The Fox in Gold

Every generation, my people would send a number of individuals to live in human societies, in human form. We are here to observe, and to learn and love in the tumultuous labyrinth of what it takes and what it means to be human: employment and money, dreams and destiny. I feel lost within this situation, and I have not yet met another of my kind. I wear a certain pin that represents my heritage: a sitting fox in gold. Every generation, there are those who are not what they seem, without distinct memory of being what they are. Homeless, rootless, searching. The plant's seed intended to land miles away to figure life out for itself.

My Pet

We curl with our machines for warmth.
For you I would call forth past lives
that alchemically produced current that feeds you
feeding you, warming me.

Shadows on the Wall

And who are all these people on billboards? I have never seen that person employed at that car wash or gas station. The truth is I never will because those people never were - existed, I mean. Somewhere along the line, corporations realized it was cheaper to use amalgamation models created on computers than to hire a real person, and coach them into expressing real joy at the prospect of free vacuums or 48 oz coffees for a dollar.

- Shadows on the Wall: Notes from the Bathroom

Fatigue

Humans have no hibernation
no seasonal death and rebirth,
just continual awareness and
weathering of the same body.
The candle is not burned at both ends,
it is entirely aflame.

The Sixth Day

I finished watching The Sixth Day for the first time and, although it is a typical action movie with odd discrepancies, such as villains who act out of character without lead up, it does bring up some interesting questions regarding cloning with memories transplanted from the original body¹. On one hand there is the difference in becoming aware as a clone in a natural setting for that person, as Schwarzenegger did in a cab heading to complete an errand, or becoming aware on the lab table, as with the henchmen agents in the movie. The Sixth Day presents the awareness of being a clone as an acceptance of the body and its unique wiring being replaceable hardware, and those people develop a cold detachment normally associated with movie characters who are immortal and have been alive a long time. The question is what it means to be human in this situation, and comes to front when the main villain, after being shot and awakening his "memory-up-to-the-minute" clone, uncharacteristically and morally questions the clone for taking his clothes while he is still alive. Additionally, is there a difference between the cloning of a human using meat and bone and creating a digital copy of their mind?² As long as there is only one of a person, whether it be digital or mechanical or in the flesh, perhaps that is acceptable, and only when there is an increase in the population but not in individuals does our primal hair raise.

¹ “Original” memories being suspect not just because they are copied and placed in the identical body, but because the act of recalling a memory can alter it, meaning as the clone and original remember the same memory, they should begin to deviate and become somewhat distinct from each other regarding the past.

² I'm meaning here a functioning copy of the mind as opposed to a flat record of all memories then placed into a cloned body, which in the movie acts as the "on switch" for awakening.