go deep enough in worker's activity, reduced to a mere abstraction of acknowledging the importance and implications of activity, is determined and regulated on all sides by the biological embodiment for cognition”(Slawomir J. the movement of the machinery, and not the Nasuto, and Yoshikatsu Hayashi. "Anticipation: opposite. The science which compels the inanimate Beyond synthetic and cognitive limbs of the machinery, by their construction, to act robotics" Biosystems, vol. 148, October, 2016, pp. 22- purposefully, as an automaton, does not exist in the 31). The authors stress the need to go beyond the worker's , but rather acts upon him traditional Western dualistic conception of reality through the machine as an alien power, as the power and the mechanistic framework defined by of the machine itself” (279). Newtonian causality and this is precisely what the SCIENCE BEHIND THE FICTION – IDEAS AND hard science fiction novels attempt to accomplish IMPLICATIONS when they attempt to portray the of Before delving into a full-fledged and super-sentient, part-neurobiological, part-mechanical comprehensive discussion of the novels, this study hybrid beings. will first attempt to look into the science behind the In another paper named “Man- fiction and try to fathom how much relevant these Symbiosis” by J.C.R. Licklider we find references to a futuristic depictions of mankind getting integrated symbiotic relationship between mutually into machines bodies are to the present day human interdependent and tightly interlinked human brain race. Even though technological expansion always and computer mind which according to him can follows an exponential curve in which massive evolve in such a way so as to act as complementary breakthroughs happen to suddenly skyrocket the to each other: “Man-computer symbiosis is a subclass course of mankind’ progress to unprecedented of man-machine systems. There are many man- heights yet a brief analysis of thedevelopment of machine systems. At present, however, there are no ideas and theories in this field of man-machine man-computer symbioses… The hope is that, in not synthesis will benefit our discussion immensely. too many years, human brains and computing This situation of highly accelerated growth of machines will be coupled together very tightly, and machine intelligences and man-machine symbiosis that the resulting partnership will think as no human becomes even more intriguing and fascinating in a brain has ever thought and process data in a way not Post-Singularitarian world and even though it is approached by the information-handling machines theoretically impossible to predict the occurrence of we know today.” (7). an actual event of singularity, we can always take Scientists like and Max closer look at our current track of development to Tegmark always point out the possibility of a

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Singularity event in near future in which machines depicted in the science fiction novels are thus very could effectively wipe out majority of human much possible in a near or not-so-distant future. population. Hawking voiced his concerns in the The aspect of science fiction which shall be dealt with following words when he said to BBC: “Humans who in this paper can be summed up to be essentially a are limited by slow biological evolution couldn't Transhumanist one which envisages our future as compete and would be superseded. ... The one in which by application of several revolutionary development of full could spell procedures ranging from genetic modification for the end of the human race. ... It would take off on its sharpening our positive traits and enhancement of own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate.” longevity, to augmenting our physical capabilities Even in the 1940s visionaries like Alan Turing, John through bioengineering and mechanical implants, we von Neumann and others saw how intelligent are finally able to transcend the fundamental machines could have unimaginable impact on the limitations of our physical bodies with the aid of whole of humanity. Machines can now perform so technology. Our present day path is now more than many types of complex operations effortlessly: ever entrenched towards realization of the Rotaxane molecular machines can do work against transhumanist ideals and visions by following an gravity by moving liquid droplets, DNA strands are exponential curve of progress. Ilkka Tuomi states: being utilized for harnessing supercomputer power in “According to Kurzweil’s “law of accelerating DNA Computing, Molecular Nanotechnology returns,” technical change is generated in an attempts to build complex structures by evolutionary process where the outputs of the mechanosynthesis guided by molecular machineries process are used as inputs in the next phase of the which include smart materials and nanosensors, self- development. This leads to exponential growth. healing structures able to repair small superficial Kurzweil maintains that the rate of exponential tears naturally, use of swarms of coordinated nano- growth itself increases. When a particular robots, utility fog or a cloud of networked evolutionary process becomes more effective than its microscopic robots, phased-array optics etc. Use of alternatives, greater resources are deployed for the machineries on nano and microscales can be used to further progress of the effective process” (Kurzweil, produce massively lethal weapons of mass Moore, and , 3-4). While destruction: “As many as 50 billion toxin-carrying following this curve of progress several known devices—theoretically enough to kill every human on theories need to be altered and modified as for earth—could be packed into a single suitcase” example the mechanistic Newtonian causality as an (Dangers of Molecular Manufacturing, 10). explanatory methodological framework for Machines thus seem to be expanding their describing the workings of both animate as well as spheres of influence by going beyond the inanimate objects and the western tradition of traditionally defined boundary of dealing with dualistic compartmentalization of mind and . generalized sets of knowledge and generating new Another aspect that prevents a seamless integration ones. Here the idea of Singularity as put forward first between man and machine is that our consciousness by and then championed by Ray does not perform in the same way as machines do. Kurzwell ceases to appear as merely outlandish and Human consciousness is the product of several non- futuristic; rather it seems very much possible that we linear and unpredictable interactions among billions are perhaps near the edge of Singularity. In fact the of and we simply do not possess enough more science progresses the more we are learning computational resources to simulate each and every how much our own mind and body have in common aspect of such a complex process. with the functioning of the machines and how both Finally, in order to explore whether our can be manipulated and modified with the help of Universe itself works like a gigantic, sentient entity the other to yield maximum benefits. Man and performing countless operations in any given machine are like two sides of the same coin – each is instance to generate all forms of observable made for the other. The futuristic landscapes as phenomena and processes we have to find the

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VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) Vol.5 Issue 1 An International Peer Reviewed Journal 2018 http://www.joell.in ultimate fundamental limit into which the fabric of elimination of undesirable traits and careful reality itself can be divided. The fabric of the universe inculcation of only the most desired qualities among is its space- and the threads that bind it together humans often their thoughts pose striking to form the smooth and continuous whole should resemblances o the highly stigmatized field of necessarily be quantum in nature. The process of genomics in which with the help of advanced entanglement of each quantum particle with its techniques of selective genetic modification Nazis nearest neighbors is an endless process which aimed to create a race of people nurturing only produces a series of interlinked nodes in the network desirable heritable characteristics. Transhumanists and the nodes are tensors joined together by though abstain from using any force or coercion to entanglement and just like a digitally reproduced impose the augmentation procedures upon general picture we need to be able to discretize the whole populace. Transhumanists like Lincoln Cannon only into its innumerable, tiny, constituent parts. A digital puts emphasis upon man’s journey from his present picture can be divided into pixels and any 3-D object baseline form to a more intelligent, sophisticated, can be divided into voxels and the fundamental powerful and ultimately superhuman form like God quantities of our universe, i.e., space-time and himself. This is the core of his “The New God energy can be quantized in the form of units. Argument” which envisages an evolutionary cycle in Sir also thought of the relationship which each created being first deifies and worships between quantum mechanics and general relativity his/her superhuman maker till he also attains the in terms of curvature caused by superposition of godlike status and starts creating beings in his own quantum states which remains in such state until image who in turn grows advanced, achieve each of such superpositions become unstable upon awareness and self-independence till arriving at a crossing the Planck scale of 10^-35 m only to collapse critical stage when the created also surpasses his to one of many possible states (Penrose, The master thus keeping the cycle intact (“Analytical Emperor's New Mind, pp. 475–481 & "On Gravity's Review of Lincoln Cannon's The New God Argument”). Role in Quantum State Reduction". General Relativity All these images appear time again in different places and Gravitation). So the Planck quantities of Energy, across different works of modern, post-Dystopian, Mass and Momentum can be taken us fundamental hard science fiction novels. So in the next section I quantas. Whether we are ready to accept the shall be analyzing some major works of 21st Century theory or the idea that there is Dystopian Science Fiction novels to analyze how no 'outside' in the eternal infinite all-inclusive powerful machines and augmented human beings Universe which holds only finite number of universal will evolve and adopt to the changes in the Post- sets of phenomena/state potentials which is being Singular world and what will be the consequences of processed and re-cycled ceaselessly though various any such deep-level symbiosis between mind and local and collective aeons and only those phenomena matter. are manifested which the physically effective DISCUSSION features and dynamics of the fundamental forces are In Charles Stross’ novel ‘Accelerando’ (2005) capable of driving, the thoughtwhose undercurrent we find the protagonist Manfred Macx allows his relentlessly runsbehind all those ideas is that the consciousness to be distributed and mind to be Universe evolves like a calculating, self-aware, uploaded in different virtual reality environments. multidimensional, godlike machine. Science fiction Here man and machine continue to exist in a novels give us a glimpse into the future dominated by mutually beneficial symbiosis and each is dependent self-aware machines or Posthuman beings – all on the other for its own realization. In an emerging as a result of a man-machine fusion. environment like this voices, sensory impressions, Though the idea of achieving a complete and full- images, dreams, perceptions and streams of data can functioning symbiosis between man and machine all be intercepted, encoded, represented and belongs to the realm of Transhumanism through manipulated by means of machines and which transhumanists aim at attaining a selective computational substrates. Here not only the external

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VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) Vol.5 Issue 1 An International Peer Reviewed Journal 2018 http://www.joell.in appendages, accessories and apparatuses have been in the light of Marx’s theory of alienation of the treated as machines but the entire reality or the individual under the attack of machinery. Marx Universe is depicted as one giant, sentient, thought of alienation as resulting from the separation relentlessly calculating machine. Their actions, of the worker from ownership and Manfred in the operations and executions are based on their novel has deliberately adopted this attitude of giving capacity or intrinsic processing power. The term away his ownership as he believes in a radically new machines no longer include non-sentient, inorganic and completely modified version of an economic and dead substances incapable of thinking, feeling or system in which technological progress will be the evolving and thus subservient to man’s will; rather it sole determiner and controlling force of the market is the man himself who has been portrayed as a and productivity. This novel also shows us that one of creature being aided, guided and controlled by the most significant roles that machines will play in machines. The rules of Universe are mechanical, the fortifying the Posthuman civilization in the future movement of planets, the evolution of life, origin of world will be based upon extraction of maximum life, processing of information, conversion of matter amount of information from all ordinary and to energy and vice versa are all mechanically guided for that purpose the will have to by a set of inviolable principles. There are potential dismantle every object and convert every mass dangers lurking in the fact that all the machines around them into computational substrate: “The might be nearing their maximum possible peak of computing power of the is now around processing power: “About ten years after that, the one thousand MIPS per gram, and is unlikely to solar system's installed processing power will nudge increase in the near term - all but a fraction of one the critical 1 MIPS per gram threshold - one million percent of the dumb matter is still locked up below instructions per second per gram of matter. After the accessible planetary crusts, and the that, singularity - a vanishing point beyond which sapience/mass ratio has hit a glass ceiling that will extrapolating progress becomes meaningless. The only be broken when people, corporations, or other time remaining before the intelligence spike is down posthumans get around to dismantling the larger to single-digit years” (Accelerando, 34). The planets” (Accelerando, 121-122). MIT professor Seth protagonist Manfred is about to transcend his Lloyd, in an article entitled “Computational Capacity transhuman state by virtue of complete assimilation of the Universe” ventured to calculate the of raw machinic processing power with his own computational power of the entire universe and he physical self thus augmenting and re-energizing his found that the total computing power of the entire baseline abilities: “The metacortex - a distributed universe starting from the occurrence of cloud of agents that surrounds him in itself is around 10^120 logical operations which can netspace, borrowing CPU cycles from convenient be calculated by analyzing the computing potential of processors (such as his pet) - is as much a part quantum particles.This could either point towards of Manfred as the society of mind that occupies his the power required to create a perfect simulation of skull; his thoughts migrate into it, spawning new our physical universe on a quantum computer or agents to research new experiences, and at night, could possibly represent the upper limit to the power they return to roost and share their knowledge” of performance of our universe as a computer. This is (Accelerando, 35). The fusion of technology with the essentially the picture of the digital universe that the market system also brings unforeseen consequences. Post-Singular, Post-Human novel ‘Accelerando’ Market system itself is conceived as a peculiar endeavors to portray. In ‘The Physics of ’ machinery which makes the human being live under by Frank Tiplerthe author argues that just before the the illusion of being free while incarcerating him to final moments when our universe will come to an the abstract pattern and formulae of maximization of end a sudden turnaround will occur in which the profit: “the market itself is an abstract machine!” entire Universe will be converted into a final Manfred’s aim of giving away ownership or patents singularity which will generate one final burst of of many important discoveries also can be analyzed infinite energy and computing power with which it

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VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) Vol.5 Issue 1 An International Peer Reviewed Journal 2018 http://www.joell.in would be able to simulate entire history of the manipulation capabilities, yet with the rapid universe – its past, present and even the future. Thus advancements in technology there will definitely be this event dubbed as Omega Point will be able to augmentation procedures available for each of our resurrect everything from their death or the state of sensory perceptions like auditory, sensory and tactile maximum to reawaken and reconstitute capabilities. Different thinkers have answered to the every possible configuration to its appropriate form question “Can a machine think” from different from its state of utter disorder and chaos. Various viewpoints. John Searle in his ‘Minds, Brains and Cyclic Cosmology models like Baum–Frampton model Programs’ has given answer to the question in the also portray a hypothetical scenario much like this following way: ‘“Could a machine think?" My own one in which just 10−24 seconds or less before the view is that only a machine could think, and indeed occurrence of a Big Rip, a turnaround occurs when only very special kinds of machines, namely brains one causal patch full of only with zero or and machines that had the same causal powers as vanishing entropy containing absolutely no brains. And that is the main reason strong AI has had quark, lepton or force carrierwill be retained and little to tell us about thinking, since it has nothing to restored as our universe. tell us about machines. By its own definition, it is In fact modern science conceives not just about programs, and programs are not machines. non-living objects but also every living being and its Whatever else intentionality is, it is a biological components as mass storage and highly efficient phenomenon…”’ (Minds, Brains and Programs, 14). computing devices. A human being possesses two Professor Seth Lloyd calculated the computational sets or 23 pair of chromosomes which represent the power of an ultimate computer which can be formed diploid genome containing about 6 billion base pairs by compressing a kilogram of matter into a black hole and a single byte or 8 bit combination can represent singularity of radius 1.485 × 10−27 meters. It would not more than just one DNA base pair. So a diploid last for only about 10−19 seconds before being genome occupying a total of over 6 billion base pairs evaporated in Hawking Radiation but if utilized it can potentially store 1.5 gigabytes of data and as could theoretically function at a peak performance each human being has around 100 trillion cells even rate of 5×1050 operations every second thus after discounting all the haploid sperm and egg cells ultimately performing about 1032 operations on in the body our body’s diploid ones are capable of 1016 bits. storing data equivalent to 1.5 Gigabytes x 100 trillion In various science fiction novels we cells = 150 trillion Gigabytes or 150×10^12 x 10^9 frequently come across many exotic forms of matter bytes = 150 Zettabytes (10^21). So potentialities of being used as ultra-efficient computational devices utilizing biological substrates or constituent like degenerate stars, neutron stars, white dwarves components as units of computing are limitless and and computronium based on femtotechnology etc. the demand placed by these operations on our These seek to unify man and machine in such a computational resources are equally outrageous. harmonious whole that concepts like mortality, life, Even when the technical difficulties involved in such death etc all lose their significance. In Welsh author daring feats are once surpassed it cannot be said to Alastair Reynolds’ 2000 science fiction yield only unmixed blessings but can open Pandora’s novel ‘Revelation Space’ we come across such an box for the entire mankind. Thus there are two ways exotic object named Cerberus which is in fact an of arriving at a Posthuman stage as depicted in the artificial machine in orbit of the neutron science fiction novels – either by transforming star Hades that encompassed several layers of ourselves radically with the help of the machines and technology from three distinct generations of advanced technology or by uplifting the computer superintelligent alien civilizations. The object acted as intelligences to the level of strong AIs. Though our a powerful computational substrate. Here we find efforts to create a direct neural link to information is how some highly evolved alien intelligence can currently limited at the visual level only which is transform dumb states of matter into powerful aiming at amplifying our spatial visualization and computational substrates which can create, sustain

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VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) Vol.5 Issue 1 An International Peer Reviewed Journal 2018 http://www.joell.in and nurture a parallel world in an immersive enforcement of authority by means far beyond the environment of hyperreality. The hidden scope of understanding of mere mortals. The behind the curtain of Event Horizon of a black hole atmosphere created here is both techno-scientifically and consequently separated from the rest of the sublime and grotesque beyond recognition. Here the universe ceases to exist as a self-contained entity mind states of the people are often encoded in some sustaining different strands of binary dualisms; rather computational matrices with the help of neural laces space and time here melt and merge into one which are some type of neural induction devices. A another and ripples of causal shocks can at any given neural lace can provide one with the chance to live time quantum tunnel back into the past at a time forever albeit in a simulated environment in which when the black hole was about to form as a result of one’s recorded mind-state can evolve independently some supernova explosion. At that moment the of external influences. Neural laces “were the sort of streams of particles emanating from futurity can hold device that highly advanced aliens who’d started out back and delay the catastrophic collapse of matter squidgy and biochemical – as squidgy and into black hole and this can make the object to exist biochemical as Sichultians, for example – and who indeterminately in a state which is neither a pure had not wanted to upload themselves into nirvana or neutron star nor a complete black hole. This is what oblivion or wherever, used when they wanted to Cerberus really is: “The object settled on a stable interface with machine minds or record their configuration whereby its paradoxical nature was not thoughts, or even when they wanted to save their immediately obvious to the outside universe. souls, their mind-states” (Surface Detail, 110). Externally, it resembled a neutron star -- for the first Machines in this world themselves are demonic and few centimeters of its crust, at least. Below, the demons are mechanical, cold and cruel: “The nuclear matter had been catalysed into intricate osteophagers were specialist demons, flesh- and forms capable of lightning-swift computation, a self- bone-eating scavengers who lived off the carcasses of organization which had emerged spontaneously from those re-killed either in Hell’s never-ending war or the resolution of its two opposed states. The crust just in the normal course of its perpetual round of seethed and processed, containing information at the mutilation and pain. The souls of those they ate theoretical maximum density of storage of matter, would already have been recycled into fresh, mostly anywhere in the universe” (Revelation Space, 321). whole if never entirely healthy bodies better able to Machines in the Posthuman or Postsingular era, as appreciate the torments in store for them” (Surface we can see often are limited by only a handful of Detail, 50). There are machines which are not only fundamental laws like theoretically possible upper vicious and relentless in their act of calculating limit of maximum storage of information. The Hades infliction of pain in preordained doses but are also matrix is such a computational substrate which can programmed to prolong the excruciating pains of its store and sustain virtual copies of actual individuals. victims. In this novel we see machines capable of Ana Khouri describes the strangely patterned surface creating almost anything it is commanded without design of Cerberus’ crust in a detailed but delicate the help of any further instruction from an external manner. A powerful machine in the Posthuman era agent. It is the act of machines themselves which can can support and sustain multiple levels of reality in a destroy all semblance of reality and can pave the highly efficient manner just like the Hades matrix path for a seamless and most harmonious integration which contains multiple strands of reality like between man and machine by virtue of its power of macroscopic, microscopic, nuclear, sub-nuclear and assimilating any foreign entity to its very core of even quantum. being. In this process of integration machines split a Iain M. Banks’ novel ‘Surface Details’ (2010) human mind into rich and highly variegated array of describes various ways in which machines act multitudinous strands with a high level of together to construct a Posthuman atmosphere of deconstructive sophistication and then from these gruesome violence, endless agony, continuation of strands the machines weave a new fabric of reality life full of punishments even after death and rigorous while providing each concentric shells of

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VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) Vol.5 Issue 1 An International Peer Reviewed Journal 2018 http://www.joell.in consciousness with an endlessly extrapolating and control hub to link the brain to the lower limbs. Once incessantly intensifying sense of connectedness to a it was possible to transfer digital information into and new core of being: “She was entirely part of the out of the , a suite of prosthetic body machine, feeling its sensory, power and weapon parts was brought in and tried, one by one, each of systems as perfect extensions of herself and them riddled with microsensors that communicated connecting with the little ship’s AI as though it was continually with the devices anchored to the brain another higher, quicker layer of tissue laid across her and spine” (The Medusa Chronicles, 25). This is the own brain, tightly bundled, penetrated and future of prosthetics that machines will help man penetrating via her neural lace and the network of realize which involves discovery and establishment of human-mind-attuned filaments within the ship’s a novel and harmonious equilibrium between body dedicated pilot interface suite. At such moments she and mind. This new relation between body and mind felt she was the very heart and soul of the ship; the might not initially be complete and self-dependant tiny animal kernel of its being, with every other part, but hold the potentiality to transform itself into from her own drug-jazzed body out, like force- something novel and revolutionary with the progress multiplying layers of martial ability and destructive of time. But the dichotomy between man and sophistication, each concentricity of level adding, machine often comes into open conflict and many extrapolating, intensifying” (Surface Detail, 447-448). characters even in the Posthuman setting of the In the Posthuman and Post-Singular science fiction novel are depicted as being reluctant to place man novels we find the distinction between man, machine and machine on an equal footing and that is why in and meta-human artificial intelligence getting one place a character named Webster tells Falcon destroyed and emerging as an entirely new that though his life is the gift of a cutting edge Posthuman entity. In Stephen Baxter and Alastair technology and revolutionary scientific inventions, Reynolds’ collaborative work ‘The Medusa machines should not be placed alongside with the Chronicles’ (2016) we find the protagonist Howard human beings: “Machines are machines, to be kept Falcon coming back to life even after losing his life in separate from humanity.” Falcon later realizes that a lethal accident. He comes back to life as a he is “the only true . The only living symbiosis posthuman being – half human, half machine. During of man and machine.” (The Medusa Chronicles, 28). the course towards Falcon’s and Falcon’s cybernetic enhancements have equipped of his broken self we find machines him with unforeseen capabilities and superhuman being continually integrated for modifying, prowess but he is not yet fully immortal or invincible; restructuring and reorganizing his entire nervous rather he represents a being stranded in a state of system as well as his sense of being. Machines thus transition between two orders – one of being human, have the power to provide man with a new pathway another a fully sentient and self-aware machine: for re-establishing his sense of self by rediscovery “Falcon’s cybernetic surgery left him with and rearrangement of his previously disorganized superhuman capabilities but isolated from mankind, system of neural and physical apparatuses: “They for there will be no more such experiments. But needed to establish a connection between what was Falcon “took sombre pride in his unique loneliness – left of Falcon and the equipment that would sustain , midway between two orders of him for the rest of his life. And that meant reading creation. He would . . .be an ambassador . . . information from, and writing information to, what between the creatures of carbon and the creatures of was left of his broken nervous system… New metal who must one day supersede them. Both communication pathways had to be built. So would have need of him in the troubled centuries microelectrodes were lodged within Falcon’s brain – that lay ahead.’” (The Medusa Chronicles, 2). in the motor cortex area responsible for physical In a Transhuman or Posthuman world intelligent movement, and in the somatosensory cortex, which machines would constitute the fundamental building governed the sense of touch. More sensors were block of a magical reality in which highly advanced placed in the lumbosacral region of his spine with a forms of science and technology would radically

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VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) Vol.5 Issue 1 An International Peer Reviewed Journal 2018 http://www.joell.in transcend the very definition of reality and finally, bionic soldier named Adam who is shown to be when man and machine will be start getting gradually developing his own unique emotional entangled in a complex web of powerful symbiosis pattern while emulating the mental stress of those the very and death will also lose its machines which were once destroyed with him. meaningfulness. Machines supersede the identity of Adam shows “…a shift in its conceptual modelling of a normal individual in a Post-Singular era when both itself and the other Machines. In attempting to intelligent machines are integrated within the body simulate the mental states of those Machines that of an ordinary individual; they destroy the integrity were destroyed, it is emulating, at an admittedly low and wholeness of the individual and set new horizon level, some of the internal conceptual modelling that beyond which they aspire to reach. Machines armed we humans take for granted” (The Medusa with the power of consciousness and , Chronicles, 83). Machines even in the Posthuman know no limit and refuse to be bound by any world of this novel are still designed with primarily traditional set of binary division, categorization and one aim in mind which is to execute any specific task restriction. For a normal human being various forms most efficiently and careful steps are also taken of experiences not just define and delimit his scope regularly to ensure that they do not overstep that of personality but help him to from a clear and mark. This spike in the conceptual processing thus sharply defined image about one’s own self, while in implies some unexpected type of shift in the case of machines there is no such boundary or fundamental paradigm of machine intelligence and limitation once they attain the level of sentience cognitive behavioral pattern. which would enable them to gain an unprecedented Memory forms an indispensable element of amount of autonomy. Machines, once integrated identity formation for both an individual as well as a within the body of an individual can help him to bionic and without the aid of memory all hierarchy of overcome various obstacles in his way towards identity will crumble to naught. Memories help a attainment of Posthumanity but this would also machine or an individual human being to define, entail destruction of many previously cherished describe and reinforce his place in the grander systems of values. Machines provide one with the scheme of things based on pattern recognition, hope of rejuvenating one’s self even from the grasp identification, efficient and of death as in the Posthuman world death is no cognition. Without memories one cannot relate longer seen as an obstacle but a temporary state of himself to a larger background of things occupied by inactivity and stupor from which one’s consciousness entities which bear resemblance to the one within or sense of self can be recovered with the help of whom a void has been created by lack of memories. science: “…death is not a necessary condition for Pure machines or pure human beings are far easier to Machines. We are all potentially immortal. And yet control than the symbiotic organization of man- death has come to this place. I try to simulate the machine manifest in the form of cyborg being. experiences of those Machines as the accident Technologies like and virtual reality happened, as the realisation of termination came to place man in control of a world full of immense them. I try to emulate their internal processor states possibility which if harnessed to its full extent can at the time” (The Medusa Chronicles, 80). But as produce unimaginable consequences. But this highly machines can reach an almost unforeseen level of ambiguous “cyborgized state” of being goes intelligence and cognitive capability once equipped definitely beyond what many technocrats and with a dynamically evolving state of consciousness scientists have initially dreamt of – it provides the we find that any experiment like emulating other’s entities with a sense of awareness and some cognitive pattern of behavior or empathizing with his scintillating rays of sentience which borders on sorrows and stresses can engender serious human even while it is shrouded in cocoons of repercussions even within the sense of awareness of machinic exoskeleton: “One ambiguous benefit of his the machines. In this novel we find description of cyborgised state, which had revealed itself only consequences of such experiments conducted upon a slowly over time, was a virtual immortality. Life-

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VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL) Vol.5 Issue 1 An International Peer Reviewed Journal 2018 http://www.joell.in extension treatments were common now, but Falcon Into a great Host…” (The Medusa Chronicles, 180). was easier to maintain than a fully normal The Host is a type of collective intelligence operating human…Indeed his lack of organs, of stomach and with powers and motives that easily go beyond the liver and genitals, rendered him calmer than most, it scope of ordinary human understanding. With the often seemed to him. A calm, passionless witness to advancement of the machines and improvement in centuries rolling like tides across the solar system” their intelligence new vistas of hitherto unexplored (The Medusa Chronicles, 103). Machines and realms of physics begin to get opened: “‘Is this individual human beings normally share a separate another aspect of the Machines’ advanced physics? and isolated state in the hierarchy of beings in a We’ve long theorized that you could create a progressive society based on the benefits of science designer spacetime, perhaps using some kind of and technology; but in a Post-Singular society driven coherent graviton engine, shaping mass-energy and by quantum leaps of science and technology self- gravity the way you wanted – such as to build a aware machines obliterate this binary division wormhole, or achieve such feats as faster-than-light between man and machine and usher in an era of travel by causing spacetime to ripple and surfing the deep, multi-layered and mutually interconnected resulting wave . . . The fact that the warping induced symbiotic association. Machines exist at the points of by a mass-energy the size of the sun’s deflects a ray intersection of different strands of world-events in a of starlight through no more than a thousandth of a complex universal network of causality most of which degree is a mere engineering detail” (The Medusa is invisible to the common human beings stranded in Chronicles, 215). All forms of obstacle toward the the time-bound continuum of limited perspective. In path of self-realization begin to get destroyed by the the post-Singular stage when machines will be increasingly sophisticated and powerful machines. assembled thoroughly within the biological substrate This self-realization, however holds different of the individual human beings or mind-uploading or meaning for the humans and the machines.Machines consciousness restoring technologies will become can both create as well as destroy and their purpose prevalent any distinction between the machine and often goes beyond what even their human makers man will be lost and each will be interchangeable originally envisioned. They are not burdened with with respect to the other. The machines in the various emotional and psychological problems like Posthuman era derive their strength from the power pangs of conscience, moral and ethical of parallel processing and distributive intelligence. In considerations, subtlety of consciousness and this novel we also find how machines once they grew variability of mind etc. Machines like Assemblers sufficiently powerful and intelligent began to which are in fact modified Von Neumann replicators dismantle and destroy most of the dumb, insensible which convert dumb matters them into high- matters to transform them into substances full of performance computational matter and they use computational potential. Even the destruction of Sun’s output to perform their tasks: “Assemblers planets became a trivial act and the machines then were von Neumann replicators, a variety of start converting entire planets into computronium specialised Machines that had used Mercury’s substances: “Humans needed worlds. Machines did sunlight and minerals to make copies of themselves: not need worlds. What they did covet was the stuff Machines that fed on the planet, like flesh-eating worlds were made from… It was trivial, in the end, to bacteria. From the beginning the assemblers had dismantle a planet. One needed only to overcome been firing material up into space to build what had the planet’s binding energy – in effect, to haul all the become their huge spaceborne construction project, fragments of the world out of its own gravity well… A the sunshield hovering over Mercury” (The Medusa planet was a lump of matter, much of which was Chronicles, 171). Machines consume the matters in inaccessible and unusable, whose only useful mercury not only to build computronium-like function was to generate a stable gravitational field. substances but also use them as cannons or The Machines now took the dead matter of Mercury projectiles when they perceive any threat. and made it, essentially, into copies of themselves.

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CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS REFERENCES Thus under the light of Marx’s Theory of Alienation I have shown how various science fiction [1]. Reynolds, Alastair (2000).Revelation Space. Gollancz. st United Kingdom. novels of 21 Century shows a society or a world [2]. Reynolds, Alastair; Baxter, Stephen (2016-05-19).The driven by pure Transhumanist ideals of merging of Medusa Chronicles. Orion. Kindle Edition. man and machine and Posthuman ideal of [3]. Stross, Charles (2005). Accelerando. Ace. United States. sublimating human self to the level of weakly godlike [4]. Banks, Iain M. (2010-10-07). Surface Detail (Culture series). Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition. being often becomes the slaves to machines. Though [5]. Kurzwell, R. (2009, March 23).The Coming Merging of theoretically speaking it is quite impossible for the Mind and Machine. Retrieved intelligent AI beings to enslave and supersede their from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mergi human masters unless they find some way to ng-of-mind-and-machine/. [6]. Musto, Marcello. Karl Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations replicate the model of human brain itself with all its of the Critique of Political Economy 150 Years Later. operational complexities and intricacies yet it is not London: Routledge, 2008. Print. at all impractical to imagine the advent of an era in [7]. Nicolaus, Martin. "The Unknown Marx," New Left which machines will assume total control over the Review. March–April 1968. [8]. Licklider, J.C.R., "Man-Computer Symbiosis", IRE entire mankind. Man will not only be alienated from Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics, vol. HFE- his world of fellow human beings and objects of 1, 4-11, Mar 1960. production but also from his own self as machines [9]. Lloyd, Seth, “Computational Capacity of the Universe”, will replace his human part with a machinic one. In Physical Review Letters, Vol. 88, Iss. 23 — 10 June 2002. [10]. Penrose, Roger (1999) [1989], The Emperor's New the long run, with the exponential growth of Mind (New Preface (1999) ed.), Oxford, England: Oxford technology all differences between man and machine University Press, pp. 475–481. will be annihilated and each will merge into another [11]. Alienation. The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern and there will be virtually no perceptible difference Thought (1999). Allan Bullock & Stephen Trombley, editors. between a million-fold enhanced human brain with [12]. Searle, John. R. (1980). Minds, brains, and programs. the aid of nano-scale neural implants and any Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (3): 417-457. artificial intelligence or computer architecture that [13]. "Dangers of Molecular Manufacturing." Center for can simulate the brain’s abilities for perception, Responsible Nanotechnology. 2014. Web. 19 July 2014. [14]. “Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could interaction and cognition with enhanced and end mankind”. www.bbc.com. Web. expanded efficiencies and primarily based on the http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540. 2 reverse-engineering of the human brain. The article December 2014. thus not only aims to present the various ways in [15]. Killian, Timothy. “An Analytical Review of Lincoln Cannon’s The New God Argument”. transhumanity.net. which the picture of a future driven by Technological Web. October 17, 2016. Singularity and man-machine symbiosis is portrayed across various science fiction novels but attempts to show how far the portrayal corresponds to the situation of our won when we are nearing to a possible breakthrough in the fields of quantum- mechanical, and nanotechnological breakthrough. So any technologically driven phenomena like a Singularity will continue to grow at an exponential rate affecting everything inside the future light cone of it and the hope of the mankind to stay relevant in such an era of hyper-accelerated progress will rest highly, if not completely on their readiness to merge themselves with the machines.

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