These are unfinished thoughts that didn’t make it to full essays or pieces on my website (so some of these might not make sense). Feel free to expand on these/change these/comment on these. I just ask that you add your perspective so that I can learn something too.

• (Brainstorm2/Perspectives)
• This one’s a stretch. It’s my last one. Hang on.
• ALSO, if you get to the psychedelics part, there’s a very important note at the beginning and end. Please read that. 
  • Bloodshot (2020) – Vince Staples “Handicapable”– Oliver Sacks, “An Anthropologist on Mars” – Psychedelics and drugs associated with sci-fi – light social commentary (throughout)
  • Bloodshot (2020) is a Vin Diesel movie that’s not too memorable. There’s really cool tech and the basic plot is that Mr. Diesel (a marine) is killed but brought back to life with new nanotechnology. He becomes part of a team of these “bioengineered superhumans”. Of particular interest to me was the rest of the team and how technology was shaped to each team member’s disability in order to magnify their powers. Ex. one team member was blind so they installed a chest plate with cameras. With the use of drones and other technology, this guy was able to have better field vision than any other human, on the ground or in the air. There are incredible scenes with this type of innovative stuff.

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    • Technology ^ (not super in depth, the movie’s worth a watch for the tech mostly)
  • This brought to mind the idea of disabilities, and how we often call them “handicaps”. In an interview, Vince Staples (famous rapper/songwriter from Long Beach, CA) said “We need to respect the Handicapable. I never seen nobody in a wheel chair just taking their f*cking time. They always got somewhere to go.” I’d link the interview (I think it’s the GQ youtube one where he talks about emoji’s) but I don’t remember exactly which one and he’s pretty witty so he’s worth getting to know. But I couldn’t agree more. We need to understand that people with a disability are able to adapt. The human brain is extremely plastic (adaptable) and it adjusts. Just as I use my vision to orient myself and cannot possible close my eyes and use a walking stick because my brain is not wired for that, someone blind has had time to adjust their neural network to use echolocation (similar to bats) and to use sounds to orient themselves in space. This idea of changing our notion of handicaps is important, especially when considering efforts to help people with disabilities. We should consider treatments to be purely supplemental and give people options. Let’s not take a heteronormative approach, assuming that ALL people with disabilities want to return to how they were before or want to experience life as we do.

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      Mr. Vince Staples

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      Proposal idea for “handicapable” signs

  • This idea of diverse experiences (not forcing people to expect that a certain “normal” lifestyle must be achieved for happiness) is a topic frequently explored by Oliver Sacks, neurologist turned anthropologist. In one of my favorite books by him “An Anthropologist on Mars”, he tells tales of patients he has met (names changed but stories remained the same), explaining that he feels sometimes like he is “an anthropologist on Mars”, trying to understand the human experience through the eyes of unique people. One fascinating story is of a painter who lost his color vision in his middle-late age, and how his art (and himself as a whole) was able to adjust. When offered a chance to potentially regain color vision, he denied. Other stories are written with as much care and attention.

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      An Anthropologist on Mars (1995)

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      Oliver Sacks, neurologist, writer, “anthropologist”

  • Psychedelics and other drugs are frequently associated with sci-fi (this is a BIG ASSUMPTION based on my personal experiences). Whether that’s the not-so-rare recreational use of psychedelics like magic mushrooms in sci-fi writers or the frequent reference to weed in many rappers and artists, drugs seem to be associated with this speculative thinking process. Why? Here’s my “theory”/line of reasoning: recreationally used drugs alter perceptions and sensations, allowing you to have experiences you normally wouldn’t. Research is ongoing but here are some examples of how drugs can let you think “outside the box”:
  • *Note: these are written from a science perspective, I did not include anything from personal experience. I am not supporting drug use, just contextualizing it. Use substances at your own discretion.
    • Alcohol: affects the reward part of your brain and acts as a depressant, meaning you feel more relaxed generally but also more uncoordinated.

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      Your brain on booze, yellow/red is active brain activity, green is not. The pattern is characteristic of a depressant (pop science piece:https://www.kathysmith.com/kathys-corner/your-brain-on-booze)

• • • Marijuana: alters your neural chemistry temporarily so that sensations are heightened. The munchies is because normally when you eat, the neural signals in your brain signal pleasure but the signal is a balance of neurons firing and being inhibited. Under marijuana, the inhibitory signals are weaker so you experience heightened pleasure (this works for other sensations too, i.e. listening to music feels different). The hormones in your body that signal satiation (i.e. you are full) are different (presumably not as fast or simply not as efficient). Marijuana interacts with your reward neural circuitry so it can affect how you perceive.
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    Your brain on weed (note, this is during one use, specifically. Long time use can affect brain volume and shape)
    (https://www.businessinsider.com/brain-on-drugs-scans-2015-2)

  • Psychedelics: I know less about this but here’s a graph showing how your brain is activated under normal conditions and how it is activated under psilocybin (magic mushrooms). As you can see, there are more neural connections when someone is using magic mushrooms. Since the brain is responsible for integrating your sensations and making up how you perceive and think about the world, an altered brain network means you will experience the world in new (previously impossible) ways.
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  Control untreated brain on the left vs brain on magic mushrooms on the right (https://www.businessinsider.com/brain-on-drugs-scans-2015-2)

  • A new frontier: a book I haven’t finished yet but is incredible is called “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence” by Michael Pollan. It’s very science-y and quite long. But it tells the stories of how psychedelics and other drugs that carry a social stigma are currently frontrunners for investigations looking into possible therapies for personality and mood disorders. Additionally, a new model for consuming drugs, called microdosing, has shown to be more safe and yield more rewarding experiences, and it simply asks for restriction when you take drugs. The theory is to not take a full dose, instead do 1/8^th. This will let your mind run free without permanently altering your brain chemistry *.
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    “How to Change Your Mind” book by Michael Pollan (2018)

    • *Important note: my discussion of these substances is very forgiving up there^. Chance the Rapper, who made a music career from 2 mixtape projects made while using acid (10 Day and Acid Rap) has talked about stopping his use of acid because it permanently affects your brain and how you think. He said in an interview that he has had friends who take acid and were never the same again. Michael Pollan’s book mentions that research on psychedelics is looking at isolating the important compounds from drugs to make FDA-certified treatments that are safe to use at small doses. Managing your own trip while using these is an experiment which may have irreversible effects. Some perfectly healthy people have abused these drugs and developed mood disorders when they previously did not have any. Please be smart, I studied the connection between psychedelics and sci-fi from a science perspective to give insights, not recommendations.
    • For more information about this stuff, here’s some links:
      • https://www.businessinsider.com/brain-on-drugs-scans-2015-2
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DrM90dg5t4
      • https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/microdosing-guide-and-explainer.html

• (Brainstorm1) “Borrowed Time” by Anabel Enriquez Piñeiro—Interstellar (2014)—Human fundamentals/customs—“home is your first teacher”—concept that the message of a story must be chosen
  • “Borrowed Time” is in our packet. It follows a deaf daughter and her astronaut explorer mother who rarely see each other because mom keeps going on trips. Because time is different in space, the daughter ages at a faster rate, resulting in the mom missing most of the daughter’s life. The daughter devotes her life and career to investigating astrology and space from Earth.
  • This story is pretty sad, but I saw a huge parallel with the ideas in Interstellar, Christopher Nolan’s 2014 classic. From the concept of a daughter-parent relationship which gets strained by feelings of abandonment to the heartbreaking moments of disconnect that the viewer/reader can feel through the text, both of these stories unite personal/social issues with sci-fi to create a beautiful story.
    

    Interstellar (2014)

  • Human fundamentals is what I call this pattern I found that sci-fi can change a number of different aspects of life, from technology to perception and sensation to societal structures, but some things are fundamental to our human evolution and highlighting these can make stories feel more relatable (*for me*). Some of these are:
    • human need and desire for love, which is at the basis of many sci-fi stories; examples are movie Interstellar (father-daughter love), short story “Borrowed Time” (mother-daughter love), movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (where lovers break up, get each other erased, and then find each other again), movie Inception (father-children love), and lots of the stories we’ve read for this class.
      

      Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

       

       

       

      

      Inception (2010)

    • in terms of customs: despite advanced technology in “Borrowed Time”, bodies are still disposed of using traditional burials, not some futuristic technique. It seems to me that I relate most to a story when the most important human events, feelings, and emotions are still relatable/reminiscent of what we currently know. Another example is religious practices, which are featured in many futuristic stories.
      

      Sci-fi Imagining of Brazil (Christ the Redeemer in the distance)

  • While I was in a program this summer in a hospital in New York, a wise patient explained to me her idea that “home is your first teacher”. She explained that if your parents raise you well, then you go through life learning lessons and progressing from a good starting point. If life at home is hard or tricky, then you have to start behind, having life hand you lessons as you go (sometimes in unpleasant ways). I connected this to the idea that the protagonist in these stories usually has a tough home life due to feeling disconnected from a parent. They find a passion through their attempts to connect with their parents, and they come to realize the meaning of love through all the happiness and pain that their journey brings them.
  • Lastly, I was surprised that such a short story was able to pack so much, emotionally and with so much meaning. My reading is obviously biased (the moment I connected it to Interstellar, I read with a new lens), but I could see this story sending multiple messages. You can tell the story as a pity party, as an angry soliloquy, as a pensive/psychoanalytic stream of conscious, or many other ways. Each telling drives home a different message and that’s something an author must consider when deciding how to tell a story (this idea is adapted from teachings I learned from Cheryl Hamilton, a professional storyteller who visited Bowdoin’s Sophomore Bootcamp)

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    Cheryl Hamilton, professional storytelling coach, director at Massmouth

• (Connection1)
  • Auto-dissection machine (speculative in “Exhalation“ by Ted Chiang {2008})– Da Vinci surgery robot
  • “Exhalation” protagonist may look like this
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    From Ghost in the Shell (1995) movie

  • Da Vinci surgery robot

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      Da Vinci robotic surgery. Demo : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QksAVT0YMEo

    • Modern robotic surgery, allows surgeon to control instruments remotely. Could theoretically be positioned to allow auto-dissection. Already exists and is in use in major hospitals, such as Bellevue Hospital in NYC.
  • —–