"Love, Death and Robots", referred to as "Love Death Machine", is a series of science fiction-themed animation series that have been quite popular in recent years. It's been out for the third season.
The sixth episode, "Swarm", based on the short story "Swarm Swarm" published by American science fiction writer Bruce Stirling in 1982, tells the way of survival of an alien creature "swarm" from the perspective of a pair of scientists.
Three alien races appear in the film, the "investor" civilization that targets matter and energy, the human civilization that pursues intelligence and knowledge, and the "insect swarm" that is considered to be merely unintelligent animals.
1 Human intellectual pursuits. Investors begin by saying that only immature races seek knowledge, that it is only information, and that they value only resources and energy. In order to achieve the purpose of letting the other party send themselves into the "insect swarm" for research, the human scientists superficially humbly agree with the "investor" but secretly despise it in their hearts. He naturally believes that human intelligence and knowledge are the greatest driving force for the development of the race, and his "reform faction" has made outstanding achievements in transforming the human body and enhancing human intelligence. In opposition to them is another "mechanical" human civilization, good at inventing machines, but not good at personnel and scheming, and therefore not good at dealing with investor civilization, which can be said to be a school that focuses more on "knowledge".
These two factions are the common settings of several of Sterling's science fiction works, and it is not difficult to see the common shadow of many other science fiction works, and it is also a division that reflects society. The "reformists" and "mechanicals" can correspond to the humanities and sciences, or the nobility and the commoners, or the administrators and the laborers, or the capitalists and the non-two classes, and so on.
I think the divisions of "humanities" and "science" are closer to novels.
The reformers are more focused on transforming themselves, improving their abilities from physical to intellectual aspects, so they are good at calculation and planning. The mechanical school is more focused on transforming nature, good at inventing machines, and seems to be a bit rude.
For example, when meeting with investors, the reformers know to wear gorgeous clothes and spray perfume. The mechanical faction, on the other hand, wears overalls and is thus not liked by investors.
But the large number of mining machines invented by the mechanical faction led the reformers, making them more capitalized in trade.
After entering the swarm, the reformers are good at observing and studying the internal logic of the swarm, knowing that there is no "private property" here, and it is impossible to demarcate an area for their own exclusive use. The Mechanics, on the other hand, moved a large amount of mechanical equipment in and carved out their own area, which was eventually wiped out by the swarm as an intruder.
The reformers have higher intelligence, and their inner activities are richer and more delicate. For example, the contempt for investors will be placed in the psychology, and the performance will be yin and yang, and the male scientists will be extremely careful when they enter the insect swarm and see the female scientists who have come to do research long ago. Female scientists are also first critical of male scientists from the aesthetic aspect when they meet with investors, "wearing gold and wearing silver" style of tastelessness.
The mental activity of the male scientist reveals the side effects of this extremely high intelligence and excessive inner abundance, with an intelligence of 180 and a female scientist of 200. Their genre is not that they cannot create humans with higher intelligence, but "people with superior intelligence, sometimes emotionally unstable and capricious, when frustrated, can easily retreat back into their fantasy world, or fall into a strange ambivalence, constantly circling between plotting sniping and tolerating concessions, which is elusive." Male scientists are proud that their intelligence may not be the best, but their emotions are extremely stable.
In contrast, the pursuit of intelligence and knowledge turns society as a whole into a training machine and into a vehicle for learning and calculation. Tired of political scheming and deception, women scientists chose to stay away from the crowds to carry out the task. The male scientist seems to be rational and restrained, emotionally stable, but also hopes to gain fame and wealth after completing his great plan through the swarm, so that he can live an unfettered life away from the crowd. In the previous paragraph, he was still laughing at the pastoral fantasies of female scientists, emphasizing the value of real-life scheming and education that violates human nature, but in the latter paragraph, he hopes that he can finally realize this "pastoral pastoral".
The female scientist ridiculed him, saying that he was just a person who wanted to escape social control. The male scientist said that he was looking forward to retirement, which was different from the escape from isolation, but the clever himself realized that there was no difference between the two. Both of them were tired of the suppression of primitive humanity by intellectual civilizations. Human beings naturally desire an unfettered free life, for diversity and fun, and for sincere feelings between people, but in a society that advocates intelligence, these must make concessions to the development of science and technology and the struggle between people.
The human quest for intelligence and knowledge, and the arrogance that comes with using it as a creed, is the focus of animation and many interpretations. The arrogance shown by overconfidence is involved in many science fiction works, after all, the dimensions of the universe can show the true smallness of human beings. And this arrogance is also a reflection of society on "modernity", where human beings believe that they are omnipotent by their ability to transform nature, and they are confident in their wisdom and scheming. With the development of modern society, the whole society is at least aware that human beings are not omnipotent, and they cannot do whatever they want on the earth, and potential problems such as environment, ecology, and social structure teach people not only to see the achievements of transforming the world in an instant.
But beyond that, animation and fiction still have other things that deserve our attention, especially the properties of the "swarm of insects".
2 The "swarm" is similar to the swarm on Earth, with a clear internal structure, a clear division of labor, and almost no intelligence, but the vitality is surprisingly tenacious. In the film, humans also hope to enter the insect swarm and carry out their own research in order to explore the survival mode of the insect swarm. But investors disagree, thinking it's just a bunch of unintelligent animals. Scientists entered the swarm and found that although there were no obvious intellectual individuals inside the swarm, they were well-organized, orderly, and full of materials. For our readers, it is natural to understand the social structure of ants or bees, with the queen responsible for reproduction and the various members responsible for work, fighting and transportation. In addition to this, there are 15 symbiotic species of insect swarms here, which possess a certain intelligence but are apparently partially degenerate, resembling parasitism in swarms.
Male scientists pursue the orderly and efficient nature of society, and are willing to sacrifice some individual freedom for the purpose. Female scientists pointed out that the perfect form of order that human beings seek is not like a swarm of insects, everything is orderly, and the swarm can survive for a long time, and no civilization can eliminate them. The male protagonist despises the insect swarm for not having intelligence, and never wants humans to become like this, but he hopes to take advantage of the efficient stability of the swarm. Therefore, the purpose of his coming this time is to steal a little of the genetic material of the insect swarm so that humans can cultivate their own swarm. This is the great cause that will enable him to change the destiny of mankind. However, it doesn't make sense to replicate individual swarms alone, the key is how to give orders to swarms. Through the samples of insect swarm pheromones sent by female scientists, human society has synthesized 10 kinds of artificial pheromones, which can control the gathering, carrying, protection and so on of insects. The male protagonist sneaks in the pheromone precisely to experiment with the effectiveness of the artificial pheromone while stealing genetic material.
The experiment went well.
One day later in the experiment, however, the female scientist disappeared. After communicating with the symbiotic species, the male protagonist went to look for the female protagonist, but was attacked by the bugs in charge of the guard halfway through, which had not happened before. The male protagonist is subdued and taken to a huge chamber, in which a huge brain is located, and several tentacles are extended, and the end of one of the tentacles is impressively inserted into the head of the female scientist, who is obviously parasitic and controlled. The brain worm borrowed her mouth and said that it was the experiments they had carried out that made the swarm feel the same, waking the brain worm from sleep. Then, with the heroine's memory and the information saved by the insect swarm, the brain worm took three days to know what had happened over the past few million years and figure out the coping strategy.
Aware of human invasion ambitions, it prepares to preserve male and female scientists for reproduction, studying and breeding specific humans in order to use them against future human invasions. The nature of male scientist loyalty makes him reluctant to betray humanity, but even if he commits suicide, the swarm can still use his genetic material to breed humans, just a little troublesome. Male scientists pondered for a moment that humans would not be completely enslaved, and that the humans cultivated here would struggle to seize control of the swarm once the brain worms were dormant again.
Brainworms said unhurriedly, you are not the first race to be enslaved, the fate of the first 15 races has become a parasitic species here, and the intelligence is extremely degraded. For example, a species that picks up garbage for food next to it, their ancestors shocked the universe hundreds of millions of years ago, and obviously they have not become a low-level symbiotic species.
Male scientists remain convinced that humans are a different race. However, this is no longer important, he has promised to stay and reproduce.
3 Female scientists mentioned that the perfect order of the insect swarm is the goal pursued by the human society where the male protagonist is located. This perfect social setting of high order is often referred to as "utopia." Consistent with reflections on "modernity", many science fiction works also have "dystopian" plots that oppose the repression of human nature by social development. In this film, the high-order society pursued by human beings is so repressive of human nature that both sensitive female scientists and loyal male scientists want to escape from this "utopia". Unlike the high-order society of the insect swarm, its members have no self-will, so that no "insect nature" is suppressed, and everything runs naturally.
"Dystopia" is often embodied as "the anti-human component of anti-utopias." And man is always human, so this becomes a "utopia" or a high-order society, or the "Leviathan" paradox of the state. It seems that only inferior species and robots without will can achieve "utopia". But this portrayal of utopia is always too one-sided. It is often embodied in a reflection of the former Soviet society, as if everything had been distributed and arranged properly, without knowing that there was a secret contradiction.
However, with just one example to deny that a model is one-sided. The future form of utopia is embodied in "cyberpunk", in which "cybercopia" means control and cybernetics. In many "cyberpunk" portrayals, society has a stronger control over people, but human nature has also been more fully released. All human needs are sought to be satisfied, specific spirits and emotions are released and expressed in specific products, and even the emotions of resistance can be softened by low-intensity battles, such as sports competitions or games. To use a common word, it is "entertained to death". This kind of society has stronger control, but human beings can no longer use "human repression" as a reason to resist, and people have no reason to resist. Of course, human social organization is only a few thousand years old, and some bad bugs are normal in the dark, and although they may lead to reshuffling, they cannot be "dystopian" in nature.
When male scientists see the brain worm, they think that it is the master of the insect swarm, after all, its extreme intelligence is far beyond the primitive species of humans. The brain worm, however, says that it is only a tool of the swarm, like all other divisions of labor. People who are accustomed to seeing intelligence as the biological essence are accustomed to regarding the most intelligent person as the master, or as the master as the highest intelligence. In the swarm, however, the brain worm of the highest intelligence is only a tool and is in a long period of dormancy.
Wang Yangming said in the "Records of Transmission and Practice" 055 that the spirit and speech are mainly convergent, and divergence is unavoidable. This is perfectly demonstrated in the bug swarm. The intelligence to deal with special situations is only unfolded in special cases and does not interfere with the daily operation of insect swarms. And the intelligence unfolded under special circumstances also realizes that it is only a product of a special period and does not think that it should be the master. If we engage in a certain work or activity for a long time, we will develop some habitual behaviors that make some work that looks complicated, and we can also do it well without using too much energy and attention. The use of intelligence is often to cope with new situations and solve new problems. If thinking becomes the norm, it may not be conducive to the formation of habitual behavior. The consistency of brain worms with insect swarms does not lie in the consistency of mental and behavioral content, because their division of labor and intelligence levels are obviously different. Its consistency is embodied in the "unity of identity", that is, not seeing the other party as their own opposite.
4 The strongest shock brought by animation or fiction is the contrast between the superb learning ability of the brain worms in the insect swarm and the unintelligent impression in the eyes of others, and the 15 symbiotic or parasitic races that were once enemies of the insect race, but now they can only parasitize, and the mental degradation of the situation is extremely frightening. Both of these expressions can strongly enhance the expressiveness of the work. The subject that seems to be weak finally shows an unusually strong side, and there is a feeling of "counterattack". The most ignorant and inclusive group shows great wisdom and aggression.
The planet Pandora in Avatar, with the help of its sacred tree, has a similar ability to preserve knowledge and call for nature to fight back. However, from the perspective of the I Ching, the situation in the Group is somewhat too idealistic. The extremely humble and orderly insect swarm, similar to Kun Gua's "thick virtue carrier", but turned around and became the most intelligent and scheming race. This kind of radical change is too drastic to be said to be "rational" writing. In contrast, the planet Pandora calls on wild animals to fight back, which is also tolerant of the weak Kunde, from "carrier" to "straight amplification", with clumsy force, it is more "reasonable".
Science fiction works seem to be related to science, but literary and artistic works have always been not scientific works, with the purpose of seeking truth. The paintings are still written to evoke people's thoughts and emotions. The fantasy part, accompanied by the cloak of science, is easy to creep and accept. Just like traveling through time and space in fantasy novels, we don't take it seriously, while science fiction through time and space, with some scientific terms, will really make people believe it, so it is more confusing. In this case, the evaluation of science fiction works can be seen on the one hand to see whether they follow scientific common sense, on the other hand, to see the emotions behind the plot twists, and once again it is the thinking caused. Some of the so-called thought-provoking or uplifting are nothing more than the dragon-auror plot structure wrapped under the scientific sugar coating.
Summed up in this animation and novel, it is worth noting not only the arrogance of human beings advocating intelligence, but also the thinking of "utopian" forms.