A VIRTUAL FISH STORY
Robot as Marine Mammal
Cyberpunk literature tells of a world of humans, dehumanized humans, mechanically aided humans, humanized robots, mechanically aided, computer aided humanized robots, dehumanized robots having all sorts and varieties of interchangeable and non interchangeable mechanical, bionic and biological parts. The theme of each novel is social, cultural and physical/physiological conflict between the species. Inevitably the humans are wiped out and replaced by replicating machines.
Children of the ocean sea had long felt that they were immune from the intrusion of illusion into the oceanic world of reality. We were comforted by the words of macho poet Byron
"Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean roll. Man marks the earth with ruin, his control stops with the shore."
Flipper was our first disillusionment. Through the illusions of television a generation was led to believe that the dolphins could be acculturated to behave as a compassionate, intelligent, and understanding human. Accidental behavior was made to look like wisdom. Indeed the dolphin is intelligent and can learn from "single trial" learning, but the marines mammal's introduction into the elementary school or the grade school, much less the high school will require the addition of a bionic intelligence not yet achieved through the evolutionary process.
Out of this disillusionment was borne the Institute for the Advancement of Humans as Marine Mammals (HAMM's). This subset of humanity sees value is the development and redevelopment by humans of the capabilities lost in the evolutionary process. The limits of free swimming and diving having been reached the human has been aided by the snorkel, air breathing scuba, mixed gas scuba, mixed gas rebreathers, the potential of the flooded lung, and the ultimate addition of an artificial gill. An evolutionary path which enables disabled and aging humans to enjoy the full sea appears to be one worthy of the time and talents of researchers and developers.
But we must now face a new disillusionment in the form of robot as marine mammal or robot as human as marine mammal, or robot as amphibious mammals -- and of greater concern robot as a virtual reality super mammal. The lead illustration of this essay seems to be a picture of a robotic tuna which was developed at MIT, disporting itself in the wild Atlantic sea. It is in fact a synthetic picture which adds a photograph of the MIT robot to a photograph of a fully arisen sea. Pixel by pixel the digital artist blends these two pictures so that the body politic will believe that this cybermammal transformation has already taken place and that the ocean has become one more cyberspace.
All too soon we shall meet; families of Flippers, some poor humans as marine mammals, and schools of robotunas; in a Cyberpunk novel. As in all cyberpunk literature there will be a conflict between these three species (Marine mammal as human, human as marine mammal, and robot as supermam - (yes, that is not a typo, it is mam not man.) In this novel the humans will, of course, be annihilated and the dolphins will be elevated to the role of top level royalty, relying on the robot to supply the intellectual and physical substance to sustain that dominion.
This might well be a self fulfilled prophecy if the world does indeed fall for this post-modern sophistry and does not recognize cyberpunk literature for what it is - the literature of the ignorant, deluding themselves in the belief, that they are wise.
Vanity, vanity all is vanity saith the preacher (Ecclesiastes that is). Moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. So tune into The Common Heritage and learn how to