Philip K. Dick became a robot and then someone stole his head. Little girls are not made of sugar and spice and everything nice and do not want to grow up to be robots. Some of them do want to grow up to be Barbie and become just plastic enough, with or without plastic surgery, to make some of us wonder if they have made it. I am not Ken. I am not Spock. I am a jelly doughnut but much of the sweetness of this is lost in translation. Sometimes the language itself, the medium of identity, is a glass harmonica playing the ghost of futures that never came long enough to go, leaving us nostalgic in their wake. What is the word for the feeling that is to nostalgia what pain would mean to phantom wings that never grew? What was flesh but a key turning the lock of dreams? Why not dream plastic or metal or the death of desire itself.
--- Jim Piat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Some things are just too close for comfort. > Something there is that likes a > wall -- that wants it up. It's creepy to be aroused > by the sexy looking > robot. Or to acknowledge we ourselves might be > robots. To admit these > things to oneself is not something most folks take > lightly. It's an > affront to mankind's (and most individuals') self > image. Perhaps the walls > of denial and projection, that we build ourselves, > are the hardest to > overcome, because they are not part of our > environment but the means by > which we construct our environment and set ourselves > above and beyond it. > Maybe. > > > >I find this fascinating. From wikipedia: > > > > "The Uncanny Valley is the region of negative > emotional response > > towards robots that seem 'almost human'. Movement > amplifies the > > emotional response.This gap of repulsive response > aroused by a robot > > with appearance and motion between a > 'barely-human' and 'fully human' > > entity is called the Uncanny Valley. The name > captures the idea that a > > robot which is "almost human" will seem overly > 'strange' to a human > > being and thus will fail to evoke the requisite > empathetic response > > required for productive human-robot interaction." > > > > He charts plots hypothesized emotional responses > of human subjects > > against the anthropomorphism of a range of robot, > including humanoid > > robot, bunraku puppet, industrial robot, stuffed > animal, corpse, > > prosethetic hand, and zombie. > In so far as literature turns back on itself and examines parodies or treats ironically its own signifying procedures, it becomes the most complex account of signification we possess. John Deely __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
