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Author Topic: Frankenstein  (Read 7629 times)

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rainshadow

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Frankenstein
« on: October 07, 2012, 09:57:51 AM »

Didn't know where to put this... but in my English class, we are reading "Frankenstein" and discussing it. Our teacher asked us if we thought of Victor Frankenstein as a creator, inventor or mother type figure... then asked us to consider the creation aspect in Biblical theory (which I disagree with because I don't think any type of theology should be brought into the classroom). I've posted my answer, but I was curious as to how others felt who have read the book. Invention and creation go semi-hand in hand with one another (depending on how you view it), and I guess I'm stumped as to why she would ask if we saw a child bearing aspect to this.
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BronwynWolf

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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2012, 11:56:02 AM »

Maybe she is looking at Victor as the sole parent of the monster... which some people tend to see as a feminine power.

My thoughts on the book? Victor was a little off his rocker. He forgot the aspect of "just because we CAN do something, doesn't mean we SHOULD do it." Still, he probably had a better understanding of human anatomy and the electrical impulses of brain functions than anyone else of his time period. (Wonder where Shelly got all that info) To his creation, he was a parent. Looking at it from a different angle, I suppose you could see the creator and inventor aspects...the inventor more in the machinery he used to harness the lightning than in the monster. I just see him as a medical scientist who went a bit too far.
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vordan

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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2012, 01:03:32 PM »

From a Biblical point of view, I thnk Victor would of offended God.
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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2012, 03:02:45 PM »


My first thought upon reading your first sentence was, "Oh, I'm so sorry; that's the second or third worst written book in the history of the human language." (Dracula being the worst) How can people with such wonderful ideas handle the language so poorly? But I digress... But as to how I perceive Victor, it would be as inventor. He created nothing; he merely assembled parts created by another. The same goes for Robocop. He might have been an accidental mother figure- I say accidental because he expected an adult, with a fully functional and educated brain; he hadn't expected to get the son of Abby Normal.

As far as religious aspects go, if one is Christian, one would probably assume that the monster had the soul of the person whose brain was used. If one is an animist, or a Native American, one might imagine the monster had a new composite soul, influenced by the original source parts and Victor as well. I would tend towards the latter view, personally.

peace,
ES
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Mongo

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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2012, 02:37:29 AM »


My first thought upon reading your first sentence was, "Oh, I'm so sorry; that's the second or third worst written book in the history of the human language." (Dracula being the worst)

I would have to disagree with you on that. I've read far worse than Dracula and Frankenstein. I do agree that they're pretty bad, but in light of some modern releases...I can name far worse.

Any bodice-ripper comes quickest to mind.

Quote
But as to how I perceive Victor, it would be as inventor. He created nothing; he merely assembled parts created by another. The same goes for Robocop. He might have been an accidental mother figure- I say accidental because he expected an adult, with a fully functional and educated brain; he hadn't expected to get the son of Abby Normal.

Again I have to disagree. He did create something. He created the processes that reanimated the living tissue. He may not have created life, but he did create.

And assembling parts that were created by another in my mind does not invalidate someone else's work in the creation process. Someone else milled the lumber. Someone else built the 5'x8' utility trailer kit. Someone else made the batteries and the solar panels. Someone else made the lights.

But does that really invalidate the fact that when it's all done I've created something with my two hands? That I'll have a teardrop camper trailer that I can have pride in?

Or because I didn't mine, smelt, cast and draw the copper wire myself...must I simply resign myself to the fact that I merely re-arraigned some components into a shape that is of use to me.

Quote
As far as religious aspects go, if one is Christian, one would probably assume that the monster had the soul of the person whose brain was used. If one is an animist, or a Native American, one might imagine the monster had a new composite soul, influenced by the original source parts and Victor as well. I would tend towards the latter view, personally.

That's a possibility. However as the traditional view of a soul is that at death it leaves the mortal shell behind and toddles off to whatever afterlife it believes in...would the constructed lifeform have any part of the original soul(s) of the previous owner(s) of the parts?

Souls have to come from somewhere when a new life is created. Either this is spontaneous creation as a part of the processes behind the awakening of a new life, they're a snippet of the two parental souls merged and allowed to grow as the new life grows, or they're from a soul previously departed coming back for another go in life (reincarnation).

So I would tend to think that either it's soul was a spontaneous creation when it's life processes started, or was a receptacle of a soul coming back for round two (or three...or three hundred...) as opposed to a snippet of Victor's since none of him actually went into his construct.

Unless you're of the belief that things can develop souls from love and attention. Like so many people who work on restoring cars tend to develop a link with the car and can sense a personality. "It doesn't like Shell gas" or "it runs better with Fram oil filters" or what have you. Some tend to think that a part of the soul of the restorer who really looks at the restoration as a labor of love actually goes into the car and grows from there. In that sense, Victor may have donated a snippet that was allowed to develop.
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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #5 on: October 08, 2012, 11:38:56 AM »


Mongo- taking your last paragraph first, I tend to see it that way, believing things have composite souls, and the attention lavished by Victor certainly would have figured into it. But even more intriguing was your first comment regarding souls: "That's a possibility. However as the traditional view of a soul is that at death it leaves the mortal shell behind and toddles off to whatever afterlife it believes in...would the constructed lifeform have any part of the original soul(s) of the previous owner(s) of the parts?" In an early Star Trek book, McCoy explained his aversion to transporting in those terms- that in the process of transporting, your body is destroyed, then recreated elsewhere. But during that process, you were in fact dead... does the transporter create a Golem when it reconstructs your body? Is everyone who's gone through the transporter a Frankenstein's Monster?

peace,
ES
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Mongo

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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #6 on: October 09, 2012, 12:36:23 AM »

I know the book...I think I even have that sucker...refresh my memory as to the title of that one? Please?

But yeah, that one comes up quite a bit. That transporters in both fiction and in real-life theory do bring up the issue of what happens to us when we're beamed somewhere.

The way I look at it is this. I'm not the same person that I once was. Every cell in my body has died off at least several times over and yet I'm still here. I'm still me.

Even though parts of me have died, I continue on as a lifeform. I still live. I still am. But at some point some part of me is going to cease functioning and I'll effectively be dead for the final count. At that point (and this is the point people have felt the person crossing over), there are cells that are still alive and will be for the better part of 24 hours from death. Hell for that matter even though my heart may have stopped, brain functions are no more and I'm not breathing anymore, every cell is still alive for a little while longer.

At the point of death I'm still alive at a cellular level...just not functional and not there. I will have passed on.

So I'm alive even though I've died many times over, and when I'm dead I'll still be alive for a while longer.

To me the soul knows when it's time to hang it up and call it a life. Cut, print, check the gate, moving on.

Now with that in mind we look at teleportation. Sure we for that very short period of transport, are no longer biologically alive and are pure information down to the quantum level of matter to be beamed to another location and then reassembeled back into matter.

Would we really be soulless golems when we stepped out? Or would the soul follow the body? We know that spirits (souls not crossed over) can travel from place to place and in fact travel is implied in the concept of an afterlife...need to get to and from there somehow after all.

So would the body die and be recreated? Yes, but is that different from what happens to us over the fullness of time?
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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #7 on: October 09, 2012, 08:43:40 PM »


Sorry, can't remember the title, and I lost the collection decades ago. As to the replacement of cells argument, that was in fact the reply in the book- but it's not completely true. Some cells are never replaced. Egg cells, for example; they're not manufactured fresh all the time like sperm, they're stored long term for time release. Some of the nervous system may not be replaced.

peace,
ES
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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #8 on: October 10, 2012, 12:31:01 AM »

Actually neural tissue never being replaced is a myth. This still-prevalent belief was expelled from the halls of orthodoxy some years ago, when scientists discovered that all vertebrate animals continue to produce new neurons (brain cells) throughout their lives as well as in the brain.

More recently, it has been shown that the fresh cells are actively involved in the formation of memory. Other studies strongly suggest that some types of anti-depressants work by causing new neuron growth – and that depression itself can inhibit brain cell replacement. Evidence for adult neuron growth was first presented in the 1960s, and again in the 1980s, but was dismissed out of hand for no reason other than that it contradicted existing (untestable) theories.

And for ovum, women are not born with a finite number of eggs. They are born with a finite number of ovum producing follicles. These die off at a faster rate than the supposed egg pool should be depleted. There is a lot of new evidence that we're currently sorting through which will (if proven) change our understanding at human reproduction.

And another thing that occurred to me. As many have stated, there is no supernatural or paranormal. There is simply the natural and the normal. Just that we have not come to grips and have come to an understanding as to what a lot of these phenomenon actually are.

Heck go back 100 years and try describing what exists today and people will either dismiss it as science fiction of will start wondering if it was a bad idea to stop stoning people to death for being witches.

So if the soul is a natural function of life in as much the same way as cellular mitosis is...then it is something that exists at some level. Who's to say that it isn't there on the quantum level and that by scanning us to the quantum level and then teleporting us to another location and restoring us to the same state of being (again down to the quantum-level)...who's to say that the soul wouldn't likewise be scanned, beamed and reassembled with the rest of us?
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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #9 on: October 10, 2012, 08:25:09 AM »


I stand corrected- remember that my high school health and biology classes were some time ago; I graduated in 1973.

As to your quantum theories, I've wondered that, too: http://cuumbaya.blogspot.com/2006/10/theism-irrational-ghost-story.html  and so have physicists: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7955846.stm

peace,
ES

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Re: Frankenstein
« Reply #10 on: October 10, 2012, 11:11:22 PM »


I stand corrected- remember that my high school health and biology classes were some time ago

So were mine.

I'm just addicted to a lot of the educational shows (How it's made, The Universe) and read a lot of medical advancement articles since they get bounced around my hospital's email system.
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