Alzheimer's and Algernon

If there was one disease that was truly terrifying from a philosophical perspective, Alzheimer’s is an indisputable contender. Neurodegenerative, the disease slowly but surely robs victims of their dignity, destroying the very essence that years of invaluable experience culminated into. 

Philosophy takes for granted that the human condition cannot meteorite: presumably our minds continue to pulsate and change, and that these pulsations result in our very being – a unique entity within the blistering swarm of the universe. Philosophers took for granted that uniqueness could not somehow be degraded from its essence, that it was an all-or-nothing relationship: existence or death. Yet Alzheimer’s has proven otherwise, manifesting into one of the slowest and cruelest ways of degeneration. Most other diseases eat away at your body, some perhaps resulting in insanity or dementia; Alzheimer’s, however, simply does not destroy you physically, but it must also shed away your personality and mind until nothing is more than sensationless pulp. 

There have been books written and films made about Alzheimer’s – perhaps the most famous and critically acclaimed is Away from Her – but I have always been curious about the sort of despair and devastation a patient feels when the very characteristics that defined them become impossible to act out. Most of the time the patient is unaware of their own degeneration; some know their predicament, and that it is only a matter of time before their own sense of being is really no more. I know families of patients perhaps suffer more than the patient (especially since in the worst stages, they are blissfully ignorant of their state of being), but I do wonder – what on earth is it like to suddenly realize you’re falling down, down and down from a pillar you once proudly stood upon, the pillar which effectively defined your own existence? 

Such is a question beautifully and poignantly explored in the novel Flowers for Algernon. The premise is this: a mouse, called Algernon, successfully undergoes experimental surgery to artificially improve its intelligence. Charlie, a mentally disabled man, volunteers for the treatment in hopes of becoming more intelligent. Charlie’s treatment is also successful, and he becomes exponentially intelligent to the point of outclassing the finest minds in the world. However, Algernon begins deteriorating, and very soon it’s obvious that Charlie will also meet the same fate. 

The book is exceptional not only because of the moral and ethical dilemmas it presents such as treatment of the mentally disabled or how academia interacts, but especially by how it is written and presented. The book’s structure is one of a journal, supposedly maintained by Charlie when he first opts for the treatment all the way to his fantastic intellect and then to the beginnings of his decline, where he eventually stops writing because he is afraid and devastated by the idea of documenting his deterioration any further. 

I can only imagine that perhaps Charlie’s fall from intellectual greatness experience is perhaps analogous to that of an Alzheimer’s patient. For the first time in his life, Charlie exudes a intellect so utterly spectacular, so magnificent that he truly feels a sense of pride in himself. However, the side effects of the experiment kick in, and like the plaque and dying neuron effects of Alzheimer’s Charlie finds himself losing more and more of himself everyday; more horrifying is the prospect of falling from greatness and back into state even more mentally handicapped before, and possibly brain death for the matter. These last journal entries are devastating: the anger, the despair, the desperation, and finally the acceptance – there’s almost a cruel irony that the greatest genius on earth should perish as a vegetable. Understandably, Charlie leaves his journal before he begins documenting in a more degenerated state. This last move is Charlie’s desperate effort to maintain himself somehow, to leave a documentation that chronicles the intelligent Charlie did exist, and while his now handicapped self can still remember such; further recording would only show how this Charlie was replaced by another Charlie, and another, and so on. Denial? Perhaps, but in his situation wouldn’t you opt for the same thing? 

Perhaps a more interesting question to consider is this: is there a certain point where our physical or mental degeneration effectively makes us a completely different person than previous? That is, is our existence an all-or-nothing or gradient? With Alzheimer’s, I feel that the all-or-nothing model fails to account to the nuances and accumulating changes an afflicted individual encounters; many of the earliest symptoms are mistakenly attributed to senility, but as the symptoms become more and more frequent it becomes obvious that something is amiss – and that’s when the diagnosis comes in (interestingly, doctors can only confirm Alzheimer’s by autopsy). By the time a diagnosis is made, it’s only a matter of time until the person you know and love is no longer there, effectively snuffed out of their existential essence and ghost. 

The analogy of Flowers for Algernon to Alzheimer’s is nothing else than my own projecting. I’ve never had relatives or friends afflicted with the disease; the closest experience I had with Alzheimer’s was back in July 2009 when I volunteered at an Alzheimer’s clinic, where I simply kept patients company and interacted with them so they wouldn’t be left all day to watch nothing but television. Yet I still wonder the sort of distress (or lack of) one feels when slowly but surely they become less and less themselves. 

I recently read a Times magazine article titled “Alzheimer’s Unlocked.” Detailing current developments and advances against the disease, the article optimistically stated that with recent medical imaging techniques like advanced MRI machines, doctors and researchers were now able to visualize pieces of anatomy and physiological pathways in the brain that before, were completely out of the question with traditional dissection techniques. The biggest hope is that more avenues of research will open up, and that now we can really see what else we might have missed in researching the disease: traditionally, many believe that plaques formation corresponded to Alzheimer’s development, but to what extent this relation is (direct or indirect) or if there is another (or several other) physiological mechanisms at hand is the more recent question at hand. 

Surprisingly, the article did not state perhaps why Alzheimer’s occurs in the first place, beyond the physical fact that some are genetically predisposed to it. I wonder, though, if the disease itself is perhaps a natural, inherited mechanism to shut down the human body when it begins to seem that our physical forms are no longer reproductively viable or as energetically sustainable – possibly, Alzheimer’s is almost a way of slowly shutting down a physical system that is simply too old. 

This is all theory, of course. The only basis for it is that Alzheimer’s is considered a disease of the elderly, while other diseases like Parkinson’s, Tuberculosis and cancer can afflict anyone at any point in life, and afflictions at birth such as Down Syndrome are the effects of genetics seen immediately. Perhaps Alzheimer’s is just a genetic affliction triggered by the mere physical state of being elderly, and that if certain aspects of the environment trigger chronic stress (a constant firing of the sympathetic nervous system with little chance of the parasympathetic nervous system to balance it out) only accelerate the aging process, Alzheimer’s manifests as a way to simply shut down the now overworked body. 

We may not know for many more years, or very easily a finding could reinforce or completely disprove what I’ve just out here. However, I’m sure we all agree on one thing – that Alzheimer’s unequivocally destroys any sense of being we might have ourselves, ghost and all. 

Recommended Reading

• Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes

• Away from Her – Roger Ebert movie review

• Charly – Roger Ebert movie review

• Away from Her – A.O. Scott movie review

• New Research on Understanding Alzheimer’s – Alice Park of Time Magazine

Scene Dissection - Haru Introduction from "The Cat Returns"

There’s a common conception that anime productions tend to take short cuts in order to reach deadlines and keep costs to a minimum, thus resulting in rather minimal facial and body expressions as well as jumpy animation as a whole. This isn’t entirely unfounded – I’m sure many of you have had your share of anime where the production team very obviously ran out of money – and oftentimes, it’s best for artists and animation students to first learn the basics of depicting human emotions before simplifying their style into anime-influenced minimalism (back in my high school days, my art teacher commented that many portfolio graders of AP Practice of Art students’ work rarely gave out high scores for anime artists). 

Like all things, however, there’s always something that defies conception. In this case, the introduction of Haru in The Cat Returns is one of the best character animations I’ve seen in awhile. Without saying anything, all of her movements convey the sort of insecure high school girl not uncommon during adolescence, and even implies her relationship with her mother, who her friend is, and whom she quite fancies. Director Hiroyuki Morita clearly spent a lot of time defining and fleshing out Haru’s character to the extent that without saying anything, we know instantly what kind of person she is from the get go – uncertain, insecure, daydreamy, perhaps a bit passive and clumsy, and undoubtably a perpetual tardy. Here’s a video link for the scene and some following screenshots to illustrate this fantastic demonstration of excellent anime/animation: 

After seeing a hand go thump on the cow alarm clock, we see Haru still in bed and rolling over; however, she soon realizes she’s late and jumps out of bed. 

As she quickly (and messily) makes her room, we get a sense of what her room is like and just how rushed she really is (it might also be a hint how only a few seconds ago we saw her in pajamas, again emphasizing how pressed she is to get to school). 

Haru’s double take with the mirror is a notable directing choice: in the first screenshot we see her getting ready vigorously and run out of frame; in the second screenshot she’s run back to the mirror to double-check herself, making sure that, while still hasty, she still looks decent enough. It’s the double-check, second-guessing quirk of these two screenshots which is more or less prevalent throughout this entire introduction of Haru. 

We see Haru running around looking for her bento lunch box, and when she does she quickly puts it into her schoolbag standing up rather than bending over – all in an effort to make up for lost time getting to school. 

These screenshots are fantastic for a few reasons: foremost, it again reinforces Haru’s indecisiveness, and second because it establishes the sort of teasing relationship she has with her mother. There’s a moment where we can see Haru really wants to sit down have a bite but is conflicted about being tardy; she first looks intrigued, then sort of painfully conflicted before grimacing and running out, and finally exclaiming at her mum for not being unfair in the sort of “too bad you can’t have some of this delicious breakfast like I can hee” teasing. 

This is a nice establishment shot of Haru running down the street, and sort of the span and distance from her house to school (it’s also a subtle implication of why she panicked upon realizing the time – it’s a pain to be in a rush, nonetheless a long distance to where you need to get to). 

These two screenshots are a nice detail about how rushed Haru is. In the first picture, we see that she’s looking forward; in the second, we see that she abruptly turns to cut through the bushes, undeniably trying to minimize the time it takes to get to school. 

Of course, with any “unpaved” short cut, getting caught in a branch is possible as seen with the above screenshots. We see Haru quickly swiping away the branch, probably not thinking about a possible rip that could happen if she wasn’t careful or just unlucky. 

We see Haru running at full speed, and again finds herself in mishap when her rushing and inattentiveness to certain aspects of the environment causes her shoe to get caught on the sidewalk and removed. The last two screenshots are a nice illustration of Haru’s speed/running, as she has trouble stopping herself due to momentum. 

In her panic, she tries to maintain some dignity by skipping towards her shoe (possibly, she may trying to not get her sock dirty). 

As luck as it, a baseball team is taking a jog and blocks her path. We see her meekly trying to get through, but it’s obvious that the team is oblivious to her pardons (they probably can’t hear her either), and she soon gives up trying to get their attention in exclaiming “oh no!" 

Now at her classroom, we see Haru trying to sneak in inconspicuously…

…but again to her luck, she’s caught by the teacher and immediately stands up obediently. There’s not an ounce of relaxation, and there’s a great deal of nervousness conveyed by how stiff her shoulders are and how straight (and quickly) she stands up. 

These two screenshots illustrate immediately who is Haru’s friend in the class, who merely comments "caught again” and does not laugh at Haru, merely smiling in the sort of exasperated manner one does when both pitying and chuckling at a good friend’s mild misfortune. Also, without seeing Haru’s face, we can infer her embarrassment by how stiffly she stands in the first picture, and how hunches and hangs her in a subservient-like manner int he second. 

In these five screenshots, we see Haru looking up shyly, and for a moment the camera switches to her POV and reveals that she’s focusing on a boy (who also happens to be laughing in good spirits). Clearly, his laughter bothers her particularly, and she hangs her head down even more in an attempt to curtail the embarrassment of having everyone focus on her and laugh about her tardy mishap. More importantly, it’s implied that she has a crush on the boy of interest, and his participation in the classroom laughter only reinforces her own insecurity. 

These last two screenshots demonstrate another aspect of Haru, which is perhaps one of a daydreamer as she stares out at the blue sky. Her friend, Hiromi, stands watching others play on the rooftop; and in yet another unfortunate chance, Haru gets smacked in the head with a ball, snapping her back into reality (Hiromi gets a good chuckle at the accident, of course – really who wouldn’t?)

As you can see (and probably even better from the video), the opening sequence and introduction of Haru reveals quite a bit of her character without explicitly saying so. It works well because of her body movement, and the sort of double-takes, hand swiping and head hanging she acts out – the sort of task the best animators can do without so much a blink of an eye. 

A similar (if not even better demonstration) of superb animation bringing a distinct character of life can be seen in this blog article about a pencil test by Milt Kahl and Ollie Johnston on the Disney film The Rescuers. The blog author, Jamaal Bradley, comments on the film: 

This clip is one of the reasons why I love animation. The ability to make a character come to life combined with technically achieving line control is amazing. Milt’s animation on Medusa is broad but not overwhelmed with obscure posing and he applies it twice by animating her reflection. Ollie just captures the subtle but unsure movements of a young person. Both characters are completely believable. This is animation at its best….at its best!

The clip can be found here, and I highly recommend anyone to take a look at it! 

The Cat Returns (猫の恩返し）ー A Lovely, Absolutely Lovely Film

If you find yourself troubled by something mysterious or a problem that’s hard to solve, there’s a place you can go, a place where…

There are few movies that are so lovely, so absolutely lovely that you simply can’t find anything negative to say about them once the credits begin to roll in. Studio Ghibli’s The Cat Returns is such a film, and I recently had the good fortune of watching it after a tumultuous couple of days. 

The Cat Returns is a unique feature in Ghibli’s filmography because it was neither directed by veterans Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro) nor Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies), but by Hiroyuki Morita who began as a animator in the 1999 Ghibli film My Neighbors the Yamadas. Additionally, The Cat Returns is an indirect sequel to a previous Ghibli film, Whisper of the Heart, for a unique reason: in Whisper of the Heart, a girl writes and draws out a story about a cat named Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, a sophisticated feline who comes to the aid of those who need it, and his companion Muta, a large white cat who’s insatiable appetite is just as big (if not larger). Baron proved to be so popular that Ghibli was requested by a Japanese theme park to create a 20-minute short starring cats, and though the project was eventually canceled manga artist Aoi Hiiragi was commissioned and created the manga equivalent of the short, titled Baron: The Cat Returns (バロン 猫の男爵), featuring Miyazaki’s envisioned characters Baron and Muta, as well as a mysterious antique shop. The “Cat Project” was then used as testing grounds for future Ghibli directors, intended to be 45 minute short, and eventually Morita was chosen to proceed with the project. However, over the course of nine months Morita translated Hiiragi’s manga story into 525 pages of storyboard, thus influencing Miyazaki’s producer Toshio Suzuki to green light a theatrical length release mainly because Morita’s depiction of Hiiragi’s female protagonist, Haru, felt genuinely real and believable. This makes The Cat Returns the second theatrical Ghibli feature to be directed by someone other than Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata, a definitively unique trait in Ghibli’s current filmography of eighteen completed films. 

The premise is this: Haru, a young high school girl who periodically runs late to school and is undeniably unsure of herself, rescues an unusual cat from getting hit while it crosses the street. It turns out she saved the Cat Prince Lune of the Cat Kingdom, and finds herself bombarded by (unwanted) generosity from the Cat King and his subjects as they fill her yard with catnip, her locker with mice and arrange her marriage to Lune. Distraught, Haru seeks out the Cat Bureau after hearing a kind voice suggest so, and finds herself in the company of Muta the obese white cat, Toto the raven, and Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, owner of the Cat Bureau. With the help of Baron, Muta and Toto (as well as others who I won’t name here), Haru finds herself in the heart of the Cat Kingdom and a great escape from the Cat King’s castle before she permanently transforms into a cat. 

Fanart by pinkfairywand on Deviantart

The story of The Cat Returns lends itself to such amicability and charm that it’s near impossible to feel miserable after watching seventy-five minutes of topnotch animation and beautifully harmonic music. Its primary appeal owes much to the protagonist Haru, whose uncertainty and insecurity ubiquitous to many high schoolers is animated so well and convincingly so that I’m sure many girls can easily identify with her minute quirks and mishaps, and the charming cat Baron, whose no-nonsense, straightforward and perfectly confident self could easily swoon anyone if he were any less anthropomorphized. Muta, of course, is the tubby sidekick with a snappy temper and gluttonous palate, seemingly selfish at first but soon revealed to be well-meaning at heart. 

While the story’s subtext is one of personal and emotional growth, The Cat Returns is so unassuming, so self-assured and so charming that frankly, the take away message is probably the least of your concerns after it all ends. It’s a simple story, and marvelously so: very much in the vein of classic stories of knights and heroines, The Cat Returns unpretentiously lays out a engaging narrative from start to finish, never once hinting the possibility of despair and unhappy endings; it all ends well – not in the typically sappy or grotesquely self-indulgent sort, but in the feel-good, down-to-earth mannerism typical of many Ghibli films like My Neighbor Totoro. There’s also a distinct element of magical realism prevalent throughout The Cat Returns, very much like the mythos and magic of Spirited Away and gaming-meets-real-life of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: in Morita’s film, there cats can go between their dimension and ours, and as Haru finds herself in a marital predicament she is invited and led to the slightly different albeit similar dimension of felines (it’s implied that portals can lead to and from human and cat dimensions, but not solely). 

For audiophiles of classical or film music, The Cat Returns is a must-own. Composed by Yuji Nomi (who always wrote the music for the indirect prequel Whisper of the Heart), this beautiful symphonic arrangement supplies tracks that are easily stand alone from the film and one another and support the animation without overwhelming the screen (a perfect example of auditory overload would be Star Trek in 2009). Those familiar with the music from Whisper of the Heart may recognize some similar motifs, which is a nice musical wink and a skillful, subtle addition to an already superb soundtrack. 

For animation enthusiasts, The Cat Returns delivers some of the finest to date. From the animalistic and anthropomorphic movement of felines to the subtle gestures, nods, twitches and shrugs of a young high schooler, it’s unsurprising that this film received the Excellence Prize at the 2002 Japan Media Arts Festival, an annual festival held by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs since 1997. There are some anime conventions here and there (but isn’t this always the case for all anime?) but the technical mastery of movement and expression distinguish The Cat Returns as an anime film that rises above many biases against conventions and stereotypes of anime. Nothing is jerky, abrupt, or feels inorganic – it’s all very weighted in reality, with an mixture of equally believable (or at least emotionally and aesthetically fathomable) magical realism and spectacular sights animation can achieve that live-action can only dream of. 

There really isn’t anything evil or malicious in this universe – plenty of monarchal misgivings, misjudgments and misunderstandings, but really which dynasty didn’t have their share? – so even in the moments of malice (and occasionally hilarity) The Cat Returns convinces us constantly that no matter what, everything will be okay. And indeed, the film delivers not only on its promise, but even more with its charm and inexplicable warmness that, in my case, washed away two days of troubles as if they never existed – the sort of gem that you’ll just have to experience for yourself. 

Some Screenshots from the Film

Music Links

• I’m Back, I’m Back Home Now!

• Baron

• Waltz Katzen Blut 

• Become the Wind - a wonderful cover by icsk8grrl of the song originally sung by Ayano Tsuji for the ending of The Cat Returns

Time of Eve (イヴの時間) - A Exploration of Our Humanity

In lieu of my discussion on “Ghosting,” a few weeks ago Allan Estrella recommended Time of Eve, commenting that the story was exceptional in exploring human behavior with respect to artificial beings – specifically robots and androids, or artificial “ghosts." 

The premise is this: in the (likely) future of Japan, androids have become as commercial as the cell phone and laptop. However, in order to maintain traditional social structure, humans and androids are discouraged from interaction beyond basic controls and commands, and androids are required to always maintain a halo-like projection above their heads so they may not be mistaken as humans. 

The main character, Rikuo, has taken robots for granted his entire life. One day, he discovers that his family’s home android, Sammy, has begun acting independently, and with his friend Masaki traces her movements to a cafe called "Time of Eve,” where any patron – android or human – is welcomed, and no one is discriminated against. 

From there on out, the story explores different vignettes of characters, from the hyperactive Akiko to the lovers Koji and Rina. The main conflict, of course, is how humancentric behavior arises in lieu of an intelligent, artificial being created by humans, and how such fears, prejudices, and pride can make us as inhuman as the androids we make out to be. In Time of Eve, humans commonly treat androids subserviently, coldly ordering them about without a single glance. Social stigma additionally deters people from acting kindly, graciously or gratefully to androids: the mere act of holding an umbrella over an android will get others pointing and laughing at you, derogatively labeling you as a dori-kei (“android holic”). Such behavior is encouraged non-governmental organization, the Robot Ethics Committee, which advocates segregation between humans and robots and the government to enforce such. 

At the heart of this conflict is one of emotional legitimacy: given that robots and androids are cognitively capable (if not more than humans regarding information processing) due to their code and algorithmic coding (and are thus self-learning, perhaps to an extent), does this mean they are capable of emotional display and reception?; and if so, should we consider such as legitimate? 

First, let’s consider living organisms, more particularly the vertebrates (reptiles, birds, mammals). Animals, while possibly exhibiting physical features or behavior similar to humans (Chimpanzees, for example), are not us: we cannot interbreed viable offspring with non-Homo sapiens, yet there is a tendency for animal lovers to anthropomorphize certain aspects of animals we observe (I’m particularly fond of Oxboxer’s description of cheetah cubs: “They look like the kid you hated in preschool because he got light-up sneakers three months before they were even being sold in the States, and lorded it over everyone until your friend colored his hair green with a marker during nap time.”) This is especially true for household pets, and lends us to distress whenever they pass away. Understandably, our tendency to become emotionally attached to animals is not unusual: their behaviors are invariably tied to their emotions, and while we cannot completely communicate or understand between them and ourselves the underlying attachment is one of organic core – our natural, organic ghosts, per se. 

Now let’s consider why we get attached to inanimate objects. Most of the time it’s because of nostalgia or keepsake, or perhaps even habitual. These objects are not human, yet somehow we find some sort personal meaning in them. For instance, for months I rode a 11-year-old bike that was too small for me, and had a broken front derailed, severely misaligned rim breaks, an old chain, and a steel frame so heavy I’m pretty sure my upper arm strength increased significantly just from lifting it on occasion; yet I never had the heart to abandon it because I had so many biking memories attached to it (I even named it “Bikey” to commemorate my affection). Eventually, I had to invest in a new bike because the effort of pedaling up and down hills with Bikey increasingly irritated the tendonitis in my left knee, and unless I wanted to continue half-limping on foot I knew it was time to put Bikey in the garage (for the record, I named my current bike “BB”, only highlighting another tendency of mine to become attached to objects otherwise inanimate). 

This leads us to the last level which is on the verge of the uncanny valley: an intelligent artificial being constructed by our own algorithms and for our own purposes. Assuming that A.I. are capable of self-learning to an extent, the conflict is now a question of whether or not our own emotional reactions to them and their’s to ours have true emotional weight, or if we should abide by our own logic and merely consider them derivatives of our own being, tools that are anthropomorphized very closely to our likeness but nevertheless derivatives. 

This latter mentality is presented in Roger Ebert’s review of Stanley Kubrick’s and Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, where he states: 

But when a manufactured pet is thrown away, is that really any different from junking a computer? … From a coldly logical point of view, should we think of David, the cute young hero of “A.I.,” as more than a very advanced gigapet? Do our human feelings for him make him human? Stanley Kubrick worked on this material for 15 years, before passing it on to Spielberg, who has not solved it, either. It involves man’s relationship to those tools that so closely mirror our own desires that we confuse them with flesh and blood…

Ebert brings up an interesting point, which is whether we impose and project our own beliefs and feelings upon what is otherwise an animate and well-programmed tool – a practice not too unsimilar to a child projecting their fantasies and adventures upon their doll or stuffed animal, for instance. There is also a question of a A.I. being so well-programmed as to detect our facial muscles twitch, contract and relax and react so appropriately human that they effectively trick us into believing their emotions are real, thus resulting in our illogical mentality of humanizing something that is nothing more than a extremely sophisticated tool. 

Do you remember that one that was constantly reading books? Well, when we got to the lab, the first thing the techs did was take apart its brain! It kind of seemed like that tachikoma liked it though. 

Oh, I see! Then, they were lucky enough to experience death…

Consider this: in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Major Motoko Kusanagi and her team at Section 9 work with A.I. tanks called Tachikoma. As the series progresses, the Tachikoma increasingly develop more and more distinct personalities and have increasing tendencies to act independently despite orders from their users. Troubled by this, Motoko eventually halts use of the Tachikoma’s and has them sent back to the lab for further testing. However, as the series progress and only three remaining Tachikoma return to help Batou (Motoko’s closest companion amongst the Section 9 members), they eventually sacrifice themselves in order to save Batou’s life; and as Motoko looks on at their remains, she acknowledges that she mistakenly had them put out of commission, and even ponders if they had reached the state of creating their own distinct ghosts. 

While these questions are interesting to mull over, I believe the more important question is how we behave to an intelligent entity that is otherwise unbounded by our biological, organic limits of the flesh. We can argue to the end of time whether or not an A.I.’s “emotions” are real or not, and there can really be no way of knowing for sure; what we can assess is our own reactions, feelings and behavior when confronted with them. 

For an analogy, let’s consider video games: I’m not going to argue whether or not the medium is an art form, but I think we can all agree that all video games offer a virtual simulation of something – fighting, adventure, strategy, interaction, etc. The virtual environment is the product of programmers piecing together polygons into what conceptual artists conceived and writers hoped to flesh out within the constructs of a console or computer; algorithms and codes allow players to do whatever they want within the confines of the programmed environment, and with nothing short of individual A.I. and environments aspects for us to talk to or mess around with. Now, logic dictates that these virtual environments are nothing more but gateways for temporal detachment from our immediate physical environment; yet I dare anyone to claim that they did not experience something while running through the desert’s of Red Dead Redemption or confronting the likes of Andrew Ryan in Bioshock. 

The process of creating a videogame may be the greatest and grandest illusion ever created, but when finished, it holds the capacity to grant us experiences we can never experience. Loves we have never loved, fights we have never fought, losses we have never lost. The lights may turn off, the stage may go dark, but for a moment, while the disc still whirs and our fingers wrap around the buttons, we can believe we are champions.

– Viet Le, “The Illusionist" 

Video game players will always invest a certain amount of emotions into any game they choose to engage in. Whether it be placing your heart on Pikachu in Super Smash Brothers Brawl or wondering when the hell the story in Final Fantasy XIII is going to actually become interesting, there is almost a guarantee that these games elicit some emotional reaction from us – excitement, fear, frustration, sorrow, these emotions are real to us. Whether or not the game A.I.s share such sentiment is irrelevant, for we can only truly account for ourselves, and ourselves alone. 

So perhaps a robot or android may create the illusion of seeming more human than they actually are, or perhaps deep down their circuitry they perhaps do care about how we feel – we will never know. We can account for our behavior towards such A.I., and consider what exactly we feel entitled to in our given society and culture. 

In Time of Eve, there is a distinct political and social structure that discourages people from acting humanely towards androids, who are governed by the Three Laws of Robotics: 

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Additionally, all androids in Time of Eve are required to always display a halo projection above their heads, a marker that determines their subservient status. Constant propaganda ads spearheaded by the non-governmental Ethics Committee claim that sociable interaction between humans and androids are unhealthy, will end in disaster and possibly lead to the end of humanity; and it is neither uncommon for android owners to toss luggage at them without so much of a glance or unimaginable thank you, less they be deemed dori-kei and face ridicule from their peers. To be blunt, there’s nothing short of social norms or policy that enforces human and android segregation. 

Stepping back, the social and political structures in Time of Eve are not so unlike a democracy that deems segregation a norm. The most obvious example is that of Apartheid in South Africa, where a white minority democratically voted for segregation and lacking civil rights to their native African country. It took years for the likes of Nelson Mandela and other activists to end political mandate justifying racism, mostly because for years the empowered, minority white South Africans considered the social and political barriers a norm: by virtue of politics beginning from colonial times, caucasian Afrikaaners were obviously quite comfortable with their perceived birth right; it didn’t matter that their comfort and political representation was at the expense of a color majority – they had politicians to back up their views, and democratically so because for years the majority black Afrikaans were deprived of citizenship. 

The argument can be made that because androids are not human, we cannot treat them like how we would treat other fellow human beings. Perhaps this would be convincing if incarnations of it beforehand had not be used to justify injustice between fellow human begins beforehand: African slavery, European colonialism, the Holocaust – all atrocities against human rights twisted humanity into a sort of superiority complex, rationalizing entitlement rights groups of people believed they had above others. Furthermore, this argument structure again ignores the most pressing issue – how we behave as humans when dealing with individuals we are unfamiliar with. 

* Some may strongly stand by the divide between organic and inorganic beings, and state that since androids are artificial intelligence, we cannot equate such segregation to that between humans. If this is the case, then I offer this other example: if I were to equate androids to computers by virtue of them both being created as tools, our behavior is still indicative of ourselves at least. That is, if I take horrendous care of my MacBook and repeatedly drop it or fail to do simple maintenance on it, my MacBook may still operate and function but my carelessly reflects poorly of me regarding my behavior and lack of responsibility towards maintaining my computer; if I take excellent care of my MacBook (and I contest that I do), my MacBook may still operate and function but my maintenance and care for my MacBook reflects well of my abilities as a computer owner and responsibility towards it. 

In Time of Eve, policies and social structures against human-android interaction likely stem from public fear, distrust and insecurity culminating into a nationwide superiority complex, where it is absolutely normal for a person to feel superior than an android, regardless of the android’s intellectual and functional capabilities. As this negativity became more and more widespread, social structures morphed as well to accommodate such fervor, and eventually formed the policies which forbade human-android relationships from progressing into the uncanny valley of emotions and attachment. It’s considered taboo to humans to be humane to androids. Now given the social and political structures deeming inhumane behavior proper and normal, what does it mean when one chooses to or not abide by such norms? 

It takes no courage to act accordingly within social and political structures which provide you power at the expense of others’ dignity and civil rights; it takes an extraordinary person to break away from inhumane behavior otherwise deemed normal by a democratic majority, and especially speaks volumes about our ability to aspire towards a humanistic ideal above and beyond our dark, personal demons. Our emotions are our own, and if we feel an attachment to something otherwise illogical, then so be it – it is our right as humans, as well as our responsibility to act in the positive if we are to claim our rights to humanity. So if it means I’ll get laughed at for holding an umbrella over an android’s head, that’s fine by me. 

To be real is to be mortal; to be human is to love, to dream and to perish. 

– A.O. Scott

Recommended Articles

• A.O. Scott’s Review on A.I. Artificial Intelligence

• Roger Ebert’s Review on A.I. Artificial Intelligence

• ”The Illusionist“ by Viet Le

• Armond White’s Review on District 9

• ”Not in defense of Armond White“ by Roger Ebert

• District 9 Soundtrack - Main Theme by Clinton Shorter

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*Edit @ 9:41pm - I forgot to add an important paragraph. It is italicized and is marked by a *

The Impossible Panacea

One of the things I worry about is the idea that a single technological innovation will save the world from all our troubles. Not too long ago Roger Ebert posted an interesting video about Solar Roadways, a project which essentially replaces all traditional asphalt with solar panels in order to generate and meet energy needs. 

I commented about the potential problems the project might have – from individual circuits within each panel to maintenance and so on – and received a response from another who stated that as a working scientist, they truly believed that solar energy was the only way to go in order to solve the world’s problems from energy to even famine (for some odd reason, our comments are no longer visible, so this recap is purely from memory from over a month ago). 

Hearing comments like these worries me because it entails a myopic understanding of technology and its inner workings. For centuries, humans have aspired towards the one remedy, the one cure, the one anything that would solve all of our problems, and invariably these brilliant innovations had their share of additional, unforeseen problems as well (may of which I’ve previously talked about here). 

Not to say that we shouldn’t be optimistic about human tenacity and innovation, but there’s a need to be realistic as well. These days, I spend my time around too many engineers to not think about how something new might have some issues, and how those issues could (or couldn’t) be resolved with what technology currently allows us to address. 

Say, for instance, the solar road takes off (and I surely hope it does) – what could possibly happen? Given that each panel has complex circuitry, that means that there’s a higher chance for something to wrong by virtue of problems/issues being a function of complexity (for math nerds, we could even write this as FCUK(complexity)*). This also means that road workers will require extra training, which could possibly be more expensive for companies and contractors specializing in road work (or even the government, which would mean tax dollars). One of the nice things regarding asphalt is that road maintenance is relatively easy since it’s a durable-enough material; sure you’ll get the occasional pot holes and fun stuff, but you only need to re-lay asphalt every few years or so. 

To point being is that no single piece of technology or scientific innovation can truly be without its trouble and be 100% guaranteed to completely change how the world turns and functions. In a ideal world, I’d love to agree with the sentiment that solar power can possibly solve at least 95% of the world’s problems somehow. Solar power cars, solar power roof tiles, solar power generators, solar power laptops… the possibilities seem endless, right? 

The only downfall to this is that unfortunately, a subset of the world’s population lives in weather conditions to Seattle, where it rains at least 90% of the year (hyperbole not guaranteed) or likewise areas where the sun doesn’t shine like the golden coast Katy Perry seems to enjoy popping about so much these days. Not to mention infrastructures that may not even allow for nice ol’ contractors to go in and blow up, given cultural sensitivities and sacred buildings and all that jazz. Personally, I don’t think someone would be all too ecstatic that their famine issue might be resolved if you blow up their sacred burial ground for your solar power project. 

The slightly hyperbolized example set aside, we have to be realistic whenever something new comes up, and it is not realistic to say “this ___ will solve all our problems, if only ____!” Everything is a collective, singular components making up the whole and whole producing the singular components, and so on. We can’t realistically proclaim a something will cure everything simply because everything consists of many somethings. Watson Crick’s belief that genetics determine everything ignores all environmental conditions that may bar a prodigy from ever reaching their full potential (or even living long enough for the matter); Raymond Kurzweil, as well as other Singularity movement enthusiasts, believe that a select few of technological geniuses can affect nations without getting into politics at all; and so many other innovators who believed they held the key to solving everything – and I mean everything – with the utter confidence that tomorrow would have few to no problems at all. 

We have to be realistic: problems exist because it is the physical construct of our world, from atoms to electron to energy to mass – there’s no absolute good or bad without the other; that is to say – if we didn’t have problems, how could we know what we had was actually good to begin with? 

Perhaps it’s the human condition to continuously try to overcome limits and barriers that come our way. Pessimists will unrealistically proclaim it’s all pointless; optimists will unrealistically elicit it’ll all be over soon; and pragmatist will acknowledge it’s just another step at a time, towards a different future than what we have at the moment. 

*I really hope a dyslexic child doesn’t read this sentence.