Beryl Fletcher

The Holy Trinity of the Net: Hardware, Software and Wetware

Blog Number 18: 27 August 2009-08-18

I am in the process of changing my computer and printer and various other bits and pieces so that I can use the Net more efficiently. I was sparked off last week by the breakage of a hinge on my faithful old HP laptop.

When the hinge on my four-year-old HP snapped, I felt stressed to the point of a nervous breakdown. This was, of course, a ridiculous overreaction on my part. The truth is that if anything goes wrong with my home based broadband or any other of the essential technology that surrounds me, I panic. This is not logical. I can usually sort out any problem by ringing my ISP and if the worst happens and my hard drive becomes terminally ill, I have all data backed up on a separate drive.

But logic has no place for me when I get into a wetware panic. What happens when the machine withdraws its labour? What happens when the products of hard labour of writing disappears? It’s not just the data that threatens to withdraw, I do too.

All the modes of communication that fill my days are connected to the machine. Except oral conversation, just. Yes I have sent emails to someone in the same room, yes I have sent enigmatic one letter texts; k. Or not k. Guilty as charged.

The human brain has been infiltrated, secretly, and bit by bit. There are those who believe that we are all cyborgs now. The blending of biological elements with inanimate hardware is well under way in sites that we would never suspect. Some researchers like to make the case that DNA is a form of software that can provide the key to new forms of wetware. The term wetware in this instance refers to all living systems. I like to use it more specifically. For me, wetware is the entity that experiences and produces knowledge and emotion at one and the same time, in short, the human brain.  

You can have all your important data backed up, but this provides little comfort. I have seen people weep when they experience a hard drive crash. I have known people to become so dependent on their email and/or mobile phone that they refuse to travel to areas where their machines do not work. They say it is like a death, they say that they are lost, they don’t know what to do anymore.

So when the machine turns up its toes or is stolen or becomes mortally wounded by a mug of hot coffee, the wetware is bereft. I suspect that there is a radically different relationship going on here compared with other human/machine interactions. I wonder if this has resulted from a huge shift in the power of the computer over us. We have been able to control all of our technologies up until now. Of course these technologies have done harm to others and to the planet but there has been a level of brute mechanical understanding that makes them relatively easily disabled. Not so the new communication technologies, especially the Net.

The wetware is the star player in these new technologies. It is by its very nature a group invention. It cannot exist as a radically individual entity. When the Net goes down the wetware loses its spirit and its nerve. The body experiences a blow to the head akin to a concussion. Memory fails, and with it, goes identity.

I have a modem that displays a tiny red light when the network goes down. I am an early riser and the first thing I do before I feed the cat is to go and check the modem. If the light is green I feel a part of the world. If it’s red, I panic.

No other machine has ever held me in such tyranny. But I’m making a stand. I am writing this blog out on the west coast in a small town called Raglan. I am in an old house where rooms are let out to travellers. There is no way of logging in. Three days I have endured life without checking my email or my website. The first day I was unable to write. I had to walk to the sea close by and do some deep breathing. But now, I can feel the panic melting away.

Maybe my wetware is recovering its pre-internet persona. I doubt it though. I know that the very first thing I’ll do when I get home will be to log in.