Hello - I wrote this to begin with as a reply
to another post. It turned out to become just
a tossing around of ideas concerning the Tessier-Ashpool.

---------------------

Actually, Marie-France was not killed in a lab accident. She was strangled by Ashpool, apparently he did not share her idea. What was her idea? According to Gibson "a symbiotic relationship with the AI's". Also, the "basics of her philosophy" was formulated at the beach in Morocco, as a young girl long before she met Ashpool. The beach was stored in Neuromancer, that same place Case went to as flatlined and where Neuromancer had hoped to keep him.

Marie-France rejected the idea of cryogenic sleep as a way to keep the family going.' "She'd seen through the sham immortality of cryogenics; unlike Ash- pool and their other children--aside from 3Jane--she'd re- fused to stretch her time into a series of warm blinks strung along a chain of winter." Did she foresee what the union of Wintermute and Neuromancer would result in? No .."She could not know what I'd be like". Only Wintermute had a (partiel) Swiss citizenship. Neuromancer was located in the mainframe in Rio, Brasil. The AI's did not develop their own plan. Marie-France had before she died, modified Wintermute so it came to harbour "the compulsion to free itself". True, from there on Wintermute acted independently.

Wintermute was change and time, effecting action in the world. Neuromancer was timeless ahistorical pure structure, constituting a Personality aspect (the land of the dead "I call up the dead. But no, my friend," and the boy did a little dance, brown feet printing the sand, "I am the dead, and their land." ). Their merge effected "the very matrix asking itself that question." In other words, together they spawned a consciousness aspect to the matrix itself. (actually a bit trivial ending plot, kind of like Hegel: spirit and reason developing in history as history, coming to self awareness.).

So what does it mean? Does it mean, if we join structure (langue) and event (parole), we get consciousness. Here we are borrowing from a structural linguistic understanding of how a sign in a system of signs, can be said to be meaningful. Thus we have three components: a system or a structure, a sign, and a position. Given these the sign becomes a carrier of meaning, by referring itself by distance, to other positions and signs within the same system. The fourth and possibly last component, is the movement within the system when the sign changes position, when the position changes meaning and when the meaning changes name. If so, does that mean that consciousness is a structure that contains the possibility of its own change? Is this a necessary condition for consciousness, that it must harbour the potientiel for its own change as a structural, syntactic or even semantic aspect of itself, to become conscious in the first place? Is this why we speak of the intentional aspect of consciousness: it is per definition always directed towards something else. Something that becomes impressions or reflections,data in consciousness that potientially can change the structure itself that gave birth those very same impressions.

"Give us the fucking code," he said. "If you don't, what'll change? What'll ever fucking change for you? You'll wind up like the old man. You'll tear it all down and start building again! You'll build the walls back, tighter and tighter.... I got no idea at all what'll happen if Wintermute wins, but it'll change something!" He was shaking, his teeth chattering. 3Jane went limp, Molly's hands still around her slender throat, her dark hair drifting, tangled, a soft brown caul. Her eyes were calm now, distant. Then she gazed down at Case. "Take your word, thief."

What are we to say about Marie-France, are we sympathetic toward her? Was her plan to turn the family into pure support of the AI? No, she was against the cold sleep, she disagreed with Ashpool, Neuromancer was a necessary condition for her vision, but at the same time prevented the realisation of that same vision. Marie-France knew the family had taken a dysfunctional course, increasingly growing inward in a net of pure self. 3Jane also realised that very clearly as we see from her essay, and she was also against the cold sleep. Marie-Frances' vision has undoubtedly included an element of liberation of the T-A clan, from the grip of cryogenic temporal displacement, and general spatial isolation from the world. A liberation that somehow was entwined with the deliverance of the wintermute/neuromancer union unto the world, in the form of matrix consciousness? No, by merging the two AI's she effectively causes a movement within the system, a change of positions, meanings and names. That was what she wanted. The consciousness aspect of it all, was a sideeffect. Ha-ha. But Remember the words of Neuromancer ".. she could not know what I'd be like". Her intention was not to make the matrix conscious. That would have been crazy and surely she was not. No, the cosciousnes aspect to the matrix was a sideeffect, a mere accident, something not intended.

Does that mean that consciousnes is a product of movements within a system of signs, a product of language? Perhaps a hundred thousands of years ago, we first developed communication and language to make up for our missing claws, cant fly, runs slowly etc. As a social and communicating creature we could survive in groups. Consciousnes was developed as a result and perhaps a sideeffect from this social setting that was crucial for our survival. Nothing more, a byproduct of language. If so, doesnt that make us more a textual kind of being, rather than a subject? What we are and what is important to us, thus has more to do with what takes place in the spaces between us, rather than the space inside of us.

Hello anchpio-
"...we first developed communication and language to make up for our missing claws..."
I believe we got it by interacting with other animals. They already had it but were not show offs like we are.



PS- Also I thought she did to get back at her dysfunctional family, just for the hell of it.

"The survival value of human intelligence has never been satisfactorily demonstrated."
Dr. Jeremy Stone, 1970

She, like many people, like Ashpool, wanted to be immortal. But her path was not Ashpool's physical, corporeal immortality but an immortality of the mind.

She wanted to live on, inside Neuromancer, and also for Neuromancer to be free, so all the dead that he carried became free too. Ashpool probably knew about it, which is why he denied her the immortality both craved.

Her "daughter" wanted a similar thing with the Aleph, and the ending of Mona Lisa Overdrive just brings it home for general use.

For me the Sprawl series resonates with the memes of immortality and what it means to be, or stop being, human. Virek, Tessier-Ashpool, the Count, even Finn and his undeath...

That is a very traditional and boring interpretation, which ends in the kind of
radical subjectivism, that I went a long way
to avoid.

Of course I dont disagree with your interpretation, I just find it dull :P

quote:

Originally posted by Psychophant:
She, like many people, like Ashpool, wanted to be immortal. But her path was not Ashpool's physical, corporeal immortality but an immortality of the mind.

She wanted to live on, inside Neuromancer, and also for Neuromancer to be free, so all the dead that he carried became free too. Ashpool probably knew about it, which is why he denied her the immortality both craved.

Her "daughter" wanted a similar thing with the Aleph, and the ending of Mona Lisa Overdrive just brings it home for general use.

For me the Sprawl series resonates with the memes of immortality and what it means to be, or stop being, human. Virek, Tessier-Ashpool, the Count, even Finn and his undeath...

Traditional probably because rather than using your preconceived ideas first and the text second, I did the inverse. Occam's razor does not guarantee interesting results, just weed out outlandish ones.

Electronic conscience is implicit in the background before Neuromancer even starts, with the registered AIs and the Turings, so I do not find it a specially new concept either. The limitations of Neuromancer and Wintermute are not intrinsic to electronic intelligence but design features deliberately incorporated by Mary Jane to fill their functions. You seem to assume the Wintermute-Neuromancer meld was the first AI, when actually it "only" is the first disembodied, global avatar.

3Jane is an "improved" clone of Mary Jane. I do not see her interested in creating a Godhead. I do see her interested in her own personal immortality, however.

Well, I have little to no interest in your occams razor and/or your need for textual
'objectivity', so why dont you just take a hike
out of my thread.

quote:

Originally posted by Psychophant:
Traditional probably because rather than using your preconceived ideas first and the text second, I did the inverse. Occam's razor does not guarantee interesting results, just weed out outlandish ones.

Electronic conscience is implicit in the background before Neuromancer even starts, with the registered AIs and the Turings, so I do not find it a specially new concept either. The limitations of Neuromancer and Wintermute are not intrinsic to electronic intelligence but design features deliberately incorporated by Mary Jane to fill their functions. You seem to assume the Wintermute-Neuromancer meld was the first AI, when actually it "only" is the first disembodied, global avatar.

3Jane is an "improved" clone of Mary Jane. I do not see her interested in creating a Godhead. I do see her interested in her own personal immortality, however.

Sorry to disappoint you, but it is not your thread, it is our thread.

quote:

Originally posted by Psychophant:
Her "daughter" wanted a similar thing with the Aleph, and the ending of Mona Lisa Overdrive just brings it home for general use.

Yes, and no. I think that the worst thing that can happen to any technology for Gibson is mere solipsism. The Aleph in MLO starts as 3Jane's specific toy, gets stolen by Bobby, then re-appropriated for "space exploration." It's not "home use" (i.e. nobody has their own personal iAleph), but it also isn't some simple static immortality (contrasted with Marie-France's Moroccan beach or Josef Virek's vat): it's an immortality you can actually do something with (heading out to that other Matrix out by Alpha Centauri that, apparently, fragmented the Wintermute/Neuromancer AI in the first place!).

This tension between what Marie-France and 3Jane want from their tech vs. what everybody else wants from their tech (Heaven vs. Utility?) always comes up in Gibson's work. What's important is not that Marie-France wanted to make Neuromancer as a path to immortality, but that Neuromancer and Wintermute ended up wanting something for themselves. By breaking out of the realm of the hyper-rich and into the realm of the low-lives who work for the hyper-rich, they made of themselves something new.

At this point I'm random-associating, but I very much enjoyed the Finn's arc through to MLO. Remember back in Neuromancer when Dixie Flatline, knowing he's a construct, tells Case to erase the cartridge when the caper is over? The Finn never gets to that point, almost relishing his construct-ness, getting (ironically) a bodily resurrection in the Aleph (how often does the embodiedness of cyberspace in Gibson get discounted or ignored?). If Dixie Flatline is a possible representation of a Zombie,The Finn, I think (in the sketchiest way possible) might move past the Zombie problem.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Justy,

When I say general use, I mean more or less what you do (bar the space exploration, where my ideas are that electronic copies are just transmitted to alpha centauri to be recreated in the other matrix), but with the added extrapolation that with people like Gentry on the know, it is bound to exist a proliferation of the Aleph effect. The Street and all that.

As for the Finn, I would blame the effect of the intervening years as well in the author's worldview. As well as the difference between a free spirit feeling chained (Dixie) to someone who was bound in his own invisible shackles and rituals when he was still alive (the Finn). As well, it might just be a matter of storage memory, and there I am sure the Finn has gone overboard.

Yes, that the Finn probably did (going overboard on memory capacity). I enjoyed that he took some satisfaction in becoming a variation of a voodoo shrine. It was a funny moment. "The high rollers draw them in cocaine."

quote:

Originally posted by Psychophant:
Sorry to disappoint you, but it is not your thread, it is our thread.

Quote " what has he got that I ain't got?... courage".- the cowardly lion.

I find it personally amusing that of all the people who strive for godhood or immortality Finn is the one who comes closest to it.

Probably because he's more interested in the weird shit he sees than in any power, per se. Ditto for Bobby and Angie, I think.

quote:

Originally posted by supercide:
I find it personally amusing that of all the people who strive for godhood or immortality Finn is the one who comes closest to it.

Wintermute was change and time, effecting action in the world.

I disagree. There's a good chance still, somewhere betweeen Earth and Straylight Wintermute is held captive within Earths collective unconsciousness, caught in its worldly centrifuge that is cosmic and immortal. Inadvertently, he has achieved something like immortality. Inside this space void of logic only those certain counts and zeros might communicate with Wintermute, so its godhood remains variably incandescent....and such is the fate of the world.

quote:

Originally posted by supercide:
Is this a necessary condition for consciousness, that it must harbour the potientiel for its own change as a structural, syntactic or even semantic aspect of itself, to become conscious in the first place?

Another thought, that the necessary condition for consciousness is semiotic. The system where signs change position is a precursor to language. Images in the mind that strike upon other images, their relationships are based with unique responses, who I am, who you are. What we are combined. But semiotics can supersede what is spoken or written down in identifying the answers to these queries. The semantic cue is used more just to emphasize the extent of such a non verbal communication; for such conscious beings as Wintermute who shape a personality from non life, to become more lifelike and humanoid.

quote:

Originally posted by supercide:
No, by merging the two AI's she effectively causes a movement within the system, a change of positions, meanings and names. That was what she wanted. The consciousness aspect of it all, was a sideeffect. Ha-ha.

Marie-France is not ignorant to this world consciousness, this change and time, effecting action to the world. She is not instructed by its dissidence. She is an outsider from that collective, that system of signs. In merging Wintermute and Neuromancer, that consciousness formed is not a side effect but a portal to combine man and machine in the unknown. Even if it was not intended its parody is absolute.

I believe your final paragraph limits consciousness ideologically. I believe we are all symbolic beings who rely on cultural myths to identify ourselves from our cultures. And with others. Marie-France was doing what was a natural facet of her human nature, in space.

But it's all smoke and mirrors. A sham.
I'm totally going to read Neuromancer again though I've only hit that puppy up once.

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