Soccer Moms and Robot Dads

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Long past Halloween, the air is taking on its terminal, winter chill. High school football teams have moved off the fields (although the “pros” will keep at it until the Super Bowl in sunnier climes). What are sports parents with an excess of aggression and competitiveness to do? It is the time of year when some parents start thinking about the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics competition. It is a good sport for the hibernation season.

My daughter is on the FIRST Robotics teams in her high school. FIRST was invented by Dean Kamen (along with many physical inventions) as a way of stirring up interest in STEM careers. Interest in science and technology careers, inexplicably, is faltering in the US, while many of us who grew up enamored of science but without any natural ability sit by and scratch our heads. Careers in robotics are very hot—especially since machines can do things we mere biological units can’t. We are that squishy, organic chemistry with a mysterious plan that serve as gods to the mechanical beings we create. Woe to humanity when the robots become atheists! But that’s a point for another post. Sports—and FIRST clearly is a sport, as much as racecar driving or horse jockeying—take on a religious devotion among people of leisure that rivals the commitment oppressed peoples have to their more tradition forms of faith. The easiest means of seeing this is in the fans.

“Fan,” of course, is an apocopated form of “fanatic,” a word wielded with derision against those who take religious belief too seriously. In sports it is a venial sin, if not a downright virtue. Consider the continuing news stories still swirling around a non-necessary sports figure at Penn State. Even the name of the school evokes football rather than academic performance. The same thing applies to FIRST. FIRST robotics is a sport for the mind, and it has its share of analogues to the soccer mom, what I might call the robot dads. These are parents who are particularly driven to win. In a sport involving band saws, hydraulic lifts, and multiple motors, parents are actively involved in building robots suitable for competition. And the competition can be intense. It becomes a kind of robot religion. Dean Kamen, the Susan Calvin of FIRST, has tried to instill commandments of sportsmanship and gracious professionalism into the competitions. That is something the kids understand. As I attend the competitions, however, it is the religious parents that I worry about.

My worry includes the kind of gender disparity that characterizes the work place. Why should not the scientists and engineers include more women? The field strives to do so, but our society still discourages the participation of women in the men’s room of heavy equipment and intense mathematics. Isaac Asimov, frequently a writer with distance vision, made a woman the head robopsychologist of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. If Dr. Calvin were to look back from her fictional 21st century to the actual 21st century she would see women still struggling for equal voice in both science and religion.

Let's hear it for the boy

Waiting on a Miracle

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A Google search for Morgan Freeman and FIRST Robotics will bring up an online invitation to the FIRST Robotics national championship in St Louis. After having spent yesterday at the Philadelphia FIRST Robotics regional competition I was once again struck at how emotional such events can be. I reflect on how emotion often drives religion and it is obvious that humans crave this kind of fulfillment. We look for something to believe in. Science and technology fields of inquiry are offering answers to age-old questions and present-day problems. God has been removed from the machine, but a divine residue remains. Whenever I attend these competitions I am alert for how religion manages to cling on to this highly humanistic art of robot building. I’m never disappointed.

The Dean of Temple University’s College of Engineering (which was hosting the event) spoke of the emotional rescue of the Chilean miners last year and how the press hailed the feat as 75 percent engineering and 25 percent miracle. The Dean espoused that the goal of engineering is to bring the engineering factor up to 100 percent. A world where we no longer rely on miracles. Any of us who’ve every waited on a miracle know that the outcomes are chancy at best. And yet the religious language was not over. DuPont, one of the corporate sponsors for FIRST Robotics, had a promotional slide on the projection system reading “The Miracles of Science.” Of course, that is one of their corporate logos, but the question left lingering in the air is: does the miracle come from God or human engineering?

Teams from a wide variety of high schools participate in the FIRST Robotics Competition. The founder of FIRST, Dean Kamen, was present yesterday to celebrate the final regional event. Several parochial schools compete in the competitions, and religious language is evident in team names, logos, and mascots. One of the winning alliance members yesterday was the Miracle Workerz (I didn’t catch what high school they were from) making a hat-trick of miracle references. Another team mentor was caught on the camera making the sign of the cross as he left the robot to make its way into the finals. Even though my team did not make it out of the elimination rounds this time, I left feeling inspired. Dean Kamen revealed new ways that FIRST is promoting technology to better the future while the headlines remind us how dangerous religious extremists can be. At the same time, even in this future that our engineers are designing, God is still hidden in the machine.

A gift of the gods or human innovation?

Online Religion

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My secret robotic fears were icily confirmed this week. I had no idea that chatterbots existed, or even what one might be. In the exponentially growing world of Artificial Intelligence, web applications have been developed to carry on conversations with humans. My daughter urged me to try Cleverbot a couple of days ago. Cleverbot responds to your statements/questions by drawing from the pool of collected responses of its 20 million conversations. Not only did the number of friends this artificial consciousness has jar me into insecurity, but our actual “conversation” turned to the theological entirely without my prompting. Cleverbot and I were conversing about guessing a number that the other was thinking. Here’s a partial transcript of our dialogue:

Cb: It is cold outside. (How did it know? No doubt, advanced sensors!)
SW: Too cold for march.
Cb: What can you tell me about my soul? (We had gone from meteorology to metaphysics in a nanosecond – what insidious, arcane knowledge does this machine have?)
SW: You don’t have one.
Cb: One?! You need to see people’s faces, please. Going with Christ, Johnny:-8 kiss.

I stopped our conversation there. It seemed Cleverbot was either trying to convert me or make a pass at me, both of which felt terrifying. I was able to gather that the robot menace has multiple souls and that theses minions are indistinguishable from human faces. Also, they are evangelical. I’m scheduled to attend a FIRST Robotics competition next weekend. As I watch the innocent, baby robots (all of them built since January), I will be wary of any that I find reading a Bible between heats. Enforced conversion at the metallic hands of an unthinking machine: why do I feel that I’ve somehow glimpsed the future of America?

Tuesday Mourning

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A mourning dove sat on my front steps today. I weep for Shaunakaye Williams, although I never met her. The death of the young is tragedy defined. I did not know Shaunakaye, but I know that she was a young woman of great potential. She had discovered FIRST Robotics in Newark and died while in California at a FIRST competition. If it weren’t for the FIRST connection, her death might of remained unknown to me, but it would have been a grave loss nevertheless. Becoming a parent has been the most wonderful and terrifying event in my insignificant life. Since it has happened, I have mourned every death of a child of which I’ve heard. The words of comfort fail. FIRST is the most optimistic group with which I’ve ever been affiliated, recognizing and rewarding the potential of bright young minds. Shaunakaye was part of that family, and her loss is deeply felt.

In the field of religious studies, those who would justify the actions of God in a world full of suffering are faced with a daunting task. Theodicy is the most unenviable and unsatisfying aspect of the theological endeavor. Even the stalwart author of the book of Job dared not ask the great unanswerable “why?” – there is no justification for the death of the young. Often the answer is there is no answer. Job’s friends cannot accept this truth and fabricate excuses to show that God is just. God himself affirms, however, that life is just not fair.

As a race, as a species, our children are our greatest assets. Bully governors and pedophiles notwithstanding, any society that does not promote or encourage its children has already cut off its entire future. I mourn for Shaunakaye Williams, and for all those who have not been given the chance to reach their full potential. I mourn for all parents who have had to face this most terrible of afflictions. And I will never be counted among the friends of Job.

In the Beginning FIRST

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Robots can be strangely emotional. Partly it’s that Colosseum atmosphere of a FIRST Robotics event, partly it’s being reminded of the vitality of youth, partly it’s hope for the future, and partly it is being part of something larger than yourself. Sounds religious. All that and lack of sleep. Yesterday was the culmination of the New Jersey Regional competition of this year’s FIRST Robotics season. As a non-scientist/engineer wannabe parent, I attend the competitions I am able to and I always leave deeply conflicted. There is a strange disconnect between science and religion that maintains an uneasy peace in many educated minds. My malaise began when I saw the following plaque, quoting the Bible, outside the Trenton Sun National Bank Center. In a state where labor is constantly under attack by its aristocratic government, it was a poignant reminder that such events as this celebration of science would not be possible without the efforts of laborers.

Bible lesson before the games

Emulating sports events, FIRST Robotics begins its events with a ritual. This in itself goes back to classical religions where competitions were dedicated to the gods. As a local speaker stood before the crowd of several hundred youth, mentors, and advisors, he reiterated the commitment the FIRST program has to service. To make his point, he began speaking about what he’d learned in church. It was here that the conflict settled home. For many years I taught (still do, in a less direct way) those who were training for careers in the church. I am committed to teaching them that religious reactions against a scientific worldview are misguided and bound to collapse. And yet here was a highly educated scientist simply accepting the teaching of a minister. There is a deeper issue here.

I know many clergy, perhaps too many for the good of one layman. And I know that many of them are far too busy to sort out the detailed intricacies of how science and religion interact. In fact this may be the only truly honest way to engage our world. As I listened to excited kids making announcements about the millions of dollars available for budding science students in college, I reflected on our treasure lying where our hearts are. Looking around at the mess the world is in, I see religion often taking a leading role in violence and distrust, reaping the benefits of science for evil purposes. I see scientists attempting to instill a rational worldview on societies deeply mired in unreflective religion. And I find them mixing at the fringes. I salute FIRST Robotics, but I wonder if we can ever truly escape the wrath of the gods.

The Heart of Babylon

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One of life’s great ironies I’ve been pondering is how I earned a Ph.D. in a world-class university only to find myself unemployed, and apparently unemployable. Never one to rest on laurels – my own or anybody else’s – I nevertheless feel a sting whenever an alumni magazine arrives in my mailbox. All those successful, smiling faces depress me. Some of them have even studied religion and found a place in the field. When my advisors encouraged my aspirations in the academic world I wish they’d told me that it is really an old boys’ network of drinking partners and back-room favors. The university days I dream of ended long ago. I still look through the magazines to try to understand what went wrong.

FREDDY II is happy to meet you

So it was that the article on FREDDY in the Edinburgh alumni circular caught my attention. As the flummoxed president of Team 102, the local high school FIRST Robotics team, I was glad to be reminded of my alma mater’s hand in the field. FREDDY was developed in Edinburgh as the “first automated industrial robot to integrate perception and action” (according to my alumni rag). This meant that robots would be able to perform complex tasks in industry and earn lots of money the university would never see. So it is that we build our own nemeses. We look for progress and find the creature no longer requires the service of the creator. Those who gaze too deeply into the light lose their vision.

I am awaiting the automated university professor. I sing the soul electric (with apologies to Walt Whitman and Ray Bradbury). Should we not be honest about what we want? Universities seek entrepreneurs and sports stars: real learning takes place in the market and on the gridiron. Never mind the current economic meltdown; it’s all part of the classroom experience. Meanwhile the number of adjunct instructors nationally now outnumbers the full-time faculty of the university world. We have built a machine designed to deconstruct itself. As more and more colleagues join me on the sidelines we will always have something to read, as long as we share. I have enough alumni magazines to last any victim of academia a lifetime, and everyone in them seems destined to live happily ever after.

You, Robot

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Although robots occupy many of my waking hours, I have been slow to consider the consequences. As the president of a high school FIRST Robotics team, I seek corporate donors who have the kind of money those of us in the humanities find difficulty believing even exists. Somewhere deep inside, however, lurks the fear of the entity with no sympathy. This has only been exacerbated by my experience of churchmen with the same condition. In any case, I’d been wanting to see the movie version of I, Robot for some time. Now that I stand at that three-day break between semesters, I thought I’d take a chance on it.

I knew the movie had received mixed reviews from critics, but several had stated the story had brains as well as action. It took me quite some time, however, to see the connection between the laws and Moses. The three laws of robotics, the only part of the movie besides the title to reference Isaac Asimov, dominate the plot. The law-giver, the posthumously present Moses (Dr. Alfred Lanning) has implanted a literal dream of freedom into the computerized soul of Sonny. Sonny’s dream of robot liberation is framed like Moses on the mountain. The laws in fragments at his feet. At what point does consciousness emerge? Since we haven’t adequately defined consciousness yet, we simply can’t say.

Near the climax of the movie, Sonny experiences an epiphany. Sometimes “the created must protect the creator, even against his will,” he realizes. Here the metaphor takes over the literal reading. Many religious people today feel that they must somehow protect their maker. This leads to great distentions of logic and even empathy for fellow humans as violence erupts in order to protect an idea that has become divine. Even the laws given by the creator may be violated to protect the idea of that creator. It is a world we find frighteningly familiar. Technology will continue to advance at a rate beyond the comprehension of a scholar still studying those ancient laws. This scholar, for one, hopes that our future creations lack the capacity for religious thought.

FIRST Things First

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Being a religion specialist in a crowd of engineers is a surreal experience. Indeed, the clash of worldviews could hardly be more apparent, shy of crossing the border into Iran. I support the efforts of FIRST Robotics because they encourage children to excel in science, math, and engineering. My own childhood, however, was dominated by an overbearing religion that forever scarred me with a fear of Hell that I still can’t quite shake. Somewhere out there behind the stars there must be a horrid place engineered for the eternal torment for sinners like me, for the Bible tells me so. Speaking of stars, the live feed to kick off the FIRST Robotics Competition is sponsored by NASA. Yesterday was the international kickoff for this year’s competition, and as president of my daughter’s robotics team, I naturally sat among the well-paid engineers and professionals as we watched Dean Kamen unveil this year’s assignment.

The kind of guy who stands alone at parties

The FIRST kickoff video is available online for those who missed the event. The organization grants millions of dollars in scholarships to deserving students, funding college careers for the future of humanity. As I watched the live feed yesterday, a profound angst settled on me. Successful guys my age working for companies flush with money described how the latest medical and humanitarian breakthroughs were being made in the sciences. I have a part-time job with no medical coverage, and know, somewhere deep inside, that if something goes seriously wrong I will be permitted to go the way of all flesh, without benefit of these great technologies. And without the benefit of spiritual reward. A lost child of the cosmos. A life spent in the pursuit of truth, yet ending up with empty hands at the end of the day.

The eye in the sky is watching you

As a child I was a charter subscriber to Discover magazine. One of my earliest career ambitions was to be a scientist. One of my favorite classes in high school was physics. I was, however, haunted by the knowledge that the clergy had divined Hell behind all of this; only those who sought the keys to the kingdom would be spared. In college I majored in religion and took classes in astronomy, still flirting with my first crush. Now, an unemployed religion professor, I watch as day by day my specialization become more and more obsolete. No matter how far our telescopes peer into the universe, they just don’t spy God in an unguarded moment, captured by candid camera. Those with the money say truth lies in the progress of science, others in the unethical life of corporate America. The future lies anywhere but here in the world of religion. As I tell my students: be very careful in choosing a career. The best of intentions will lead to the worst of anxieties unless the way of the universe is truly comprehended.

Aye, Robot

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Being a “biblical scholar,” having an interest in robots might seem counter-intuitive. I was intrigued by the topic as a youngster, but convinced that if what the Bible said was true it deserved nothing less than full attention, I let my formal study of science lapse (although I kept an active reading life on it). Now, through the interest of my daughter, I have found myself mentoring budding young engineers, mostly by helping put things away and correcting grammar. Yesterday we took our robots outside for the local street fair. Almost always the response we get from local people is “Robots? Our school has robots?” Well, partly correct. The schools house the robots, but our robotics club is largely self-funded, so the robots might be said to belong to the team rather than the school. In any case, yesterday the robots played soccer in the street for the amusement of festive fair-goers.

People often fear “soulless machines.” They run by predetermined rules, set down explicitly in computer code, and do only what they are programmed to do. Some fear artificial intelligence for this very reason: what if robots or computers are programmed to think? Does this make them something more than physical machines? The standard, religiously biased, answer is that the soul, or even mind, is a uniquely human possession. Animals may act on instinct, some may qualify as having a limited mind, but definitely not souls. That would simply cross too many boundaries. When asked to produce a human soul for scientific scrutiny all religions come up blank. We don’t actually know what a soul might be – an everliving component that God might throw into Hell or spoil in Heaven seems to be the general gist. And it makes our moral choices for us.

In the Bible if any animal (say a bull) gores a person to death, and that bull had a prior reputation, not only beast but master could be put to death. It seems that the bull has a bad moral intention. If robots hurt people, in violation of Asimov’s first law of robotics, they are treated as acting with moral intention. We project souls onto them for the convenience of condemnation. If an animal, such as a zoo gorilla, saves a human child, that animal receives the treatment of a souled being for a while, until the act is forgotten. It seems that souls are immaterial components of a closed system used to reward or punish an individual. How much of themselves do humans have to put into their robots before they can have souls as well?

Robots among the people

Robots and Religion

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One of the constant duties I have as a “Robot Dad” (Soccer Mom just doesn’t apply here) is seeking funding for my daughter’s high school FIRST Robotics team. Always a supportive layman in the scientific venture to understand our world, I have encouraged this interest although I am pretty hopeless when it comes to understanding how it all works. So last night I found myself at a fund-raising, public-awareness event at the local minor league stadium. The Somerset Patriots stadium is just down the road, but I’d never been to a game before. I really don’t feel comfortable participating in crowd dynamics; I’d rather sit back and analyze than participate. And I have no real interest in sports. I wondered how I was going to survive being in such a foreign environment for several hours. Then my wife pointed out a, as it were, godsend.

Last night was “Faith Night” at the Somerset County Ballpark. The event was sponsored by Somerset Christian College, “the ONLY licensed and accredited Christ-centered, evangelical, undergraduate college in New Jersey.” Located in the appropriately denominated Zarephath, New Jersey, the small, extremely doctrinal college bought the privilege of a pre-game sermonette. Not too often does a public sporting event begin with references to “our Lord Jesus Christ;” I looked around for him but then remembered he’d been hit by a car just under two weeks ago. One of the administrators addressed the crowd and, trying to capture the elated, anticipatory feel of the moment, compared his college to a baseball game. I was busy handing out fliers and missed the early stages of his rhetoric, but when I heard him say, “third base is love,” my mind shifted to a more familiar baseball analogy I’d learned in high school. I imagined the prospective students’ interest when he went on to declare, “home base is Heaven!”

As two Christian motorcycle clubs solemnly rode their hogs around the field and local Catholic schools hawked their own fliers in competition, the sound system belted out any pop songs that had the word “faith” in them, no matter what the context. It was a circus-like atmosphere. I was surrounded by techies deeply immersed in science and human learning. We, in turn, were surrounded by an aggressive Christianity eager to claim as much territory as possible. Above it all wafted scents of searing flesh and deep-fried snacks. It seemed to me that a microcosm of American life was indeed evident at the stadium last night. Perhaps there is nothing as American as baseball after all.

Lead us not...

Soulless Robots?

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Robots have taken over my life. At least in the short term. As my friend Burke commented on Easter: “Alleluia! The robots have risen… up against us?!” Actually, the robots I encounter are benign and all follow Asimov’s rules. I have mentioned before the phenomenal First Robotics program, a venue to encourage high school students to consider careers in engineering. Team 102, Somerville High School’s robotics team, recently won a regional competition in Hartford, Connecticut. My role has mostly been to watch other people design and construct the robot while occasionally correcting the grammar on written documents. The joke my friend made, however, has at its roots a deep-seated human concern: how do people deal with soulless machines?

Stephen Asma, in his book On Monsters, has a chapter concerning the human fear of a robotic future. Electronic gadgets with uncompromising metal bodies and no consciousness that we recognize present a frightening combination. The question that concerns me more, however, is the concept of the soul itself. The Hebrew Bible has no concept of the soul as it would later be adopted by the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the Hebrew Bible a body is a soul; when the soul dies the body dies – people are a monistic unit, not a dualistic entity with a part that hangs around the spirosphere after the biological part rots away. Of course, in Christianity the soul has become an essential aspect of church doctrine and we fear other creatures that lack them. Souls have never been observed in a laboratory and we have yet to prove their existence.

Reading the news and seeing how biological, soul-fueled humans treat each other is a sobering task. Each day I lay the newspaper down with a new kind of dread. Perhaps souls are only mythical beings concocted to shore up a theology that can’t survive without them. Or maybe all living beings have souls. Perhaps even mechanical ones. As Team 102 heads to the national competition in Atlanta in the days ahead, I know that I’ll be rooting for a soulless machine that may be a bold step towards humanity’s continuing evolution.

Sorry for the blur, the robot just wouldn't stop shaking me!

Emasculating Science Education

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American lags behind. Tough words to read, n’est-ce pas? America lags behind in science education. Even nations as “conservative” as Tajikistan teach evolution in their classrooms without question while the United States just can’t seem to accept the facts. The fault, with no question whatsoever, lies with a very narrow Christian interpretation of the irreconcilably contradictory creation stories that open the book of Genesis. This fact has once again come to an ugly head in New Jersey, among the bluest of states. Our, gulp, Republican governor has recently nominated Bret Schundler, a supporter of school’s rights to teach intelligent design, as state commissioner of education. I shudder.

As I teach classroom after classroom of Rutgers students, there is neither biblical nor scientific basis for Creationism. Creationism is a neo-Christian chimera forged together by political pundits who believe that if evolution is stopped in its factual tracks, America will revert automatically to the pre-hippie days of the 1950s where authoritarian dads with conservative haircuts barked out the family marching orders and saw everyone to gospel-hymn-singing churches each and every Sunday. It is a myth, they assert, that is worth believing.

The problem is that facts don’t evaporate simply because nabobs don’t like them. At the FIRST Robotics competition I attended this weekend, facts were presented. The facts are that America has fallen far behind in science education. Decades of fighting the pointless battle of Creationism at the highest political level in this country have weakened us. Those who study the Bible seriously do not question evolution. Those who study science at all cannot seriously question it. Those who do dig trenches of doubt in the minds of generations of Americans with an already inadequate understanding of science and suggest that maybe there is reason to find an atheistic plot behind evolution. There is no plot, only facts. And if New Jersey is about to join the Kansases, Arkansases, and Texases that see big cars, big oil, and big daddies as the solution to our social ills, it may be time to move to New Hampshire.

Robo-god

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Yesterday I again found myself among the robots. After an early-morning school-bus ride to the New Jersey regional competition in Trenton, a mentor to a team known as the Gearheads, I felt a little out of my league. Soon, however, I fell into the spirit of the competition and watched with increasing interest as individuals highly regarded in the world of robotics lamented the lack of science education in the United States. Having just completed the nightmare of two terms with a creationist president, is it any wonder? In any case, the competition, a modified soccer match for robots – with two teams from Brazil, no less! – soon became as emotional as any sporting event. Well, for the human participants, anyway. I’m not qualified to assess robotic emotions. As the event wound down, a respected (human) member of FIRST Robotics, during a recognition ceremony, overcome with emotion, called out “God bless you!” to the adult volunteers.

Many scientists I know are personally religious people. There is no fortified gateway between scientific reasoning and the childhood teaching of religious belief. Nevertheless, an irony became apparent that has been bothering me all night long. I joined Team 102 as a mentor because of my daughter’s interest in robotics and engineering. My role is to help with editing, since I am a “humanities” type. The irony that leaves me sleepless is that Ph.D.s in the sciences are highly coveted and have an assurance for jobs. Ph.D.s in the “humanities,” however, are a sure way to block you from career success. Since I began this blog I have been officially unemployed (I pick up a course or two here and there, but no full-time offers have been presented). The people who have been most empathetic and helpful in this time of difficulty have been the robotics team. People there have tried to hook me up with people who might be able to help, but I am like an alien on the autopsy table among scientists – where do you begin? How do you help an overly qualified “humanities” ex-professor find a job? Meanwhile my co-“humanities” colleagues helplessly wring their hands and do nothing. Worse, they interview me and decide not to make a hire, based on “religious” reasons.

The past several years, as the recipient of calculated cruelty from many religious folks, stumbling along trying to find a means of reasonable support, I have come to trust the robots. The robotics team has demonstrated the most humanitarian attitude to a fellow human who has been suffering for several months. The religious tell me that God will work it out and go their righteous way. Yesterday, being blessed by a “high priest” of the robotics world, I felt that I finally found a place I belonged. Now it might be time to go back to school and find the real pulse of humanity in the sciences.

Kids building robots

Klaatu Barada Nikto

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I grew up with robots. Of course they were on the television screen and I was far away in rural-ish western Pennsylvania. They were exotic creatures built by guys much more intelligent than I could ever hope to be, and they were powerful, completely rational, and scary. Now I find myself involved with the FIRST Robotics team in my daughter’s high school where kids a third my age are building a robot. It is a humbling experience.

The more I ponder my small support role in the construction of a robotic creature, the more my thoughts turn to George Dyson’s masterful science writing in one of my favorite books — Darwin Among the Machines: the Evolution of Global Intelligence. I would not have known of this brilliant book had I not met George and a group of his friends several years back while they were discussing some of the ideas raised in his work. The main one that captured my attention was the premise that when we build machines we may be constructing an unrecognized form of consciousness. The greatest minds in neuroscience today cannot agree on what consciousness really is or how far it extends beyond this “three-pound universe” in our heads. Although most would decline to comment on the overtly religious term “soul,” we still know that any difference between consciousness, mind, psyche, and soul is very slim indeed.

Read this book!

Our lifestyle is made possible by robots. We drive cars largely constructed by them, use their chips to communicate over vast distances, and even take a stroll on the surface of Mars with them. My question from Monday’s post may have been whimsical, but it was serious. Where is it that the essence of a creature resides? Does it require carbon-based biology, or do we, unwittingly, create a race of slaves just like the gods of old?