Haywire 11 Spring 2018

artificial in nature, but cells regardless.
This makes OSCAR alive.
OSCAR is also capable of reason and simulated emotion.
OSCAR is sentient.
OSCAR does not, however, know that it is OSCAR.
OSCAR is not self aware.
“Conclusion: OSCAR is not sapient.” The
combined echoes of OSCAR and the interrupting
lawyer slowly succumbed to the palpable
silence now pervading the courtroom.
I watched as the senior justice announced a
recess to hold conference, and as the nine supreme
court justices filed out of the courtroom,
preparing to define what it means to
be human. I followed the interrupting lawyer
as he, radiating jubilance, returned to his clients,
representatives of NASA and men certain
that what they had left on Titan was not
human, but a mere machine. And I identified
on Amélie’s face guilt, guilt for the knowledge
that her team, be it on orders of NASA, but ultimately
through her final decision, had left a
human being to orbit Saturn on a desolate moon
of noxious gases and combustible oceans.
What was to be argued? The object of dispute
itself had delivered a solid and decisive argument
for its occlusion from humanity, and
as such, for its own abandonment on Titan.
No one in my field of vision, be it the complacent
advocates of a sealed definition of humanity
or the acquiescent former proponents of the
sapience within the subject of their sympathies
was in doubt now, so much was obvious. That
is, assuming that what I perceived besides guilt
on that familiar face so unlike the one Amélie
usually wore was not doubt. She was certain
the empirical evidence presented to her
was false. Apparently her experiences with
HAYWIRE Issue 11 Spring 2018
Photos by Finnegan
Wagner, 11d
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