Neuromancer: nature meets machine

In his book, Neuromancer, William Gibson repeatedly melds nature with technology, often in startling ways. He sets this standard even in the first line of his novel, where he describes that "[t]he sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." This unexpected comparison reveals that Gibson does not only depict nature in terms of technology – a television-colored sky – but also defines technology using the natural world – a dead or lifeless (rather than broken) channel. The imagery continues as we meet some of the first characters in Neuromancer. Ratz, for instance, smiles as he tends a seedy bar exposing a "webwork of East European steel and brown decay" as teeth (3). He scratches his stomach with a "pink claw," or prosthetic arm (4). Case, the protagonist, retells his first encounter with Linda Lee, a love interest. He watches her play a video game, "her face bathed in  restless laser light, features reduced to a code" (8). Gibson highlights Linda's allure with artificial illumination and relates it to digital coding, rather than employing traditional notions of beauty resembling or deriving from nature.

Gibson pushes boundaries of imagination when describing Case's world. Many people lead destructive lifestyles of drugs and alcoholism, knowing they can easily replace organs, change their blood, and make other enhancements. While walking the streets of Ninsei, Case looks into a typical surgical "boutique;" given this term usually describes small shops selling trendy clothing, gadgets, or accessories, clearly body modification is a routine procedure in this context. Case stares at a "flat lozenge of vatgrown flesh... tattooed with a luminous digital display wired to subcutaneous chip," and wonders "[w]hy bother with the surgery... when you could just carry the thing around in your pocket?" (14) He seems less confused about an LCD screen embedded in flesh than the waste of time it takes to get the screen sown into your skin. Later, Case meets Molly who has mirrored lenses embedded into her face, a time read out added to her optic nerve, and artificial burgundy nails with four-centimeter scalpel blades in each finger. Gibson gives many more examples of nearly un-human individuals.

I suppose I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to altering the human body – only do it if there is no other option – but I wonder how others feel about getting physical upgrades. I joke about my cellphone equating to a vital organ, but could you ever picture yourself with electronics literally attached to you? It's fascinating to see the picture of technological ubiquity that Gibson paints for us, but I don't think that lifestyle will ever be a normal thing. The only current procedures that come close  – corrective eye surgery, replacement joints, artificial hearts, etc. – try to replace or correct a normal function, not add new features and abilities. I wouldn't mind seeing in the dark like Molly does, but would we be messing with nature too much with such dramatic changes?