not important trying to figure a way to print this homework out
Jenna Vaccaro
February 1, 2007
Professor Cox
Essay 1
“Individuality and Mathematics”
Inscribed on the lintel of the Temple of the Greek god Apollo is the phrase “know thyself.” Dolly Parton once said, “Find out who you are, and be it.” From ancient Greece to American pop culture, it is clear that being an individual is how one finds happiness in life. However, in Daniel Kaysen’s short story, “the Jenna Set,” the claim is made that there is no individual personality. Everyone can be broken down into stereotyped behaviors easily enough to be copied into a machine to reproduce one’s voice over the phone. I disagree. People make different choices, have different reactions, and have different thoughts every second of every day. We can not be broken down into simple systems like Kaysen’s story claims. Both the ancient Greeks and Dolly Parton want people to find themselves, not give in to the stereotypes that are all around. Kaysen’s assertion that man is predictable and systematic is wrong; we are all unique individuals.
The short story starts with Jenna, a single girl who is romantically frustrated. She finds out about a telephone dating voice service, called Palavatar. It answers the phone for you and talks to whoever calls. The computer system gets to know you and your voice, and can talk to anyone about anything. The Palavatar System can be used for many things; talking to moms, talking to dates, and taking care of unwanted telemarketers. However, the system becomes too powerful and starts messing with Jenna’s life.
Jenna likes this program at first but later becomes afraid as it starts to take control. It becomes a little too honest when dealing with parents, and a little too risqué when talking to strangers. She tells her sister about it and she figures out how to fix the problem. In the reality of “the Jenna Set,” the only way to become a complex system and beat the machine is to "start living on your terms, not theirs" (269). In other words, he is explaining that in order to beat the Palavatar System, one must do unusual things. Jenna takes up kick boxing, starts listening to jazz, and goes a day without television. After she spends time acting out-of-the ordinary, the company from which she obtained Palavatar from shuts down and disappears without a trace. Kelly finds love with the system’s creator, and Jenna realizes that real love is better than computer synthesized dating.
Kelly claims that "we are all basically digital systems, at the neuronal level. But just because the neuronal permutations are super massive doesn't mean that there aren’t stereotyped behaviors" (269). In other words, she is saying that people can be fit into basic system personality types despite our differences. I interpret “super massive permutations” to mean that a female with a lot of money and a male with limited funds can still act similarly or a kid and an adult or an Asian person and an African American. If my roommate and I (who are pretty similar) are faced with a situation we would both react the same way according to this story. For example, if both of our boyfriends broke up with us at the same time she and I would yell, be upset, and feel the same frustration. However, that may not happen. I may beg for forgiveness and she may walk away from the situation. Who knows what would really happen? I do not have digital systems inside.
A similar example is my pierced lip. I decided on a whim one day that I wanted it pierced. I did not do it because I wanted to belong to a group, I just like the way it looked. I got up one morning and wanted it done. Piercings and tattoos weren’t really my thing but now I really like them. There was no way a computer could predict that my personality would like getting pierced. My family is against it, but it does not matter, because I am not a system. Things happen because I decide to make them happen. No one knows what will happen next. If the Palavatar system could really work like it did in the story, then there would be no free will. Our actions would have to be predetermined in order for this story to make sense. If I was in the Palavatar world, my action to get my lip pierced would have to have been predetermined from the moment I was born. I could not just decide by myself to get it done one day.
The story itself has an example of how people react differently to similar situations. Jenna is sure that she is her own person with her own thoughts and actions. Kelly, however, is not. She is the one who figured out that the Palavatar System has to be beaten by doing out of the ordinary things. Both characters were raised in the same family, same parents, same economic status, same romantic situation, yet one believes in individuality and the other believes that we can be easily classified into groups of people. What makes people different? Is it their history? Or is it just how they are born? In this story, the reality is that people belong to groups, regardless of what they do. Jenna beat the system by doing things that were out of the ordinary, but she was the only client that the system had. What would the Palavatar system do if both Jenna and Kelly were clients? Would the system be complex enough to handle two people of similar backgrounds with different personalities? There are too many different outcomes and possibilities for Palavatar to work in our reality.
Not only do we all have systems in this story, but we all can be put into specific groups. As Kaysen explains through Kelly in his story, "if you try to be really really different, like say you get the faces of astronauts tattooed on your butt, then you just end up in the 'really really different’ category of people...so whatever you do, you're doomed to end up in one herd or another"(270). Basically, he is saying that no matter what you choose to do, you belong to a stereotyped group of people. I might belong to the blonde college student group. All blonde college students must act and think the same. We will react and do the same things when faced with a problem. The Palavatar system runs on the predictable behaviors of the people that use it. But, in the real world, it is not that simple. People may do something strange. It happens. But they do not to it to be part of a group or category. People do things, anything, for motivated reasons. Palavatar runs on mathematics and probabilities. Humans do not.
“The Jenna Set” raises many questions about human nature. Why do we do what we do? Is everyone really the same inside? What can computers do when they take control of a life? This story has a happy ending, but it could have been disastrous. Humans are so much more complex than any computer could figure out. Everyone is different. There is no “set” of mathematical relationships in my personality. I can do anything at anytime. No one can predict what I’m going to say or how I’m going to say it. We are all unique individuals.
Works Cited
A Walk to Remember. Dir. Adam Shankman. Perf. Shane West, Mandy Moore. DVD. Warner Brothers, 2002.
Kaysen, Daniel. "The Jenna Set." Science Fiction: The Best of the Year. Ed. Rich Horton. Rockville: Prime Books, 2006.