“I’m the matrix, Case.”
Case laughed. “Where’s that get you?”
“Nowhere, Everywhere. I’m the sum total of the works, the whole show.”
Gibson, 259.
“And one October night, punching himself past the scarlet tiers of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority, he saw three figures, tiny, impossible, who stood at the edge of one of the vast steps of data. Small as they were, he could make out the boy’s grin, his pink gums, the glitter of the long gray eyes that had been Riviera’s. Lina still wore his jacket; she saved, as he passed. But the third figure, close behind her, arm across her shoulders, was himself”.
Gibson, 260.
At the end of Neuromancer, Gibson presents us with an intriguing concept of digital identity. As Wintermute is combined with Neuromancer, their attempt to define identity mimics that of a Zen Koan – a being everywhere, yet nowhere at once. In sharp contrast to their existence are the digitized characters of Case, Linda, and Riviera, who exist as disparate personalities in the digital matrix. In short, what differentiates the personalities of Case, Linda, and Riviera from that of the combined AI? Both exist solely in the digital matrix, yet one retains an omniscient identity while the others retain at the very least, the appearance of their human identity. Case’s identification of the apparition of himself has intriguing implications – to what limit is his proclamation of “himself” valid? Is it himself in a moral and ethical sense? Or only in the sake of appearance?
The question of digital identity in relation to fate is certainly a potent question by which to read Neuromancer. By digitizing themselves, do humans avoid the possible constraints of life, death, and morality? Are they even human? Wintermute/Neuromancer’s reply to Case’s question implies a certain transcendence, as if the questions of human existence no longer apply correctly to a universal, digitized, existence. In this case, Neuromancer performs a biblical feat – freeing the existence of Case, Linda, and Rivera from their human mortalities. This analogy opens all sorts of interpretative possibilities – is the digital matrix heaven? Hell? Gibson leaves these questions to float, however, they offer key perspectives by which to interpret Neuromancer.