Man vs. Machine

In Kurt Vonnegut’s Galápagos, Vonnegut acts as a first-person narrator who tells a story

of the evolution of people from the 20th to the 21st century. Vonnegut’s evolutionary story

mocks the human race, and more specifically the human brain and its intellectual in creating

technological machinery that is almost as useless as the brain.

The evolutionary adventure starts out with six random strangers who plan on going on “The

Nature Cruise Ship of the Century,” named Bahía de Darwin, to explore the Galápagos Islands. By

the end, only two random strangers survive and actually make it on to The Nature Cruise Ship:

Mary Hepburn (a widow from Illium, New York) and Captain Adolf von Kleist (captain of the cruise

ship). The deaths of the other strangers, James Wait, Andrew MacIntosh, Selena, and the

Hiroguchis, all happen due to a random chain of disastrous events, and according to Vonnegut, due

to the lack of using the human brain’s full potential to provide sound decision-making (4).

Vonnegut tells the story in the perspective that the randomness is life, and the events in life

happen for no reason and the human brain triggers the randomness. Things just happen, and

nothing goes as planned.

Furthermore, all the randomness in the events of survivals and deaths show how the human

brain was not really a controlling factor of decisions, at least not at a consciously controlling

level. The human brain comes off as being an inner, subconscious voice that gave bad advice

(103). Vonnegut portrays the human brain as a “character” on its own, uncontrollable and

unpredictable. So is the human brain an impulsive character? Is the thinking process a myth?

Is the brain a paradox to the human race and its intellectual?

Oddly enough, the human brain as an impulsive, unintelligible character plays off the one

technological machine available to the survivors on the Galápagos, called Mandarax. Mandarax is

a portable hand-held machine that mirrors the actions of the human brain, in terms of memory

storage and alleged knowledge. For instance, it knows over 1,000 languages and spits out quotes

from authors of all time periods when given a keyword (55). The “intelligence” of Mandarax can

be seen as a reflection on what has become of the human race and the human brain.

Humans and their brains undergo an extensive process of education. They retain

information of all sorts, then attempt to use what was “learned” to work in an office with

technologically savvy computers that have as much, or possibly more, retained information as the

human brain. The only difference between the human brain and the computer: the computer was

built with information not through twelve-plus years of education, but through the hands of other

such knowledgeable machinery. So what has become of the human brain? Sure, the brain was what

gave birth to the ideas of new technology and machinery, but what happens after that? What

happens when technology and machinery exceed the human brain’s capacity?

Vonnegut’s character of Mandarax mocks today’s society of man-versus-machine relationship.

Instead of using the human brain, humans have created another brain to do the job of the human

brain. There is nothing around us that is not built to cater to the needs of the human race and

to ease off the duties of what the human brain is supposed to do; for instance, thinking. Is

laziness going to be the death of the human race?

Especially in recent years of the 21st century, technological advancements have

contributed in giving birth to even smarter machines, from the MacBook to the iPhone. Now, here

is Vonnegut’s paradox in showcasing the relationship of man-versus-machine: do machines keep the

human brains exercising and useful, or do they keep the human brains idling and useless?

Vonnegut plays out the paradox even more to say that though the brain is purposeless,

humans ask for more in order to not be idle. But how would one be idle if the brain is idle in

and of itself:

“Nobody leads a life of quiet desperation nowadays. The mass of men was quietly desperate a

million years ago because the infernal computers inside their skulls were incapable of restraint

or idleness; were forever demanding more challenging problems which life could not provide.”

(270)

Technology has gotten the best of today. Humans try to create order through machinery,

but it only results in more randomness and improbability because the machine is yet another brain

under its own control. And ironically, according to Vonnegut, humans cannot even seem to control

their own brains (166).

In the end, Mandarax dies, not due to self-extinction, but due to a random chain of

events: Captain Kleist throws Mandarax into the ocean out of frustration of its, what he

considers, uselessly memorized languages and famous quotes (288). Again, Vonnegut plays out

another contradiction in symbolizing the machine’s memorization as the human brain’s extensive

“knowledge” of educated information. So will the human brain disintegrate due to its

uselessness? Will Darwinian Evolution and the Law of Natural Selection do its work in shrinking

what is not fit to survive?

Taking Dr. Grobstein’s Biology 103 taught me a different way of looking at life and

living: it is a circle of randomness strung together by improbable assemblies of improbable

assemblies. Reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Galápagos added on to that idea of randomness: life and

living is Nature’s experiment with Darwinian Evolution and the Law of Natural Selection. And the

human brain is no exception to that experiment of randomness. The brain has become dependent on

other brains, the brains of technology. This evolution of the brain’s independence to its

dependence truly shows the randomness of the world today. There is no more thinking, no more

sound decision-making, no more plans, just doing, doing, doing. So next time you act on impulse,

just remember, it’s not you, it’s your good-for-nothing brain. Thanks a lot, brain.

Source:
Vonnegut, Kurt. Galápagos. New York: Delacourt Press/Seymour Lawrence,
1985.