Greg Egan pt. 3

Dear Diarrhea,

Today's topic is Greg Egan's short story The Extra, a futuristic take on The Picture of Dorian Gray that explores the the dangers of pride, the unexpected consequences of untested technology, and the moral and social implications of breeding organ donors. The story features the extras, but in a far less advanced stage than in Closer.

The story follows the life of the wealthy but aging playboy Daniel Gray who indulges in all manner of debauchery, and consequently his body is in increasing need of maintenance. However, a solution to his problems is at hand: from early in his life, he has exploited the existence of a technology that enables the creation of live organ donors called extras through a genetic modification of human embryos. These extras have minimal awareness and intelligence to the point that they are considered mere empty bodies; thus, the moral reprehensibility of their use as carriers of livers, hearts and lungs for those who can afford it is much less connected to the issue of personhood.

So, thanks to the existence of extras cloned from his genes ten years apart by the dozens, Gray has a virtually unlimited pool of virtually unused organs of various ages available at his leisure: liver failure, lung cancer, heart conditions are no more a concern for him than the simple failure of an expendable household appliance.

However, the overall condition of his body cannot be sustained through the constant changing of individual organs; alongside health issues, there is the matter of fitness: muscle transplants, fat reduction, and so on. Research is ongoing for a simpler solution, a single transplant replacing the myriad of tinier individual fixes. If it was possible to transfer Gray's consciousness directly to a healthy extra, then all he would have to do in order to sustain his decadent lifestyle beyond the capacities of his body would be to occasionally switch to a new one.

With this idea on the table, the social stigma on extras enters into the equation. Extras are not considered people: they have just enough cognitive abilities to manage motor functions, but beyond that, they are designed to be as empty as possible. Since they are used as organ donors and not substitute bodies, the idea of Gray in an extra body is shocking, offensive, and disorienting. That Gray not only embraces but seeks this kind of reaction could be considered a redeeming quality: pushing the boundaries of social taboos may well pave the way to further social and scientific advances.

With a pending lawsuit against Gray, the issue of legality also comes into play. Since the law hasn't had any reason up to this point to acknowledge extras as legal entities, it doesn't; Gray plans on blatantly exploiting that, showing up at court with a new body and taking the old body with the mind of an extra in it. With no laws and no precedent, the court will have no choice but to charge the extra, leaving Gray alone. Again, as with the social stigma, this kind of selfish exploitation of legal loopholes might be considered positive: by setting the precedent of a full consciousness in an extra's body, the law will be forced to change in accordance and set the criteria for legal personhood along something other than biological markers.

However, the story doesn't follow that side of the issue; we are merely made aware of Gray's plans to taunt society and evade the law, we aren't shown the execution of these plans. As the transplant finally takes place, the narration passes to a fragment of Gray's consciousness that remains in the old body; while the operation was apparently successful, with the new body exhibiting all of the old Gray's traits, the old body contains a consciousness that has the memories and mental faculties of Gray combined with the extra's grasp of motor and speech functions. In effect, the narrating Gray is trapped in a defunct body with no way to communicate his travesty.

So there you have it, dear Diarrhea. The story of a corrupt soul's quest for immortality foiled by imperfect technology--a perfect rip-off of Dorian Gray, except with science instead of higher powers. Does this story have a moral? Yes. It's not that these proposed technological advances have a negative impact on society, as more conservative minds might read; rather, it is that moral bankruptcy coupled with unlimited resources is bound to cause trouble.

With that charming gem of ersatz truthery, I leave you until next week.

So long,
-Márton Körtesi.

Greg Egan pt. 2

Dear Diarrhea,

I will continue discussing the interconnected short stories of Greg Egan today.

Last time, I talked about Learning to Be Me, which discusses the merits of and the questions regarding identity raised by the Ndoli device. As outlined in last weeks post, this device follows the neural activity of the biological brain from birth onwards, creating a perfect duplicate that can take the place of the brain without any external signs of change. This week's post will be about the short story Closer, in which the Ndoli device is not itself the object of scrutiny, but rather a mere facilitator of an otherwise impossible experiment.

As with many of Egan's short stories, the plot of Closer depends on concepts whose explanation is focal to the development of tension, leading to text that is more like an internal monologue than a conventional plot-driven storytelling narrative. The focal issue being discussed is the question of perception and consciousness, and whether it is possible or desirable to truly understand someone else's perspective--if such even exists. For the reader to understand the weight of this solipsistic notion and the necessity of the solution process in which, among others, the Ndoli device plays a significant role, the narrator has to outline his inner struggle through a whole lifetime leading up to the relationship in which the chance for resolution finally surfaces.

The narrator's relationship with a woman is completely altered by a chance to meet her consciousness halfway--through an experimental technique involving the modulation of the Ndoli devices, two identical gender-neutral extras (empty human bodies) and two identical rooms, two people can share the exact same experience for eight hours. Their devices are altered so that the consciousness experiencing those eight hours is exactly halfway between the two participants' individual consciousnesses. To the narrator, this carries great impact because while it doesn't completely give him someone else's perspective, it gives him a perspective other than that of his own--or rather, as the narration of the eight hours implies, a perspective both of his own and of his girlfriend's.

In the end, though, it is posited that intimate and thorough knowledge on the level of immediate thoughts is disruptive, if not to all relationships, then certainly to the kind, such as the one between the narrator and his girlfriend, that is built on the enjoyment of mystery. This may seem a redundant statement, of course, but I think that the enjoyment of mystery can be translated comfortably as the quest towards intimate knowledge--once the quest has been fulfilled, the relationship has reached its natural end.

I guess that's it for today. Until next time, I'm unreservedly yours,
-Márton Körtesi.

Greg Egan

Dear Diarrhea,

Today I'm going to start covering some of the post- and transhumanist fiction I've been perusing of late. First up is a handful of short stories.

The interconnected short stories Learning to Be Me, Closer and The Extra, by Greg Egan, appear to take place within the same universe, although at various times in that universe, not depicting a linear progression or any narrative relationship other than the consistency of the framework. Each one is centered around a unique issue of the nature of identity, perception, society and interpersonal relationships.

Learning to Be Me posits the emergence of a device, dubbed the Ndoli device, that maps and mimics the neural activity of the biological brain, and that can eventually, with enough preparation, be switched with the biological brain without any inconsistency in the outward perception of personality or intellect. The short story is written in a first person narrative, taking the narrator, one of the first generation of humans born into the use of the Ndoli device, through the process of life as altered by the presence of an electronic back-up brain.

Questions are raised: whether the two identical intellects of the biological brain and the attached Ndoli jewel are philosophically and legally the same, or just merely identical twins with a completely overlapping pool of experiences and thoughts; whether the feeling of nervousness upon the coming switch to the jewel is just the diminishing but not completely vanished social imprint of a pre-Ndoli environment on the narrator; and whether the questionable revelation of the narrator's identity as the jewel instead of the biological mind sheds any of the story in a new light.

While Egan doesn't strive to answer these questions, he does at least ask them, and I feel that he approaches the subject in the exact manner I would want a curious mind to approach it. He poses those questions that spark further curiosity in the subject instead of searching for conclusions based in our current understanding of self. I take this open-minded approach as an implicit endorsement of posthuman ideology, with reservations pending suitable answers to the issues raised.

I take my leave for now with that, and I'm going to go on to take a look at The Extra next week. The third week of Greg Egan will cover Closer, concluding that section.

May thoughts of warm embrace feed your soul,
-Márton Körtesi.