리챠드 파워즈의 『갈라티아 2.2』에 함축된 포스트휴먼 종교 의식

Abstract

N. Katherine Hayles interprets Helen, a sophisticated hi-tech artificial intelligence in Richard Powers's autobiographical SF novel Gatatea 2.2, as Powers's projection of the idealistic companion for human in the posthuman age. Helen in which binary borders-science and literature, science and myth, mind and body, and machine and human-blur commits a suicide after learning human condition through reading literature. According to Rene Girard's religious theories of “violence,” “scapegoat” and “sacrifice,” discussed in Violence and The Sacred (1972), Helen's death has her take the role of the scapegoat to purify damages that advanced science and technology has brought about and may cause. Thus, Girard's theory illuminates Galatea 2.2 as the sacrificial ceremony Powers has created so that the upcoming posthuman age may be full of healthy solidarity not only among humans but also between humans and machines to defeat loneliness, the most horrifying violence.