Terry Bisson’s short story They’re made out of meat. or the film version of Bisson’s short story by Stephen O'Regan (which won Grand Prize at the Science Fiction Museum's SF Short Film Festival this year) captures some of the problems I face when trying to decide on an answer to Doug’s question - “What is a human?”
“They’re made out of meat.”
“Meat?”
“Meat. They’re made out of meat.”
“Meat?”
“There’s no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”
“That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?”
“They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.”
“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”
“They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.”
“That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.”
Doug asks us to think about “What is a human?” arguing that the learning approach “we have in mind” –and the success criteria we choose for the experiences will "depend on the answer we give to that question”.
Bisson describes the learning experiences for sentient meat as “talk”, “explore”, “contact” and “swap”
“Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?”
“First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual.”
but in edu_talk we tilt towards
- Learning what is already known, and or
- Learning the constituent skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, scientific method, creativity, and or
- Learning with others – learning communities, inquiry or problem based approaches that encourage sharing knowledge, team work, authentic contexts and varied information sources.
And we mismanipulate success criteria designed for one approach to judge another approach.
As someone who has spent his entire career doing research writing and thinking about educational testing and assessment issues, I would like to conclude by summarising a compelling case showing that the major uses of tests for student and school accountability over the past 50 years have improved education and student learning in dramatic ways. Unfortunately that is not my conclusion.(Linn, 2000, p 14. in Knight, P.T. 2002 Quality in Higher Education, Vol 8, No 1.
When I try to think about what it is to be human, and contemplate appropriate learning experiences and success criteria for human beings I find myself retreating to my laptop to capture my early ideas – I am helplessly addicted to thinking with my laptop.
Nowadays I only write with a pen on paper when signing Hell Pizza delivery chits, the odd GreenAcres Lawnmower cheque, and birthday cards for the elderly. Without noticing, I have lost a pleasurable sensation. I miss the sounds of writing, that raw physicality of dragging a thick nib, laden with the blackest of black ink, at different angles and pressures over whiter than white parchment.
My relationship with pens, inks, cartridge paper, erasers and envelopes might rescue me from machine domination, it has always been a little too intense to be “normal” enough to fit easily within the bell bit of TG's human behaviour profiles, pushing out the tail. Given the consistency of this affection for stationery I predict that stationery departments and bookstores will remain an Artichokean emotional retreat, despite the plethora of computer stores in Auckland.
But my thinking really does seem clunky when scratched onto the surface of a page. What does this newly recognized dependency mean about my relationship/s with technology and the fragmentation of my identity?
“Don’t turn on the lights, cause I don’t want to see ..”
Is Doug right? Is part of the disquiet over learning in schools simply that some of us want learning experiences, and success criteria, suited to the behaviours of "cyborgian machines" and others are hanging on to the hope that we are still "sentient meat".
Thank you, arti, for the link to a wonderful short story and video
Now I know why we are all alone in the Universe
See Fermi's conjecture
Posted by: Bill Kerr | July 21, 2006 at 09:47 PM
Hey Bill,
Nah - the universe is teeming with life. They have been here and I figure we have a "look but don't let 'em know you are watching tag" on our little blue orb. Probably in the universe's believe it or not top 10 list! We are probably the self-absorbed fantasy land in the universe's disney trip.
Posted by: cj | July 22, 2006 at 03:39 PM
“We are probably the self-absorbed fantasy land in the universe's disney trip.” cj
I love this cj - the audacity of the idea that we might be a Baudrillardean simulacra – a copy without a model - an imaginary world, a play of illusions, that makes all the other worlds who visit think that they are real when in truth they are themselves mere simulation.
Let the experimentation and shameless artichokean_attention_whore_edu_blogger navel gazing continue unabated. I at last have an identified role and purpose.
Posted by: Artichoke | July 22, 2006 at 07:10 PM
The story was great fun. I had a little more to say on this subject.
Posted by: Doug Noon | July 23, 2006 at 11:39 PM
I thought I was only meat in the presence of a carnivore, in a predatory culture this is likely. But then I thought some more, being sentient meat. I can also be othered, Even to a herbivore, or vegan meat is still meat. Thankyou for the link.
Posted by: ailsa | July 28, 2006 at 11:32 PM
Thank you for a new word Ailsa - I have never nudged up against this before
Othering is a process that identifies those that are thought to be different from oneself or the mainstream, and it can reinforce and reproduce positions of domination and subordination.
I love the nuance and subtle plays in language - the sense of being "othered" is particularly relevant at the moment. Helping a family member with dementia and ensuring their dignity is respected is quite a tricky thing - I am having to do a lot of new thinking about what I believe, and what is right - freedom from and freedom to stuff - I can sense that "othering" is a word that is going to help me with this.
Posted by: Artichoke | July 29, 2006 at 12:00 AM