Final: Her and Grizzly Man

                In the movie “Her,” all three elements that Brian Christian addresses in his book “The Most Human Human” are seen in Samantha.  The three elements are sensitivity and reason, identity, and how and what we are.   Samantha contains the nutritive soul, the sensitive soul, and the rational soul.  She is able to sustain herself in a changing environment, she talks and hears Theodore, she also has desires, and she can do arithmetic as well.  She even passes Descartes radical doubt.  While she knows she does not have a body, she knows she is real because she can think.  She has a capacity for abstract rational thought.  She has feelings for Theodore and expresses them through her words.  Samantha’s ability to express emotions and experience life with Theodore goes along with Christian’s idea of the mulch effect between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence. The line between the two become very blurred due to Samantha’s advanced nature. The conflict of the movie occurs when Theodore discovers that he is not the only person Samantha talks to throughout the day. 

                The major conflict in the movie occurs when Theodore discovers that he is not the only person Samantha talks to and is in love with.  It is a human concept that we can only love one person at a time.  We must devote ourselves to each other and no one else.  Samantha on the other hand is such an advanced computer system that she does not have this exclusivity in mind.  She joins other chat groups and talks to other computers as well as people in order to keep her advanced mind very busy.  In this sense, she is someone a little different with everyone she talks to.  She is meant to be matched with the person using the program therefore for each person she talks to she has to match their preferences, likes, and interests.  Because of this component of Samantha, I think it may be difficult for her to pass the Turing test.  There may be inconsistencies in her answers because she is programed to talk to so many different people as once.

                For the element of how and what we are, I am going to focus on Theodore.  In the beginning, Theodore is almost testing Samantha to see if she is as smart as they she is.  He does not trust her.  He is confused by her.  Theodore’s job is to write personal letters for people from people in their lives.  I think this is an interesting concept because of Christian’s ideas of content and form. Content is the information such as your pin, social security number, password, occupation, and birth place.  Form is the things like your signature, handwriting, gait, voice, diction, and syntax.  Content is easy to replicate as experience by Theodore in his writing. Form is more difficult.  The person must send a sample letter in order to give him an idea of their diction and handwriting.  The computer mimics the handwriting but the diction and syntax are up to Theodore. He remarks that he has been writing letters between a couple for many years. At this point, if the couple began to write their own letters, they would not sound the same. It would be a different person because the diction would change.

                In the movie ”Grizzly Man,” Timothy Treadwell has issues with his identity. Brian Christian refers to a quote by Nietzsche in his book “The Most Human Human.” This quote states, “In the end, when the work is finished, it becomes evident how the constraint of a single taste governed and formed everything large and small.” He goes on to say “Whether this taste was good or bad is less important than one might suppose, if only it was a single taste!”  This quote is referring to a person’s identity and individuality.

                Timothy Treadwell was very individualistic.  He had very strong beliefs and did everything in his power to defend them.  While he did die because of these beliefs, it is more important that he died defending his beliefs than giving them up to live.  He wanted to remain himself throughout the end of his life. He was a quirky man and many did not agree with him beliefs. Despite this opposition, he remained strong in his beliefs.  He remained his own individual despite others challenging him. 

                Timothy Treadwell believed his identity extended into the community of the grizzly bears as well.  He felt that he was a part of their society and was not part of the human community because so many people did challenge and oppose his beliefs.  His identity consisted of being in the wild with the grizzlies.  If he was not with the grizzlies, he was not able to be his true self.