“A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed that it was the wretch, the filthy demon to whom I had given life.” (50)

Chapters 5-10 in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein highlight the repercussions of science without moral boundaries, and Victor Frankenstein’s consequences of creating artificial life are on full display; Shelley uses Frankenstein and his monster to highlight the importance of appearance in society and the dangers of ambicion. For example, the contrast of the monster’s qualities also contrasts with Victor Frankenstein himself. The monster is in a nutshell an eight foot tall, hideous being with mismatching limbs and composed of strange chemicals, yet perhaps demonstrates the most reasonable decision making given its situation; it is self aware enough to know it will never be accepted into human society, yet possesses the human quality of wanting revenge on his creator for breaking the laws of nature with the monster’s creation. Victor, on the other hand, appears to be an ordinary human being, and is surrounded with everything the monster cannot: love, friendship, and family. The dichotomy between the qualities of Frankenstein and his monster showcases the importance of appearance in society: if the monster looked like a human being, it would be more of a contributing member of society than Victor, however, it cannot because of its unchangeable appearance. In other words, Frankenstein’s monster actually has more advanced mental capacities than Frankenstein himself, yet due to its exclusion from society, it uses its advanced intellect to harm Victor and seek revenge, rather than for good and the better of humanity; if the monster had a human appearance, it would develop into a better human being than Victor. Furthermore, on the inside, Victor can be described as more of a monster than Frankenstein, as he cannot look past the appearance of his own creation and is constantly making moves out of ambition, selfishness, and secrecy. The monster, on the other hand, makes his decisions in order to maximize his own happiness, knowing that he cannot fit into society with other people. 

Juxtaposition in Frankenstein is best utilized to highlight the irony of Frankenstein’s monster itself: the contrast between the monster’s elegant speech and comprehension to its grotesque inhumane appearance. Frankenstein’s monster is described by his creator as a “catastrophe” and a “wretch with infinite pains” (35), yet is showcased to display an educated form of speech; “Thus I relieve thee, my creator. Thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor. Still thou canst listen to me and grant me thy compassion.”(70). The monster displays sensical and intellectual thoughts like a human does, as it displays its ability to comprehend its plight of thinking like a human and containing all the feelings that a human does, yet looking like a monster, which dooms him to never be allowed to be a member of society. Shelley utilizes the juxtaposition of the monster’s character in order to highlight the irony of one’s appearance in society. Frankenstein’s monster has, by all means, the mental facilities to become a productive member in society, yet cannot ever be loved by another human being because of his appearance, connecting to Shelley’s overarching narrative of not crossing the ethical boundaries of science, as tragedies like Frankenstein’s monster will happen. Shelley uses the juxtaposition of the monster’s elegant speech with his grotesque appearance as a catalyst to demonstrate the monster’s plight, but more deeply connect the monster to her rhetorical purpose: to expose her educated english peers about her fears about scientists crossing moral boundaries in order to advance technology without any real justification but for ‘more knowledge’. In other words, Frankenstein’s monster, apart from being a symbol about the importance of appearance in society, is a representation of a science with no morals, and is Shelley’s way of communicating to her other educated peers/members of the scientific community in England that humanity’s own creations could ultimately destroy society and humans. 

Shelley ultimately ulitizes Walton and Frankenstein as examples of what would happen if scientists and explorers keep embracing the romanticist point of view: humans would eventually cross ethical boundaries that would lead to our own destruction. The Reader already knows that Frankenstein eventually creates his monster that tracks down and kills everyone he loves, and it is completely Frankenstein’s fault, as he tried to “play God”; in other words, Frankenstein experimented with an aspect of life that is deemed “unethical”, and this is Shelley’s take on what would happen when romanticists are put in a position where they can cross this so called moral boundary of science and exploration. Shelley herself is playing the part of the empiricist, and argues that there are moral and ethical boundaries present in exploration and the pursuit of knowledge that shouldn’t be crossed; some being the attempt to reincarnate life, attempt to control the dead, and human experimentation. All in all, Mary Shelley showcases her stance on the many scientific innovations occurring during 19th century Gothic England and Romanticism through Frankenstein crossing the ethical boundaries of science by toying with the dead, and eventually by creating his monster; Shelley also showcases the repercussions of Frankenstein’s actions in later chapters.

Likewise, Shelley also paints Frankenstein as a symbol for romanticism as well: Frankenstein is shown to be eccentric in the sciences when he is young, and is constantly yearning for knowledge just how Walton yearns for exploration. Eventually, in chapter four, Frankenstein is shown to start an interest in the causes of life: “To examine the causes of life, I must first have recourse to death… I must observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body.”(30), foreshadowing the creation of Frankenstein’s monster. Shelley utilizes Frankenstein as the “dark side” of Romanticism to Walton’s “bright side”: unlike Walton, who wants to put his life on the line to explore unknown regions of the world and carve his name in history, Frankenstein wants to create artificial life for himself just for the sake of possessing the knowledge that he can do it, Shelley’s take on the darker side of Romanticism. Frankenstein has no real justification as to why he wants to create artificial life, and shows no intentions of actually cultivating his creation to have a positive impact on society, but rather shows his interest in the dead and creating life just as a way to satiate his hunger for possessing more and more knowledge. Frankenstein himself is the symbol for those in Shelley’s time who were willing to forgo any moral compass in order to gain more knowledge, regardless of how useful that knowledge actually was to improving the lives of people.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein showcases many of Shelley’s notions about what was happening in 19th century Gothic England, and these ideals were demonstrated in the first parts of the novel. 

One particular core ideal that stood out to me was the dichotomy between a romantic’s and empiricist’s outlook on life: during the time that Shelley was writing this novel, the later stages of the industrial revolution in England was in full swing, and there were two main sides toward the rapid innovations that were occurring at the time. One of these sides was Romanticism, which took on the perspective of maximizing human potential and creativity: Romanticists usually argued that the sciences and geography should be pushed to its limit. Shelley spends the first few chapters of the novel introducing certain characters that represent the romanticist: Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein. Both of these characters, while neither artists but an explorer and scientist respectively, are already shown to harbor intentions of breaking the limits of geography and science. Walton’s statements of enjoying the “cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves, and fills me with delight”(1) and wants to “accomplish some great purpose.. I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path”(3). Shelley’s portrayal of Walton is one that imitates the thought process and actions of a textbook Romanticist: instead of worrying about what could go wrong on his journey to the arctic circle, Walton focuses on excitement that the cold air provides him and what could happen to him if he discovered something great, like the source of magnetism or any previously unknown plot of land. Shelley perhaps paints Walton as a more positive symbol of Romanticism; Walton does showcase the Romanticist’s ideals of pushing the limits of creativity and exploration, yet doesn’t actually cross any sort of moral or ethical boundaries when doing so. Furthermore, Walton actually has justification for his journey, in that he would be aiding the scientific world’s understanding of magnetism and the arctic circle, yet still encompasses the key ideals of Romanticism.

Conclusion:

It is surprising that a company like Nikola has survived and stayed in business to this day, however, things are much gloomier behind the scenes. In other words, no breakthrough technology was created that salvaged the company; but rather, the company has made promising advancements to its original purpose, creating hydrogen powered vehicles, but the sustainability of these vehicles are in question. These concerns mean that Nikola will likely not be a profitable company and will run out of money soon.

How is this possible?

While much of their technology was fake, Nikola was still a real company and had hundreds of employees, and were building a production factory in Arizona. After Milton stepped down from his position as Chairman, Nikola’s CEO Mark Russell still pressed ahead with the production of the company’s electric and hydrogen powered trucks. In fact, Nikola created real working prototype trucks in 2021, as opposed to their fake prototypes in 2016. In february of 2022, Nikola delivered two prototype hydrogen powered trucks to a beer company in california, which used them to ship products without any issues. Nikola has also delivered their first battery electric trucks to a trucking company in California in 2021, and are expected to deliver 300-500 electric trucks in 2022 and begin large scale deliveries of hydrogen trucks in 2023. 

However, things aren’t as good as they seem. For one, hydrogen and electric powered trucks are nowhere close to being commercially viable, which is why we don’t see these trucks all over our roads today. Furthermore, ownership of a hydrogen/electric powered truck is 39% higher than owning a combustion engine truck, and such costs would put any shipping company at a loss: hydrogen fuel is much more expensive than regular diesel, and the difference adds up over time. Unless there is a way so that owning a hydrogen truck is more cost effective, such as the price of hydrogen fuel going down or the price of the truck going down, Nikola is not likely going to succeed in being a successful, profitable company.

Introduction:

In 2016, A technology company named Nikola lied about having a revolutionary technology where they could make trucks powered by hydrogen instead of gasoline. Along with this, the company also lied that they had a working prototype (was rolled down hill) and had a way to produce hydrogen for just four dollars per kilogram, revolutionary breakthrough in technology even today, as hydrogen is produced for roughly about 16 dollars per kilogram. When these lies were exposed throughout 2020-2021, Nikola’s stock price plummeted, and the founder Trevor Milton was charged with securities fraud and faced up to 25 years in prison. Yet, after their Chairman and Founder was arrested, and with all the lies coming out against the company, one might think that Nikola would have gone out of business shortly after. Nikola looked to be in a really bad position: their reputation was ruined and key board members were now in jail. However, the company is still astonishingly still doing business today and the company is still valued at $2 billion and employs about 1,000 workers. 

Feldman’s Response to the PR-ist’s Objection to the Brian/Brain Scenario:

Feldman, being the good prompt epistemologist that he is, would respond to the PR-ist’s two objections with more scenarios of his own. Feldman would respond to the PR-ist’s first objection (Brain doesn’t have justification) by stating that the BIV would have justification for their beliefs since they still perceive experiences as if they are real humans. The BIV still receives the artificial signals that makes the BIV think that it’s perceiving true experiences, and there is nothing else that would prove otherwise: the definition of a BIV itself states that the BIV itself thinks it is living a perfectly normal life, regardless of if it mirrors the experiences of another individual. In other words, the BIV does have its own consciousness, unlike the “puppet” state that the PR-ist is suggesting: therefore, the BIV does have justification based on its experiences. However, Feldman would most likely respond a bit differently in regards to the PR-ist’s second objection, instead simply stating that Brian would never have a justification for being a BIV in the first place: the notion of someone having justification for believing that they are a BIV is very unlikely and close to impossible, as there has yet to be any sort of evidence pointing to that matter. Feldman would argue that the event in which we figure out whether we are BIVs is when we will learn what God is.

The PR-st’s Objection to Feldman’s Brian/Brain scenario:

It is safe to assume that the Process Reliabilist would criticize the first premise of Feldman’s Brian/Brain Objection, “The BIV has justified but false beliefs about the external world”, and would argue that the BIV does not have justification about the external world. The process reliabilist would argue that, although it may seem that the BIV would have justification, the BIV does not have justification because since the BIV perfectly mirrors the thought process of Brian, then the BIV does not truly hold knowledge of its experiences. In other words, the Process Reliabilist would argue that Brain does not hold knowledge because Brain mirrors the experiences of Brian, and that therefore Brain does not have knowledge in the first place (meaning that Brain cannot have justified but true beliefs either). Since Brain mirrors every mental thought that Brian has, the PR-ist would argue that Brain does not have justification for his beliefs because Brain’s line of reasoning is actually just Brian’s line of reasoning. I guess that the PR-ist would ultimately argue that Brain is a puppet of Brian, mimicking every thought and experience that Brian has, and therefore is not justified in creating any sort of beliefs in the first place. Another objection that would be raised by the PR-ist would be this scenario:

Brian has the notion that he is a brain in vat whose experiences are auto-generated by a computer: this means that Brain would also have the notion that he is a brain in a vat, meaning that Brain would have a justified but true belief (going by Feldman’s notion that Brain has justification). This would also put the first premise of Feldman’s Brian/Brain into question, as the aforementioned objection would render Feldman’s argument as an enumerative inductive argument. Feldman would assume that since Brain has routinely had his ‘justification’ lead to false beliefs, then the next justified belief would also be false: however, with the example of Brian thinking that he is a BIV, this is obviously not the case.