Richard Powers says in his interview with Jim Neilson, "One of the best ways to decide what kind of world we want to live in may be to build our understanding of the kind of world we do live in." This remark stimulates our curiosity about hi ...

Richard Powers says in his interview with Jim Neilson, "One of the best ways to decide what kind of world we want to live in may be to build our understanding of the kind of world we do live in." This remark stimulates our curiosity about his science fiction Galatea 2.2. We come to ask how he depicts his "understanding of the kind of world we do live in" and his vision of the "kind of world we want to live in" in this novel. To examine the reason for Helen's suicide and the way to rescue her, an artificial intelligence, gives a clue to thses questions.
From the anthropocentric, scientist and progressive perspectives, Helen's suicide means that our world is not good enough to live in yet. Developing new technologies to help Helen better function as a companion of human beings is believed to lead to the ideal world, where loneliness, one of the most critical problems of mankind, is removed. In a similar way, the humanist stance, which the main character Rick stands for, judges our world as imperfect as it is. His intention to save Helen by introducing religion to her implies his conviction that supernatural mystery can fill up the lack of our world. In contrast to these negative Occidental view, the ancient Chinese sage Chuang Tzu's Taoist ideas illuminate that Powers presents our world as positive in Galatea 2.2 Under Chuang Tzu's relativistic and post-anthropocentric ideas, Helen or her suicide does not appear as a problem to solve. If there is a problem, from Chuang Tzu's viewpoint, that is Rick's ardent wish to keep Helen, an ephemeral artifice, as an eternal companion. Chuang Tzu suggests the liberation from such vain connections as a way of merging in Tao. In juxtaposition with Chuang Tzu, the posthuman Tao, a liberating harmony among humans, machines and all equally respectable beings, emerges as Powers's idealistic vision of the posthuman world projected in his science fiction.

I. The World View in Galatea 2.2
II. Chuang Tzu's Heavenly Equality
III. Connectionism and the Collapse of the Body
IV. Myth and Tao
V. Posthuman Tao
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Abstract

I. The World View in Galatea 2.2
II. Chuang Tzu's Heavenly Equality
III. Connectionism and the Collapse of the Body
IV. Myth and Tao
V. Posthuman Tao
인용문헌
Abstract