Essay On Frankenstein: Manipulating The Human Mind Through Time

Manipulating the Human Mind Through Time Ironically, despite being arguably the most important object to every human on Earth, perhaps the most mysterious object left in the observable universe is the human mind. The key mystery of the mind is of course the it’s immense complexity, making it almost impossible to understand, though not for a lack of effort and substantial progress in the scientific community. In literature, one way that the mysteries of human intelligence are explored is by giving something that is not human the intelligence of a human. While the method of giving nonhuman creatures intelligence has changed over time, it is still seen as a common thread through literature. The changes in these stories show what could be foreboding trends about the depersonalization of humanity. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein creates a monster using body parts scavenged from humans. This monster, despite having a human brain, is decidedly not human; its birth is unnatural and every creature it encounters in the book fears it. The monster is not even given the dignity of a name. However, it displays human intelligence in many capabilities, quickly picking up …show more content…
Frankenstein’s monster is wholly organic, while the donkeys are organic except for one modification and robots from Ghost in the Shell are entirely artificial. Non-human intelligence has moved from the realm of biology to that of computer science. This trend is to be expected, given the relentless pace of mechanization and automation that society has gone through over time. It is even further explained by the fact that when written, Frankenstein was set in the past, “Donkeys to Bald Pate” in its present day, and Ghost in the Shell the future. Despite this explanation, this trend still shows how our ideas of intelligence over time have shifted from being like us to being of our own