Neuromancer

Being culturally aware and intelligent folk, you know that the Matrix (starring that master of expression, Keanu Reeves) was based on certain premises in Neuromancer by William Gibson. Which in turn drew from a rich philosophy of talk and debate and drunken theorising about the nature of 'reality' and our place in it. Don't be fooled by Cartesian Maths. That Descartes didn't need drugs to see that our senses are fallible and perhaps wholly untrustworthy. (Insert the rest of Western philosophy here.)

I didn't know all of this. Some filtered through during first-and-only year philosophy class, some of it I live and the rest I looked it up on Wikipaedia.

One of the articles includes a link to various religions. What now (brown cow)? I think. Buddhism, ok, I can see that. Certain sects of Buddhism believe we are living in a dream state, from lesser to more degrees. Some types of Hinduism believe we are ignorant to the 'real' reality. Sikh's believe that the natural world has two states and that we see the superficial layer. Huh. Who knew? I didn't.

The two things I really gleaned from that first-year class are:

• Choose an object, like a table. Define that class of object so it is unique from every other type of object in the world. A chair has four legs that support a rectangular piece of wood. So does a bench. So do certain raised buildings. Anyway you'd have to prove that your senses are accurate and you can't. Philosophers have been arguing this for years and some of these were smart. The senses cannot be trusted, but they're all we have, so let's move on.
• What if we are strapped up to a machine called the Experience Machine? This machine generates only pleasant experiences and we could pre-programme these experiences before plugging in. Would you choose to live in that world? Why? And could you consider that world 'real life'?

These are serious questions, folks - look lively.

Neuromancer is set in a world of wealth and poverty, with no middle class to mediate between them. Case, our hero (such a loose word), is a freelance hacker for various types of smugglers (he doesn't question what of). He is recruited by a new cowboy in town, Armitage, and his leatherclad sidekick, Molly, whose superpower is using sex instead of expressing emotions (she's a liberated woman). 'Recruited' isn't exactly the right word, because it suggests voluntary consent. No, he has a surgically implanted timebomb in his belly and only Armitage knows how to turn it off.

Off the three go, and then three become four when they pick up a heinous character named Riviera whose real superpower is manipulating reality - well, your sense of reality.

Case has a past (involving a woman, obviously), Molly has a past (involving sex, obviously) and Armitage has a past (very Jason Bourne-like - book Bourne not Matt Damon-Bourne, not obviously (although he obviously has a past)). Riviera has a past but he is all past. In another context, this might be touching (a sad but witty comedy where three misfits and a scumbag tackle their demons) except this is sci-fi, where very little is touching, bar occasional revulsion. But this is a post about the real and simulated, about meaning and value, and the matrix.

Early in the novel, a character suggests that Case is a simulation. He hushes the man hastily - perhaps the author hushes the man hastily. Loudly suspiscious, but it is never addressed again. Except, Case is extraordinarily good at what he does. He actually dies more than once in the matrix, where even death is death. Case also recalls a simulation of his early mentor (the one who taught him to run drugs) in the matrix, and the simulation insists he is that a collection of habits and thought patterns. But he can adapt to situations and assimulate new information. He also arranges for Case to switch him off i.e kill him.

On the other hand, the matrix Case plugs in to seems inflexible; it reminds me of the old dos software: black screen, glowing green characters and flickering cursor. You couldn't use it unless you could translate words into a syntax of '\'s.  These characters form the outlines of a city on top of the real city.

Then again, someone implies that the digital city is the real one. What happens next seems so bizarre it could only take place in a simulation. Shying just short of a spoiler and just to muddy the waters, an artificial intelligence named Wintermute keeps interfering. He actually convinces someone to adopt another personality and periodically takes over people's bodies. From the matrix. A dos-like thing.

I sense a ruse - yes, a ruse, people! I have a theory but my theory is a spoiler, and I took a vow never to, uh, spoil. Again. Although no doubt my opinion is scattered all over the previous paragraphs.

Instead let's dabble in some minor philosophy, in questions that actually take up large chunks of my week, as if tomorrow someone will knock on my door or the partition of my cubicle and ask me to choose a coloured pill. (I will look at them suspisciously and tell them I don't do drugs.) But, yes, let's pretend these are not life-defining issues. My burning question (no, it's not heartburn) is: what is the exact relationship between Case's world and the matrix? And is there a third 'reality'?

Which translates into: what the heck is going on around here? (Here being the world in which you are reading this blog. If you are reading it. And if this isn't part of the multi-verse, which would mean there would be realities in which you are reading my blog spiking out all over the place.)

I will stop there because you know what I mean and if you don't you have your own ideas and that's fine too. I must know (what the matrix is - I can wait for the answer to the other question until Morpheus knocks on my cubicle wall)! Someone fetch William Gibson, bring him here and I shall force him to tell. I shall read the original manuscript to him and point out all the errors until he breaks down and tells me. Or until he lies. Then I will go easy and read him my manuscript. He will be so charmed he will tell me the truth (probably 'I don't know') and publish my book under his own name.

The book was phenomenal, astronomical, universinomical. Whatever, just read the book, kidnap Gibson and one of you tell me.

Seriously though, I couldn't put it down. You could argue that there was too much unexplored, but that's what cinched it for me. I laced up my running shoes and hitched a ride. I was on my own journey (I won't say quest because my object eludes me still; although I know there aren't answers, any more than the Holy Grail exists, Dan Brown), supported by mounds and mounds of talk and debate and drunken theorising. I like a mystery that has no answer, as much as I like a tragedy.