Group A: Please respond by Friday at Midnight (about 1 page in Length)
Why do the intelligent bacteria in Blood music use the following syntax on p. 76 to communicate:
"Words communicate with *share body structure external* is this like *wholeness WITHIN* *totality* is EXTERNAL alike
...
YOU *interface* *stand BETWEEN* EXTERNAL and INTERNAL. Are they alike
...
Are OUTSIDE *share body structure* alike"
Even if you haven't read Blood Music yet you should be able to look at the quote an d formulate a response.
GROUP B: Please respond by Tuesday at 5pm (about 1 paragraph in length)
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I know we're supposed to write a page long response, but this is what I have so far. I'll post more as I analyze it a bit more. And when I get the book.
ReplyDeleteOne noticeable characteristic of this syntax right off the bat is the fact that it does not follow a normal sentence structure. This structure uses visual aids to disorient the reader and to create fragmented thoughts. In the whole excerpt, there are several repeated words such as internal, external, and alike that pushes the reader to contemplate on the connotations of these words. Capitalizing the words external and internal actually forces the reader to look at the INNER relations of the syntax and how the OUTSIDE influence affects the reader's ability to read the text. These capitalized words enables the readers to grab on to an idea to work with his or her reading of the excerpt as a whole.
Why the bacteria uses this syntax to communicate, I have yet to figure out. I don't have the book. I will next week though. Woops.
I haven't had a chance to read the book either, but I'll post what I've thought about it.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing syntactically I noticed was that the words capitalized are within, you, between, internal, and external. When put together, these words seem to connote the dual lives people sometimes live, how they perceive themselves to others and what they keep to themselves. Similarly, the use of asterisk makes note of what seem to be key phrases of what the bacteria are trying to convey. There seems to be a structure between the repetition of words and the use of capitalization and asterisk to create phrases within phrases, so by focusing on the specific uses, we are able to create many different meanings through the text.
As of yet, I haven't been able to read the book (I haven't been able to get it yet). But I'll return to this and post more when I've read the book and found a greater understanding of the context in which this phrase is used.
I think that Greg Bear is succeeding here in doing something that Stanislaw Lem did not succeed in doing with his bacteria. Bear's Bacteria do not sound human they sound like an other. Like something that is sufficiently inhuman, rather than like a human attempting to speak for the bacteria. Lem's bacteria which respond to the light with the words "Good Morning" disturbed me because they sounded too human. I wanted them to sound inhuman because they were supposed to be speaking from a nonhuman perspective. I wrote about this in my paper. It seems to me that Bear is addressing this issue. That he is attempting to make his bacteria sound inhuman.
ReplyDeleteThis question of the other is not a new one to literature. Often fables include an other in their stories. Consider for a moment the trope of the animal bridegroom which turns up in popular tales such as: "The Frog Prince" and "Beauty and the Beast" in these stories a disguised other is transformed into a human at the end. They often sounds somewhat human but as their origins are human that is to be expected.
Bear's story which deals with an other that is wholly inhuman (at least to begin with) must take this further and in giving the lymphocytes a voice which does not sound human he adds a much needed level of depth to these creatures. It is very hard to write an other which is understandable and yet sounds sufficiently inhuman. However, I think in the passages above Bear has managed to do so.
I'm so upset that I haven't been able to get ahold of this book, because after reading Dead Lines I'm totally hyped up about Greg Bear and want to read as much written by him as possible. A friend of mine is going to lend it to me as soon as he's finished, so I'll have to give the best stab at this that I can...
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I noticed about these quotes were the words that were typed in all caps: WITHIN, EXTERNAL, YOU, INTERNAL, EXTERNAL. This led me to contemplate the meanings of these words--and the interesting question that bateria ask. 'INTERNAL and EXTERNAL. Are they alike'. INTERNAL and EXTERNAL are complete opposites, and yet the bacteria is suggesting that they are alike in some way; for some reason, this reminded me of the topic of collective intelligence and 'Noosphere' that we discussed in class. In saying that these two words are 'alike', it connotates that perhaps the bacteria, in their collective fashion, does not look at the world within the same black-and-white, division-imposed world that humans live in. Just like individuals in the book are absorbed into a collective consciousness where 'you are everyone and everyone is you', boundaries between opposites opposing thoughts and ideas may melt away in the mind of the intellectually advanced bacteria to become something larger, a much more coherent whole than we humans were ever able to see.
Dang it, I want to read this book so badly.
I think that the most interesting thing about this passage is how the bacteria interrogate the conceptualized use of language. We think of language as something uniquely human, whereas Bear shows that it is not. The bacteria communicate well, and since they communicate so physically, perhaps their language is more sophisticated than human language, communicating more in less time. Since they can "share body structure," it is possible that there is even less chance of miscommunication, allowing one to learn instantly what the other is trying to convey.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found most interesting was the concept of the noocytes being a collective entity. Since they are present in such large numbers, I think that the example communication would suffice for inter-noocyte communication, mainly because they have this extremely large, collective thinking power. When they are communicating with a human it is difficult for them, mainly because every human speaks a little different. So they would have the not being specific enough. This would deviate from their communication, because with their extremely large numbers, their communications will be much more uniform. I think their communication would also be slower, because the way they were described, the information has to travel and be decided on before the reply can be considered.
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ReplyDeleteIt appears that the intelligent bacteria are inside a human body (must assume that they're inside since they want to communicate with the "external") and are posing a question to someone (the one addressed as "YOU") about a comparison (I say comparison because of the questions "is EXTERNAL alike" and "are they alike").
ReplyDeleteGranting that the bacteria are being carried by the one with whom they try to communicate, the communication wouldn't be through sound because that would be impossible. Since the bacteria are inside, communication is probably through the nervous/neuron system. That way, it is not necessary to spell or form complete sentences, therefore fragmented syntax is used. Brain waves seem to be enough to send messages to each other since both share the same brain system.