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NEUROMANCER

                                             September 17, 2010

William Gibson's Neuromancer (1982)
was an odd mix of the aggressively
cyncial and the strangely romantic.

Beneath it's icy crome finish was
a vision of humanity inconsistent
with the idea that the spirit is
an information phenomena.

Consider the handling of flatlining:

When you are in the realm of the
Neuromancer, your brain waves blank
out, because your spirit has gone
elsewhere.

  There's a vision there of the
  unique, monatomic human spirit,
  lone, authentic, un-copyable...


  They have technology to support a
  true independant computer
  intelligence, but a human being
  can not be translated into one:
  consider the sad state of "The 
  Dixie Flatline"                      



                                            But it is interesting that
                                            even this early in Gibson's
                                            writing, he was already
                                            undercutting the image of
                                            the ace computer hacker.

                                            The big contribution that
                                            Case makes to the caper is
                                            not any brilliant feats of
                                            finger twiddling.

                                            Rather, he makes a speech:

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