Is Agia a Robot?

David Stockhoff · 18 Jun 2010, 13:53 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:53:29 -0400
Subject: (urth) Is Agia a Robot?
In-Reply-To: <a2a9234fa189632637dbf500b34ecc88.squirrel at brunians.org>
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I'd read this more as Wolfe musing, "How will I call robots without 
sounding like ad copy for a Japanese toy? Hm, well the inventor of 
robots called them chemical in nature. This runs against the cliche. 
Thus, applying Brunians' radical principle, I shall call them "chems." "

He faced this problem with Long Sun, where robotness was known and 
accepted as part of what is not hidden (the local world created by the 
local archon).

With New Sun, he did not face this problem, because he said instead, "I 
will not refer to robots at all; they are hidden." On Urth, they are 
part of the Outside, not the Inside.

And yet both universes are full of robots, half-robots, future robots, 
former robots, humans on their way to becoming robots/robots becoming 
humans. Perhaps the halo around Agia and Agilus is a blessing of a union 
between bot and human as much as man and woman.

Furthermore, I read robots as being almost blasphemous in their 
unnaturalness, plainly the work of an inferior Creator, although not at 
all evil. It's a small step from there to sexbots, which are already 
available in Japan.

(In fact, I can't think of anything more perfectly blasphemous than a 
pair of sexy male/female twins mating and creating a race of superbots. 
Dr Who would have stopped them in the nick of time; Severian would kill 
them. Perhaps Severian's story is in part a record of his stopping 
various potential future histories so that only one remains.)

Recall that Tolkien made a big deal of explaining that Sauron and his 
predecessor could not create life, only twist it.

Brunians, where is the line telling us that Hethor digs bots?

brunians at brunians.org wrote:
> So they have some hydraulic tubing, a few wires, whatever.
>
> I think this theory is gaining and not losing strength.
>
> .
>
>   
>> On 6/18/2010 3:13 AM, Mark Lewin wrote:
>>     
>>> ... or because they are chemical?
>>>       
>> FWIW, Wikipedia says in Capek's original play the robots are based on a
>> chemical process.
>>
>> --
>> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
>> IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
>> < http://ieeetamut.org >
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