The Price of Knowledge

        Judith Merril, an influential woman in the world of science fiction, defines speculative fiction

as “the mode which makes use of the traditional 'scientific method' (observation, hypothesis,

experiment) to examine some postulated approximation of reality, by introducing a given set of

changes – imaginary or inventive – into the common background of 'known facts' (Merril). These

changes create pressurized situations that would often reveal the true intentions, personality, or

nature of a character or story. One certain type of subgenre of science fiction is Cyberpunk which,

according to other popular science fiction author Lewis Shiner, “would show the price that must be

paid for solutions to our problems” (Shiner). William Gibson displays the idea created by Shiner

where humans must pay a high price for knowledge. In his science fiction Cyberpunk, short story,

“Hinterlands,” William Gibson contemplates about the ethics of human experimentation motivated

by Earth’s desire for knowledge in the name of improving the survival rate of a given kind or race.

        In Gibson’s story, “Hinterlands,” surrogate, responders who must care for individuals returning

from their intergalactic exploration, Toby Halpert must retrieve and prevent the likely suicidal

woman from killing herself through any means necessary. Despite this grim fact, Toby must save

the life of the cosmonaut to gain vital information regarding the world beyond the black hole.

Information is the true desire of Earth within the story; they will risk anything for a scrap of

knowledge. For example, when the first cosmonaut, Olga Tovyevski returns from her space trip

with a seashell in her hand, it “generated an entire sub branch of the science, devoted exclusively

to the study of … Olga’s seashell” (Gibson 69). Gibson portrays the lengths that humans will travel

to satiate their curiosity, even if it involves the meticulous investigation of a small seashell.

Furthermore, the scientists must not allow any detail to be under analyzed for fear of overlooking

new facts regarding the alien territory. Furthermore, even Olga was not immune from the

meticulous hands of the scientists on Earth. When Olga returned catatonic, they tried, of course,

[to save her] but the more they tried, the more tenuous she became, and, in their hunger to know,

they spread her thinner and thinner until she came, in her martyrdom, to fill whole libraries with

frozen aisles of precious relics” (Gibson 68). Scientists, at first, tried, through any means

necessary, to save her from her unresponsive state, but as their hope dwindled, so did the

remaining body parts of Olga. In the end, she died as a martyr for the scientific discovery and

immortalized as a saint of the Highway, a name given to the black hole that connects the two

worlds. 

        The discovery of the Highway prompted many questions and sparked the curiosity of all

nations around the world. During the early years of the Highway’s discovery, the Soviet Union tried

to deduce the secrets inside the black hole by constantly sending spacecraft to the location.

However, after news of the failed attempts spread, the Soviet Union received a call from the

Central Intelligence Agency who was willing to lend the Soviets the “best minds in Western

psychiatry” to help analyze the reasons why the cosmonauts return suicidal (Gibson 69). The

whole issue about the black hole and the world beyond the rift captivated the minds of all scientists

around the world. According to Gibson, man’s desire to learn spans across the world and with this

curiosity motivating the minds of the scientists, they continue to send cosmonauts into the

unknown like a lab rat into a maze. After failing, once again, to save a returning cosmonaut, Toby

says “Damn Leni, damn that Frenchman, damn all the ones who bring things home, who bring

cancer cures, seashells, things without names – who keep us here waiting, who fill Wards, who

bring us the Fear” (Gibson 82). Toby’s frustration stems from the fact that the station continues to

send people into space even if it means their guaranteed demise. Gibson displays the unintended

consequence of the desire for knowledge. When mankind returns with a new item in their grasp,

they consider it as a successful journey since it brings upon new information; however, Gibson

voices out the possibility that it may not be as big of a reward as it seems to send people out into

the Highway. Whenever a human being is sent out into the black hole, often that person would

return deceased or mentally ill to the point of constantly pondering suicide. Despite this fact, the

space station continues to send volunteers out into the black hole and continue like it is some form

of human experimentation.

        Similar to an experiment, volunteers with a variety of characteristics would congregate and

part take on the mission where only a select few are chosen. These few that are considered the

explanatory variables of an experiment, the forces that influence the result, and their return is

considered the response variable, the observed outcome. When these results do not produce the

expected results then another experiment, with different explanatory factors, is conducted with

hopes that the next one will create a new product. This operation describes the process that many

medicinal experiments follow. A medicine is assigned to volunteers and the results are carefully

analyzed. Sometimes the result produced is successful and at other times the process fails. The

failure may also result in the death of an individual, depending on the experiment. 

        According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, eugenics is the “science that deals with the

improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed. Human

experimentation is a well-known act of inhumanity that is considered by many to be cruel and

unethical. During World War II, the Nazi Regime would conduct many brutal experiments to further

benefit their own party like freezing experiments to test treatments for hypothermia, exposing other

races to contagious diseases to see how each individual race would react, and finding effective

sterilization techniques for what the Nazis considered undesirable races (United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum). The Nazi Regime would take the knowledge gained from these experiments

and apply them to current equipment and standards in hopes to perfect their race. These

experiments would often cost the lives of millions but would also reward some valuable information

regarding the human body. Gibson, in his story, does something similar when he takes all the

information gathered by the space journeys and compiles them together for the world to use. The

cancer cures were distributed to people and knowledge regarding the worm hole was shared with

all the nations, at the expense of human lives. In the Nazi Regime’s situation, human

experimentation is evidently unethical due to the inhumane torture of many individuals, but the line

of ethics has blurred as the times have progressed. In her article “The Ethics of Clinical Trials,”

Cecilia Nardini discusses the ethical implications regarding the highly regulated randomized

clinical trials. During clinical trials, one group of patients are given a placebo, a fake treatment

which are designed to deceive the patient who is participating in the treatment (Nardini). In this

experiment, a set of people are given an ineffective pill while the other group is given the actual

medicine to observe the results produced in a few days. Throughout Gibson’s stories, drugs have

been a reoccurring theme that has been used to control entities. In “Johnny Mnemonic,” Jones the

war dolphin was given heroine to increase his reliance to humans. On the other hand, Jones

thought the drugs would help his conditions, but in the end actually mentally injured him if he

thought to disobey. The question presents whether it is ethical to trick patients who needs

medicine in exchange for knowledge gained from the experiment.

        Another detail that could prove unethical to human experimentation is the lack of consent

given by the patient, especially when it’s impossible for the individual to even give consent. In

Alduous Huxley’s well known novel Brave New World, specific embryos are experimented on and

are given less oxygen to produce babies that lack the same capabilities as ones that have not

been tampered with (Huxley 12). The scientists at the Hatchery, the factory where babies are

fertilized and grown, requires this system for their strict caste system to function. Despite the lack

of consent given by the unborn babies, since they are incapable of giving, the scientists take this

opportunity to conduct life changing alterations, for better or for worse. Experimenting without

consent is also evident in another one of William Gibson’s short stories called “Johnny Mnemonic.”

In Johnny Mnemonic, the main protagonist, Johnny, has learned that dangerous Yakuza

information has been inserted into his genetically cyber enhanced brain that is capable of storing

information for later access, as long as he has the password. During his journey, he asks for the

help of Jones a war dolphin with “crusted plates along his sides, a kind of visual pun, his grace

nearly lost under articulated armor clumsy, and prehistoric” (Gibson 10). Plates and armor were

attached to the cyborg dolphin in order for him to accomplish his task more effectively. However,

Jones never volunteered for this mission and was instead forcefully given this task to complete. In

Gibson’s “Hinterlands,” the surrogates are disallowed of a choice between whether they can leave

or not. Surrogates are previous cosmonauts that have been rejected by the Highway; however,

they are not given the opportunity to leave because they are “too valuable, too much use to them

as a potential surrogate” (Gibson 82). Every cosmonaut that has been denied entrance to the

Highway has become a surrogate, like Toby. Gibson writes that these new surrogates are required

to stay inside the space station and help with the effort; this is also a way to prevent the individuals

from leaking information regarding the process to the public. To facilitate their attendance,

bonephones, which are communicators implanted into their skull, are utilized to have constant

access to the person. These stories highlight the prevalence of experimenting on entities that are

unable to give consent. Is it ethical to conduct these experiments and utilize the information gained

from these projects? That is the question William Gibson presents.

        Although the human experiments conducted are considered unethical, the knowledge gained

from the process should be utilized regardless of the casualties. The information gained could

benefit an entire group of people and eventually prevent future casualties from occurring. If the

knowledge and wisdom is abandoned, then the group of individuals that died for the knowledge

would have lost their lives in vain. However, this does not make human experimentation

permissible. Previously gained knowledge should not be thrown away if it was gained unethically;

it is the inhumane experimentation that causes the deaths of many individuals that should be

stopped.