It's really the Matrix

Who cares if there's actually a human brain in the machine? It's basically the Matrix, I realized, as I rode in to work today taking notes. I was going to get into the brain chemical evolution, the slow integration of machine into human body, the descent into machinery and the removal of all aesthetic requirement.

I finished reading WE, and it really is an amazing book, especailly from the time and place in which it was written. I recommend it as a must read; it's one of the few times I'd actually link to a store. I couldn't do Amazon, but then again, if this blog still exists a year from now and someone stumbles upon it, will the link still work? I think it doesn't matter because all links are ultimately perishable. Ebay/Half.com is a compromise, since it still has a glimmer of the original intent, that is, an online yard sale of sorts which to me is one of the best uses of the internet I can think of. Not to say Amazon isn't also a great site, it's just almost all book, movie, and music links are to that site. I zig where I can.

As the novel I would write and now probably won't started to form in my mind, I saw the accidental discovery of time travel and the introduction of a possiblilty that records could be better completed by traveling back in time. A delegation goes back and obtains better records. They arrive just as the last humans are hunted down. These humans have a piece of history not previously known because in their despair, at their extinction, they destroyed them. These time travelers were able to gain a copy because they were much more interested than the 'people/machines' that lived at that time.

In order to tell the long and evolutionary tale of humanity's descent, however, I realized I would have to tell it in vignettes, much the way the Animatrix short films did. Then I realized I was creating a world much like the world of the machines, only humans were not batteries, and the robots had human brains. I wonder if eventually the human brains would have been phased out as well, as technology improved. I would be a human conceit to assume that would not happen.

Also, in my mind, I had to justify the move into this direction. Again I ran up against Animatrix, because essentially the only driver I could think of was cheap, efficient labor in a capitalist society. This spawns entire projects to create the most efficient and least needy worker- primarily mechanical. Less emphasis is placed on art.

But then people must have the irrational, the artistic, the spiritual. Think of the world of Akira. There was a techno futuristic mystic and people followed him. Would this eventually cross into machinery?

The justification question is never answered in WE, it is only assumed that mechanization of human being is the best way to live. It is assumed that the Table of Hours, regimented schedule, and single minded compliance to the Benefactor is the best way to live. It is dictated to D-503 and he whole heartedly believes it. There is no 'why.' What WE doesn't and perhaps cannot explore is the rulers above him, the government that sets the rules, the system that pushes him round and round in a revolving pocket of air.

In writing about the Matrix I'm slightly reassured by the fact that in my world, the machines don't liquidate humans nor use them as batteries. However, the bodies are discarded once the brain is formed enough.

Also, as one of my characters, a leading character I want to use the name of the Nazi scientist who was Jewish and yet created the gas that would kill millions of Jews. This was written about in The Omnivore's Dilemma

Also, as a final note, this book will not be The Rise of the Machines, or at least, not the rise of the evil machines. There's always the robot gone evil scenario, but I want this theoretical course of history to be the stifling of humanity, and slow and consistent until eventually the descent is complete and there are no humans, no mistakes, and a contingency plan for everything.

In essence this novel is about me. My descent from feral to sophisticated. My great fear in doing so. My great fear of the unknown only because it is unknown and more so because it is desirable. Why it is desirable I'll not go into here.