Gibson lives in a world that is created with the collision of the technological realm and the natural realm. His fictional tale has enormous implications for our current culture. Specifically, in chapters 1-9 I was struck by how surprising the natural world seemed to the characters who are accustomed to a technological culture.
Finn points a horse out to Case and says, "It's a horse, man. You ever seen a horse" (Pg. 88)? This seems like a ridiculous question to be asking, but in a world that sees a collision of the natural and unnatural worlds, Gibson is making a point that the natural becomes almost obscure.
The ramifications of an increasingly technological world are innumerable, and we can see them in every aspect of our lives. From our GPS systems to our social networking tools, we are seeing technology replace what used to be accomplished in strictly the natural world.
Gibson creates an illustration of this collision between the natural and virtual world by describing a scene like this:
"Rain woke him, a slow drizzle, his feet tangled in coils of discarded fiberoptics" (Pg. 113).
With the natural process of rain and the unnatural and technological object of fiberoptics, Gibson is showing us that he sees the technological world and the natural world growing together.
This leads me to my question. What kind of challenges does the integration of the natural and technological world pose to our social interactions and our social structures?
The more common technology and simulators of real-life actions becomes in our daily lives, the less people will recognize real things or accept them as commonplace. For example, my little brother plays a LOT of Call of Duty. However, until about a year ago, he had never shot a real firearm, and he treated my bolt-action .22 with a mixture of trepidation and awe. It was rather jarring to me until I realized that I had been the same way not a few years prior - I had manipulated no shortage of virtual firearms, but that rifle was the first real one I had ever learned to operate, and despite the countless hours of simulations I had behind the trigger, I still had to learn to shoot and maintain it the -right- way. This is something that carries over to no end of "real" activities. Ask a 12-year old to grow a garden or catch a fish. Chances are he'll have no idea how to actually do it aside from what he had seen on TV.
ReplyDeleteSimulations, in the future, might provide a link between our social interactions in real life and in a virtual world, but at the moment, technology only serves as a replica of real life. It's imperative that we learn to live in both the real and virtual worlds as a result, and this will doubtlessly lead to two sets of social behavior etiquette, one for online and one off.