Cyberculture in Film/title> <style type="text/css">  </style> </head> <body> <div align="center"> <table width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td><div align="center"><H1>Cyberculture in Film</H1></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td><div align="center">Prosthetic Memory </div></td> </tr> </table> <table width="100%" border="1"> <tr> <td width="12%" ><p align="center">Surf the Site:</p></td> <td width="88%" rowspan="8" ><p>Prosthetic Memory and Identity</p> <p><em><img src="total_recall.gif" width="416" height="573"> </em></p> <p>A recurring cyberculture theme found in fiction seems to be the idea of prosthetic memory. Can memories be implanted into a person/cyborg/robot and made to seem so real that the being is fully convinced that everything actually happened to them? Since memories and experiences shape our lives and behavior it is an important subject to consider and in this section we will explore the hypothetical answers as explored by fiction.</p> <p> The first movie under the microscope will be <em>Blade Runner,</em> a classic directed by Ridley Scott in 1982. In this movie there exists two types of people, normal people and cyborgs called replicants. The newest type of replicant is a prototype called Rachel, who doesn’t know that she is a replicant because she has been given memories by Tyrell Corporation, the producer of the replicants, in order to make her seem all the more lifelike. A blade runner is a special type of officer who can identify and “retire” replicants if something has gone wrong. Deckard, the main character in <em>Blade Runner</em>, comes into contact with Rachel for the first time when he gives her a Voigt-Kampf test. This test is designed to identify replicants by monitoring pupil dilation responses to questions asked by the examiner. In this scene Rachel out does any preceding replicant by lasting a hundred questions before Deckard is fully able to identify her as one. We find out subsequently that it generally takes only 30 questions before cover is blown. Rachel has no idea she is a replicant until she hears Tyrell telling Deckard that she has been outfitted with memories and is the newest prototype. We see that the reason she doesn’t know she is a replicant is the memories of childhood and the pictures she was given of a fictitious past. Rachel later goes to Deckard’s place to prove she is a human by bringing the pictures and stories of childhood, but is shocked when Deckard can finish the memories. She leaves completely flustered, but returns later and starts playing piano. Deckard sits and tells her that she plays beautifully. It appears that there is an important point being made here. Rachel never really had piano lessons, but was instead equipped with memories of them and thus gained the ability to play beautifully. The first question I would put in the reader’s thoughts would be is it worse to have this prosthetic memory? Rachel plays piano just as well as anyone who actually had the lessons and the outcome is no different than if she had had the same experience as Tyrell’s niece, so the second question I would press is is it any different? In Rachel’s mind, before finding out the truth, she had been completely convinced that she had experienced a real adolescence. If this is the case, I maintain it is exactly the same as if she had. A method Rachel uses to prove her past is pictures. Although these pictures are from Tyrell’s niece, they provide Rachel with a way to recall memories. Is this really characteristic only of cyborgs with fake pasts? No way. Why do people have albums and albums filled with pictures? To recall the past. Generally people’s lives are incredibly busy, so it is impossible to remember everything momentous that happened. Pictures provide an escape from the present and a short trip to the past triggering feelings that the mind has associated with these times. Another lens through which to look at pictures has to do with childhood. The part of the brain which forms memories doesn’t develop immediately in a child, and can take a few years to fully start functioning. There is no other way to remember childhood than pictures and stories. In this way memory of early childhood in humans is a form of prosthetic memory. Replicants, in a way, are just humans who instead of not remembering childhood and being told what happened, are cyborgs who instead of having a childhood are implanted with memories of what “happened,” shaping who they are and how they act.</p> <p> We are confronted with the idea of prosthetic memory and of memory erasing in the movie Total Recall. There are two requirements for a memory in our lives today, the experience in which we participate and the recollection of that memory at a future time. In Total Recall the first step is completely skipped when Quaid goes to get a Mars implant. Even though he never actually experienced the memory it will be artificially inserted into his brain so to him it seemed like it actually happened. This process is actually very similar to Blade Runner’s replicants, however it takes one step further by saying now we can operate on a human brain and not just a cyborg. Quaid’s earlier memories were also erased by the agency, and even though he has crazy dreams about his former self he can’t remember them. This raises the issue of what is reality? Are the current memories of Quaid and his new life what he should hold on to or is the former life of Howser the direction he should take to reclaim his identity. The question is answered at the end of the movie when Arnold’s character announces that he is Quaid and not Howser, but how you feel about this statement is the real issue. On one hand his former identity, although lost forever, is the one he was born with and ultimately I feel should return. However, the prosthetic implants seem so real that how can he deny his memories, which seem so vivid. Maybe this shines some light on the fact that memories athough they are tools for remembering the past ultimately fail us in giving us a sense of identity. I think the way in which we use those memories to assert who we are by the actions we take is what defines our sense of identity.</p> <p> Another movie which adds to the hypothesis that it doesn’t matter whether memories are artificial or real is the movie The 6 th Day. The title of the movie has many implications especially since God created man on the sixth day. This movie tends to focus more on the issue of cloning, however when we are confronted with a system to take a picture of the brain through your eyes I think we need to focus on memory again. It is interesting that they refer to a picture of the brain leading to memories. When Arnold’s character is confronted with his clone, each one thinks the other is the clone because he can remember everything about the past. Even when the clone is revealed the clone with all his memories intact can not simply be cited as an imposter. He is very real and his experiences and memories give him his identity which he actively changes by helping the original. I feel like this point further explains that memories are the foundation that our identity is built upon, but that identity is formed through action.</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td ><div align="center"><a href="ai.html">Artificial Intellifence </a></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td ><div align="center"><a href="prosthetic.html">Prosthetic Memory</a> </div></td> </tr> <tr> <td ><div align="center"><a href="spectatorship.html">Spectatorship</a></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td ><div align="center"><a href="question.html">Questions We Must Ask Ourselves</a> </div></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" ><div align="center"><a href="links.html">Links</a></div></td> </tr> </table> </div> </body> </html>