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Lots of machinery proliferating: writing machines, talking machines, intelligent machines, machines that want to be writers, machines that
keep you cosmic in the other world...the world of the dead, the world of the Other.
I've already pointed out that for a machine, just writing a good story is not enough...a good writing machine must really want to be an writer, otherwise we will not be very impressed -- we will just say the machine is a writing machine -- why, even a big advance means nothing to your average writing machine...but if the machine can not only write, but it really wants to be a writer, we must admit it is much smarter than the average machine (whose intelligence is undoubtedly "artificial" and perhaps unconsciously motivated in some way of which it is unaware) and will probably be going places, if only as a machine. I suppose a machine is never a wannabe machine, just as Pinocchio was never a wannabee puppet...so that is something.
Oddly enough, Lacan and Freud and ETA Hoffman (the PDQ Bach of musical Romanticism) all have a fair amount to say about automata. Of course, the first thing any romantic does is to "fall in love" with the nearest automaton. This leads to a one-sided misunderstanding.
OR see Freud on that and the other disturbing features of the "uncanny" or automata....
http://people.emich.edu/acoykenda/uncanny1.htm
Which brings us to one of the oldest types of writing machines: the temple, cenotaph, tomb complex. At first glance, what can you say: seen one Bronze Age mega-complex, you've seen 'em all? And where is the writing exactly? Is it fixed like any decent piece of writing or does it wobble all over and get stuff on your car? ("Hey, don't get stuff on my car!"...you can practice that part at home) Or is it sort of like a car already? That already has a lot of stuff on it? Not like your car at all? Perhaps its more of a sarcophagus?
It only happens to look like you and your car. Strange.
But is it really that strange? As Freud says (op cit):
The theme of the ‘double’ has been very thoroughly treated by Otto Rank (1914). He has gone into the connections which the ‘double’ has with reflections in mirrors, with shadows, with guardian spirits, with the belief in the soul and with the fear of death; but he also lets in a flood of light on the surprising evolution of the idea. For the ‘double’ was originally an insurance against the destruction of the ego, an ‘energetic denial of the power of death,’ as Rank says; and probably the ‘immortal’ soul was the first ‘double’ of the body. This invention of doubling as a preservation against extinction has its counterpart in the language of dreams, which is found of representing castration by a doubling or multiplication of a genital symbol. The same desire led the Ancient Egyptians to develop the art of making images of the dead in lasting materials. Such ideas, however, have sprung from the soil of unbounded self-love, from the primary narcissism which dominates the mind of the child and of primitive man. But when this stage has been surmounted, the ‘double’ reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death.
Sheesh! Frightening! But where is the automation and the writing? And what about that "found of" for fond of....(who really wants to say "fond of representing castration"?)
keep you cosmic in the other world...the world of the dead, the world of the Other.
I've already pointed out that for a machine, just writing a good story is not enough...a good writing machine must really want to be an writer, otherwise we will not be very impressed -- we will just say the machine is a writing machine -- why, even a big advance means nothing to your average writing machine...but if the machine can not only write, but it really wants to be a writer, we must admit it is much smarter than the average machine (whose intelligence is undoubtedly "artificial" and perhaps unconsciously motivated in some way of which it is unaware) and will probably be going places, if only as a machine. I suppose a machine is never a wannabe machine, just as Pinocchio was never a wannabee puppet...so that is something.
Oddly enough, Lacan and Freud and ETA Hoffman (the PDQ Bach of musical Romanticism) all have a fair amount to say about automata. Of course, the first thing any romantic does is to "fall in love" with the nearest automaton. This leads to a one-sided misunderstanding.
OR see Freud on that and the other disturbing features of the "uncanny" or automata....
http://people.emich.edu/acoykenda/uncanny1.htm
Which brings us to one of the oldest types of writing machines: the temple, cenotaph, tomb complex. At first glance, what can you say: seen one Bronze Age mega-complex, you've seen 'em all? And where is the writing exactly? Is it fixed like any decent piece of writing or does it wobble all over and get stuff on your car? ("Hey, don't get stuff on my car!"...you can practice that part at home) Or is it sort of like a car already? That already has a lot of stuff on it? Not like your car at all? Perhaps its more of a sarcophagus?
It only happens to look like you and your car. Strange.
But is it really that strange? As Freud says (op cit):
The theme of the ‘double’ has been very thoroughly treated by Otto Rank (1914). He has gone into the connections which the ‘double’ has with reflections in mirrors, with shadows, with guardian spirits, with the belief in the soul and with the fear of death; but he also lets in a flood of light on the surprising evolution of the idea. For the ‘double’ was originally an insurance against the destruction of the ego, an ‘energetic denial of the power of death,’ as Rank says; and probably the ‘immortal’ soul was the first ‘double’ of the body. This invention of doubling as a preservation against extinction has its counterpart in the language of dreams, which is found of representing castration by a doubling or multiplication of a genital symbol. The same desire led the Ancient Egyptians to develop the art of making images of the dead in lasting materials. Such ideas, however, have sprung from the soil of unbounded self-love, from the primary narcissism which dominates the mind of the child and of primitive man. But when this stage has been surmounted, the ‘double’ reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death.
Sheesh! Frightening! But where is the automation and the writing? And what about that "found of" for fond of....(who really wants to say "fond of representing castration"?)
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