While reading Foster’s, “Meat Puppets or Robopaths?” essay, I found it quite challenging to find an opposing view to Foster because his explanations and expositions were so strategically detailed. However, I noticed that he did not delve into what I feel is a pertinent question: Is the lack of owning oneself a good thing or a bad thing? Foster echoed that cyberpunk fiction represented cultural identity as one that showed no personal ownership of one’s self, but then he threw the question which I now consider. In the context of Neuromancer, a lack of self-ownership is most often detrimental to the characters because it prevents them from maximizing their potential and developing relationships with others. There are, I believe, so many characters that lack this quality, but today I say this in reference to Wintermute because he is Foster’s first symbol of cultural identity.
Foster mentions the scene during which Case and the Flatline are thinking about whether the AI owns itself. The Flatline answers that he is a “Swiss citizen but [Tessier] owns the basic software and mainframe,” revealing that Wintermute has been constructed to share his identity in diverse ways (132). Then the Turing police is created to watch and regulate the AIs abilities, which, as we know, Wintermute can only visit people through cyberspace to create memories for them. I am sure that if he were given the chance, Wintermute would strongly support receiving at least Neuromancer’s creation of personality but by operating under T-A, Wintermute loses his ideal character and is restricted from displaying his potential, a decision which he cannot change or influence.
Similarly, Case sees Wintermute as a representation of other characters like Finn or even Linda, which highlights the void of a true personality in Wintermute. He finds it difficult relating and connecting with Case, mostly annoying him, despite the fact that he controls Case, because he cannot be definite in his identity. In fact, he uses Armitage, formerly known as Corto, to bridge the relationship between him and those he recruits. Yet, this attempt at togetherness wavers because he has affected the person of Corto all to the amazement of Case and Molly. This is only just another attempt at establishing a relationship that cannot be.
Although Wintermute leads the assignment for his release, it becomes evident that his capacity for genuine leadership is hampered by his like of identity.
The interesting idea that Foster raises is that this loss of identity is a pivotal part of the history of cyberpunk fiction, which calls to question the historical connections that exist between “new forms of domination and potentials for freedom.” It seems that many cybernetic characters are content in finding freedom something that almost enslaves them. How could such freedom and slavery dwell together? Could it be that the concept of cyberpunk fiction centers on losing one’s identity in order to seek or gain something that is much more than oneself?
Posi, I feel like your emphasis on the question posed by Foster concerning the benefits and consequences of not truly owning yourself, is extremely insightful. As you said, the fact that Foster doesn’t really answer it makes the question even more intriguing. However I feel that rather than trying to answer this question by looking at Wintermute, you should be looking at Case and Molly. Instead of Wintermutes lack of identity hampering his leadership, it seems as if the fact that Molly, and more importantly Case, do have some sort of identity conflicts with Wintermutes leadership and predictive abilities. Thus an identity, from Wintermutes perspective, would definitely be considered a bad thing. I mean the whole goal of this mission is for Wintermute to merge with Neuromancer and lose his identity, so there is no way that Wintermute is really that attached to the idea of maintaining an identity. The final question you pose concerning losing ones identity in an attempt to gain something better, could definitely be applied to Wintermute. However I feel like it would be difficult to apply it to many of the characters. “Power in Case’s world meant Corporate power…Viewed as organisms, they had attained a sort of immortality.”(203) Wintermute is definitely attempting to attain immortality, but as is shown by Dixie’s wish to be erased, immortality is not something wanted for even those with the slightest identity.
Good points about Molly and Case, Josh. It’d also be worth remembering that Tessier-Ashpool are all trying to find immortality, albeit in a couple of opposing strategies…
Posi, you’ve done well to take a complicated question and work through it using the text to keep you anchored. If you still need to become more clear in how you’re writing, that is perhaps to be expected based on the difficulty of the concepts you’re wrestling with. It’d also be important to remember that while Wintermute lacks personality, we’re told that that is ALL that Neuromancer is. So what does that do to the argument?
I agree with Posi in the point that Wintermute’s lack of identity does constrain his character. Wintermute cannot be seen as a character of his own because he appears as different people as a result of another character’s memories. He relies on others memories to make his appearances and be noticed physically.