Related Papers
Journal of Educational and Social Research
Reflecting on the Personality of Artificiality: Reading Asimov's Film Bicentennial Man through Machine Ethics
2019 •
Jabin Deguma, Jan Gresil S . Kahambing
The film Bicentennial Man (1999) pictured in a nutshell a robot who/that became human via his personality by plunging into the realities of freedom and death. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the notion of personality in the case of what this paper coins as a 'robot-incarnate' with the name Andrew, the first man who lived for two hundred years from his inception as an artificial machine. The method of exposition proceeds from (1) utilizing a philosophical reflection on the film concerning the determinacy of Andrew as a person and (2) then anchoring his case as a subject for the understanding of machine ethics. Regarding the first, the paper focuses on the questions of personality, death, and freedom. Regarding the second, the paper exposes the discussions of machine ethics and the issue of moral agency. Deducing from the already existing literature on the matter, the paper concludes that machine ethics must stand as the principle that serves as law and limitation to any scientific machine advancement showing promising potentials.
Transformation of Society in Isaac Asimov’s Fiction
2020 •
Rafael Akhmedov
This article analyzes such an aspect in the work of the American writer Isaac Asimov as modeling the society of the future. It is determined that the main problem before the next step in the development of society, Azimov considers distrust of technologies, and, sometimes, even a certain fear of them. It also turns out that Asimov sees science fiction as a solution to this problem, which he formulates in terms of the theory of evolution. The history of the evolution of human society proves that it must constantly change and develop, otherwise it can simply collapse. In his works, Asimov describes how the active introduction of new technologies into the life of modern society leads to its transformation, a polarization arises between technophobes and technophiles, who, in fact, represent the fears and dreams of people. However, what are the reasons for these public concerns? Fear of technology or fear of losing control? It is this question that manifests itself in many of the writer\...
Sambodhi ISSN: 2249-6661
The Concept of Cyborg in Isaac Asimov’s “Stranger in Paradise” and “Segregationist”: A Posthumanistic Reading by Dr S.Anand and Dr Suresh Frederick
2021 •
SURESH FREDERICK, Dr S. Anand Arul Das
Here in this article the researcher analyses Isaac Asimov’s “Stranger in Paradise” and “Segregationist” to explain how the concept of cyborg would be evolved in the posthuman world Keywords: cyborgization, body repair, brain, prosthetic and bionic body parts.
Isaac Asimov's fictional world: humanity and robots between fear and faith
Raluca Lupu-Onet
South Central Review
A Genealogy of the Cyborgothic: Aesthetics and Ethics in the Age of Posthumanism (review)
2012 •
Sarah Juliet Lauro
A Zoology for the Posthuman - The Cyborg in Film and Literature
Alexander Benjamin Schaab
Towards Excellence
Non-Finality as the Finality: A Posthumanist Study of Isaac Asimov's the Last Question
2021 •
1122 Keerthana R Nair
ON THE EDGE OF ARTIFICIAL LIFE AND EXISTENTIALISM: LEGITIMIZING 'ROBO-CULTURE' THROUGH ANARCHY, ORDER AND MANUFACTURE
timucin edman
Human beings desire immortality as well as they desire the role of God. Having power and using this power over weak people is one of the oldest behaviors of humankind. One of the most important psychological causes of slave trade, almost as old as human history, is undoubtedly the desire of the human to play the immortal God role. We can see this demand in The Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf and The Iliad, which are the earliest written works. We witness the search for the immortality and domination of heroes and anti-heroes in works such as Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, I, Robot and The Robots of Dawn in contemporary literary period. In many of these quests, the man's desire for absolute domination and for immortality cause him to confront God with the desire to produce (or create) something. On the other hand, in contemporary films such as Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, which is adapted to the motion picture screen, it seems that when the man tries to go beyond himself due to his limitless desire of mastership, he confronts a god, Superman. In the science fiction works of our era, the tendency of man to dominate has begun to turn into chaotic robot-human relationship from old slavery-master relationship like in Asimov's works. The Terminator or The Matrix series are the best examples for this. Therefore, the article will try to establish the theory of confusion and chaos that people encounter while playing the role of God. In doing so, this theory will be tried to be supported by Asimov's I, Robot, The Robots of Dawn, and Robot Visions novels in the light of some quotations. This article, of course, will also examine the tendency to claim everything in what man thinks he can benefit, rather than simply centering Asimov's works. Are these robots equipped with advanced artificial intelligence going to revolt against the people who produce themselves as Cain rebels against God? Consequently, this work will discuss the point where the relentless search for power and immortality of human beings can reach in view of Asimov's selected novels and definitions.
Ecospirit: Religions and Philosophies for the Earth, ed by Laurel Kearns and Catherine Keller (New York: Fordham University Press)
“Ecospirituality and the Blurred Boundaries of Humans, Animals and Machines"
2007 •
Glen A Mazis
To resort to an embrace of the overlap with animals, creatures and the biosphere while maintaining a hostility against the encroachment of developing capacities of machines is a new kind of romanticism that seeks to keep intact the culture and nature divide. Currently, however, certain parts of cultural production are seen to further some teleology inherent in nature and are “still natural” despite their technological overlay, while other advances that call for a shifting in how humans define themselves are labeled “artificial” or violating to some prior sense of “nature” and humanity that shouldn’t be disturbed. Currently, it seems easier to grant that animals may have souls, be kin, and can be included in the divinity of the planet as direct participants of a larger community, but machines are infernal. These paradoxes have emerged into political discourse and the “culture wars:” one side can claim that to use technology to keep an catastrophically ill person alive is “natural,” in keeping with a sacrality of a creation which has natural rhythms humans may not disturb; and the other side can claim to not use any technological intervention for the terminally ill is the way to allow human choice in self-determination to achieve a dignity beyond nature and the Darwinian impulse for sheer survival. Obviously, at this point the terms used to consider humanity’s relationship to animals and “the natural world” as well as to machines and the built environment are often ambiguous to the point of being unhelpful. These divisions between human and machine are asserted at the same moment in which more and more of our physiology, brain chemistry, sensory apparatus, neurological development, and genetic makeup are understood as machines in some senses, and yet not as compromising to our humanity. Our relationship with animals is more embracing than in centuries past when the animal in us and around us was often reviled and violated, but this unease with the animal and abuse of myriad animal lives in objectifying and destructive ways is far from past. This essay will assert that to make a simple division between humans and machines in regard to their sacrality is unwarranted, and overlooks new dimensions in machines’ evolution, misunderstands dimensions of our relationship to what we build, and fails to fathom the overlap among human, animals and machines has a potential spiritual significance that can be as expansive and liberating as the earlier acknowledgment of the inclusion of animals and the biosphere into sacrality. It is also the contention of this essay that any discussion of any of these three dimensions requires the inclusion of the other two to be fully fathomed and to understand that way in which all three are inseparably interwoven in a spirituality that would embrace the depths of meaning in materiality.
Humanity at the Turning Point: Philosophical Anthro- pology and the Posthuman
2007 •
Dennis Weiss
This essay aims to demonstrate that the philosophical anthropology of Michael Landmann provides important critical tools and resources for intervening in the debate over the posthuman and the turning point that humanity faces due to the advancing powers of technologies such as genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and cybernetics. Landmann’s view of the human being, which emphasizes the correlative conditions of creativity and culturality, freedom and determinacy, and malleability and fixity, pro vides the grounds on which to critique the current structure of the debate over the posthuman and resituate it in terms of our historicity and self-images. The rhetorically charged trope of the posthuman, with its emphasis on a break or turning point, risks cutting us off from significant resources for understanding human nature, including the resources of philosophical anthropology, and does not advance our understanding of our current situation and the current dilemmas human being...
