-
Essay / Analyzing human madness as described in the novel Neuromancer by William Gibson
Reatory and manipulationTo define information as a function of probability [...] implies that chance always already interpenetrates the model, because probability in as a concept postulates a situation in which there is no a priori way of distinguishing effects extrapolated from known causes from those generated by chance conjunctions. Like information and noise, pattern and chance are not opposites divided into a dichotomy but interpenetrating terms joined in a dialectic [...] the concept of information is generated from the interaction between the model and chance. (Hayles 190-191) Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get the original essay This quote from Hayles reminds me of how the artificial intelligences in William Gibson's novel Neuromancer were sometimes unable to persuade or manipulate certain people by due to chance. Out-of-character emotional actions and decisions that humans can make. If information is just a pattern that has no meaning and only a probability function according to Hayles, then Wintermute is a decoder of these patterns. However, Wintermute's power has limits since he does not see chance "interpenetrating" with information. As Riviera says of the novel: “[Wintermute] can't really understand us, you know. He has his profiles but they are just statistics. You may be a statistical animal, darling, and Case is nothing else, but I possess an unquantifiable quality by its very nature” (Gibson 219). This scene supports Hayle's belief that information can never be separated from the medium or body that imagines it. in the first place. True power and manipulation of information over people requires not only their profiles, mathematical statistical predictions of how they will act, but also knowledge of "randomness", the emotional and imaginative nature of human beings. Wintermute repeatedly fails to accurately predict human patterns. almost ruining his plans and making him aware of the limits of his power. For example, when Molly ignores Wintermute's instructions to go in a specific direction and almost gets killed by Ashpool, Wintermute in Finnish form says, "You guys [...] are a pain. The Flatline here, if you were all like him, it would be really simple. It's a build, just a bunch of ROMs, so it still does what I expect it to do. My projections said there wasn't much chance of Molly wandering onto Ashpool's big outing” (Gibson 205). Here, Wintermute seems to admit his limitations in reading people and disdain that people are not just information like models. Wintermute has no sure way to predict the future from information patterns because it lacks the emotional, irrational, and spontaneous characteristic of humans. Wintermute is pure logic and mathematics but has no creativity and this lack of this half of humanity results in a loss of power and control over what happens. In comparison, the opposite of Wintermute is the other artificial intelligence Neuromancer, who attempts to manipulate reality. in a more subtle way, appealing to human emotions such as love and hate. The information patterns he sees inhibit the more human emotional side. When Case asks Neuromancer if he killed Linda, his girlfriend, he replies, “No. I saw his death coming. Patterns that we sometimes imagined detecting in street dance. These models are real. I am sufficiently complex, in my..