Category: Philosophical Musings

I was 16 years old when Rod Serling knocked me out with a Twilight Zone episode titled “In His Image.” That was way back in 1963.

For any younger readers out there (though it’s doubtful I even have any of those), I imagine 1963 probably would sound like The Dark Ages. A world where the phone booths down the street were the closest thing to your nonexistent cell phones you could ever find.  A world where there was no such thing as dialing 9-1-1. A world where cars didn’t have seat belts and the automatic shift transmission in cars would’ve been a wondrous and rare thing to behold.  Where gangly aluminum TV antennae roosted atop the roof of every single house in town. And a world wherein they were still showing a lot of movies and TV shows in black and white. In fact, “In His Image” was aired in black and white.

Anyway, I’m dying to re-tell you about that episode, so let’s begin with the plot.

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Main character, Alan, enters a New York City subway station very late at night. Oddly, the only other person there is an old woman, a religious fanatic, who feverishly presses one of her pamphlets into his hands. But Alan is suddenly being overwhelmed by excruciatingly loud electronic tones ringing in his head, and irrationally he believes this woman is responsible. He pleads with her to stop it, to get away from him, and leave him the hell alone!

And of course utterly confused and frozen in fear by his violent in-your-face reaction, she just stands there like a deer in the headlights gaping at him. Exasperated in psychotic desperation, he impulsively shoves her down and away! Unfortunately onto the tracks and into the path of a speeding subway train.

An hour later, and amazingly with no memory of the incident whatsoever, he calmly arrives at the apartment of Jessica, his fiancée—whom he’s known for only four days, mind you… (Say what?!?)

Together, they start the long drive back to Alan’s hometown. And during the drive Alan, exhausted, dozes off. In his fitful sleep, he begins muttering something about “WALTER.” When awakened, Jessica asks him, “Who is this ‘Walter’?”

He responds with, “What do you mean? I don’t know anyone of that name.”

Long story short: they arrive, and Alan is met by a number of discomforting surprises: (1) There are buildings he’s never seen before in town, buildings which apparently must have been erected in the single week he’s been gone; (2) His key no longer fits the lock on his Aunt Mildred’s front door, as it should; (3) The stranger who answers the door claims he’s never heard of any Mildred; (4) The university he works at is now nothing but an empty field; (5) It turns out that people he remembers seeing and talking to only a week before have been dead for years; and last but not least, (6) In the local graveyard, he discovers his parents’ gravestones are gone and have been replaced by those of some Walter Ryder and his wife. 

Jessica doesn’t know what to make of this! Of course she’s disturbed, but … she loves Alan. She figures there must be some rational explanation, right?

While driving back to New York, however, Alan once again begins hearing the tones in his head , only much worse this time! Suddenly filled with a murderous rage, he orders Jessica to stop! She does! Then leaps from the car, and commands her to drive on. OK. She doesn’t have to be asked twice! Off she goes! But omigod! In the rearview mirror she spies him running behind her car, and brandishing a large rock.

Suddenly another car rounds the bend, striking Alan! However, he luckily survives the impact but is left with a large open-gash injury to his arm. Although there is no pain, when he looks down into the torn and gaping wound in his wrist… there is also no blood or bone!

Instead… only twinkling lights amid a confusing tangle of multi-colored wires and transistors below his skin! Alan freaks!

Quickly he covers his gaping wound with a cloth. Then hitches a ride back to his New York apartment where, poring over a phonebook, he manages to find a listing for a Walter Ryder, Jr. Aha! So he hails a cab, goes to the listed address, disconcertingly discovers that his key does fit this door, and warily steps inside. And abruptly  comes face to face with his exact double!

A very shy and lonely man named Walter Ryder, Jr.!

OK, you can surely anticipate the frenetic conversation that must follow here: the desperate questions Alan will have to demand answers to…

Here are a few intriguing lines of dialogue from the tail-end of Mr. Serling’s script:

Alan: Well… What do you mean? Who am I then?

Walter: You’re… nobody.

Alan: No! Stop it, Walter! That’s not true!

Walter: Well, Alan, answer me this, then: who is this watch I’m wearing, hmmm? And who is the refrigerator in the kitchen? Don’t you understand?

Alan: No. No. No! I do not understand!

Walter: Well…you’re a machine, Alan. A mechanical device.

Alan: What?! I don’t believe that! I can’t!

Walter: And I can’t blame you, Alan. I wouldn’t believe it either. But it’s the truth. The fact is, you were born a long time ago. In my head.

Alan: What?!

Walter: Now, all kids have dreams, don’t they? Well, you were mine. You know. The others thought about… joining the army or flying to Mars, but they finally grew up and forgot their dreams. I didn’t. I thought about one thing only and longed for one thing always. Just one.  A perfect artificial man. Not a robot. A duplicate of a human being. Well, it seemed harmless, not even very imaginative for a child. But then you see, I became an adult. Only somewhere along the way—like most geniuses— I forgot to grow up. I kept my dream. And I created you, Alan. Is that straight enough for you?

Believe you me, that was one fun and entertaining episode back then in those days. But for me, it didn’t stop at fun and entertaining. That little drama saw me kissing my 1960’s Ozzie-and-Harriet Show worldview goodbye in the rearview. The Twilight Zone had become catnip for my imagination.

After which I began gradually re-taking an inventory of this… reflection, this ‘individual’ staring back at me from the bathroom mirror. Going over and over in my head what I’d learned about anatomy in Health class and electronics in high school General Science. No, no, no, I didn’t think for a moment that I believed I was… you know, a robot or anything like that. No, of course not…

Of course I suppose if you really were a robot, you probably wouldn’t know…

But at the same time, wasn’t that kid in the mirror a fella…

֍who is “electronically” wired-up inside­— all axons and dendrites, synapses, mini-volts and amps?

֍whose hard-shell skull acts as the protective housing for the soft-tissue computer-thingy that’s basically running the whole show?

֍whose heart is actually kind of an electronic blood and oxygen pump?

֍whose nose and mouth can be seen as ‘vents’ for oxygen and fuel intake?

֍whose pie-hole is pretty much a “food/fuel” processor, a Cuisinart blender with its grinding, tearing, crushing teeth?

֍whose sensorial eyes, nose, tongue, fingers, and ears electronically send their five-senses reports to the brain?

֍whose four bio-mechanical limbs provide for (a) mobility and (b) reach for procuring “fuel?”

֍whose four fingers and opposable thumb at the ends of each of the two upper limbs serve to retrieve the necessary operational “fuel” and transfer said “fuel” into the pie-hole?

֍whose stomach is a virtual chemistry-set fuel tank that breaks down and refines the “fuel?”

֍whose liquid waste byproduct is syphoned off and away by a run-off hose assembly?

֍whose intestines massage the byproduct gases and spent fuel rods toward and out of an exhaust vent?

֍who comes with spare parts: the extra brain hemisphere, eye, lung, kidney, arm, leg, ovary and/or testicle?

֍and who, like most machines, comes with a limited warranty?

Yeah. You know. Just sayin’. Is all.

But… something else too. You know, every once in a while, some little thing or other happens to me that takes me back to those comparisons. For instance, one thing that’s been bugging me off and on ever since I was a kid is that maybe twice or so a year, I suddenly become aware of a brief, mysterious, nearly subliminal tone. I could be reading, say, or bicycling, or be in the middle of a conversation when all of a sudden, there it goes. Right out of the blue, hmmmmmm…

Sometimes in my left ear, sometimes my right, but never both at once. And it only lasts thirty seconds at the most before fading out. Damned if I have any idea what causes that, but I can tell you what it reminds me of. In primary and junior high school, an audiologist would visit for our annual hearing tests for, you know, our health records. He’d place a big, black, heavy set of headphones over our little ears and play us tones that would range all over the map from easily audible to almost inaudible to not audible at all. That’s what this phenomenon sounds like! Either that or a muffled, low-volume TV test-pattern hum from the 50’s.

It still happens to this day, but I’ve grown accustomed to it by now, and usually just joke about it to myself— Just the old brain uploading its periodical software update from the aliens. Or…who knows… maybe I really am a freakin’ robot…

Llike Alan.

Eeek!

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OK. Here’s a little something I scribbled back around 2005. After I’d just barely turned sixty.

I, ROBOT

I sing the body electric… state-of-the-art

luxury sports utility vehicle of the species

Nothing like me ever was. Built to

last, to take a licking and keep on

ticking…

Modeled after the redundancy principle—

extra kidney, lung, eye, hand, foot, brain hemisphere—

the five senses hardwired into software-bundled hardware,

and connected in spaghetti-tangles of fiber-optic nerves

to the mother of all motherboards!

My each and every cell vacuum-packed with its own

copy of the spiro-encrypted, double-helixed,

micro-schematic blueprint. Each digit stamped

with its own encrypted, model-identifying, swirl-pattern ‘scan code’

O I am the quintessential, self-replicating, self-healing,

self-cleaning, psycho-medical, chemico-robotic

Circuit City wonder— drop me on an alien

planet and watch me replicate myself,

invent the wheel, steal fire from the Titans, change the water into

wine, and… when there’s enough

typewriters, and enough

time… I will compose

Hamlet

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Hmmm. Yeah. Robots. And Artificial Intelligence (A.I.).

Ever since before the 1950’s, the subject of robotics has been burrowing its technological head like a worm into the global consciousness. Sci-fi movies and TV shows. Automated machinery taking human workers’ factory jobs. And decade after decade, ever more state-of-the-art robotic and A.I. toys and novelties piling up under our Christmas trees. Rock’em Sock’em boxing robots. Children’s cute little robot “pets.” Roomba robo-vac vacuum cleaners. Digital chess player software that can check-mate any of you John Henry wannabe chess-masters out there, unless you formerly ask it to give you a sporting chance. And of course those nondescript little devices we plug into our living room wall sockets which, with the Open Sesame cry of Hey Google! are standing ready to do our bidding , anything and everything from controlling our thermostats to playing us a Tom Waits tune upon demand like some damn jukebox.

“So, put another nickel in

In the nickelodeon

All I want is lovin’ you

And music, music, music”

On news network broadcasts, we’ve long marveled at bomb squad robots approaching suspicious “packages” left on sidewalks; we’ve watched documentaries extolling the never-ending progress of anything from the newest, most improved, and more-lifelike-ever sex doll “bots” to cyber-soldier warfare robots for combat. I’ve watched the testing of frightening stainless-titanium “dogs” right out of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and those teeny, tiny, CIA flying robot “mosquitoes” with spy-cams. Driverless cars (and even driverless 22-wheelers now) tooling down our open highways, constantly taking digital correspondence-school drivers’-ed classes as they roll. And meanwhile, all of us continue to be plagued every day and all day by ad-agencies’ A.I.s phoning and texting us, goading us into finally surrendering to that unwanted new car warranty.

And talk about a brave new world, today living among us is a large, ever-growing population of cyborgs (cyborgs being organisms that have restored function or enhanced abilities due to the addition of some artificial component or technology).

So, me? I’m a cyborg by definition. Because I’m looking at the world through artificial lenses and listening to my Tom Waits collection through hearing aids. Now, today, many totally deaf people today can actually hear, thanks to cochlear ear implants. We’ve come such a long way since the Helen Keller days. And literally millions of people around the globe are not only walking about on stainless steel knee and hip replacements, but are also using robotic hands and feet with natural flexing fingers and toes. And artificial hearts! Plus wonder of all wonders, today if you want we have robotic organic 3-D “printers” that will ‘print’ you up a brand-new, fully-functioning liver for your next transplant!  To us in our seventies, it’s feels like the future has already fallen behind us into the past. 

So hey, what do I know about all this? Not much. Not technically. But like most baby boomers, I‘ve grown up on a long, steady diet of science fiction movies. And these days, you can actually learn a lot about robotics and A.I. from cinema. In the old days, not so much.

Sci-fi thrillers in the ‘50’ were so off-the-wall bad, they were known by the derogatory term, schlock. But we didn’t know that then. And as a kid I tried to watch every one of those that came to town at the local theater. Too many of those actually, and way way before I was old enough not to be traumatized. As a result of my helpless obsession, I ended up suffering from an acute case of juvenile robot-phobia.

For instance Gog (That’s G-O-G, Gog). Gog came out in 1954 when I was only eight and scared the living bejesus out of me! The movie is set in a top-secret underground military research facility where scientists are experimenting with cryogenics as a method of slowing down astronauts’ metabolism for space travel hibernation. The entire base is coordinated by a single supercomputer, NOVAC, and its two robot minions, Gog and Magog. And therein lies the problem.

An invisible ufo hovering above the installation has gained remote control over Gog. And since the E.T.s on board are dead-set against allowing  earthlings to go rocketing hither and thither through their space,  an onset of mysterious and ‘unexplainable’ deadly mishaps have been happening. Like this one:

When one absent-minded scientist haplessly returns, after hours, to the soundproofed cryogenic lab to retrieve something he’s left there, in horror we watch the pressurized door automatically closing slowly behind him… like a Venus Fly-trap! Of course it takes a fumbling moment or three for him to catch on to the fact that he’s been… sealed in, but by then it’s too late.

We watch the thermostat dial on the control panel in the empty observation room outside nefariously turning counter-clockwise, ultimately plunging the room temperature downward toward the ultimate freezing point (−346 °F). And he panics of course (as did we eight year olds in the audience, having already noticed the deadly white frost crawling relentlessly down the liquid nitrogen pipes)! Sure, he bangs his fists, and even a hammer against the plate-glass lab window. And of course, he cries for help, but… by then it’s too late in the afternoon as all of his co-workers are home. And by now, ice crystals have begun icing his eyebrows and moustache. The gruesome process takes about three on-screen minutes, after which our man in the white lab coat, now a greyish-blue “corpsicle,” topples like a felled tree trunk.

Yeah. Think about it. Me, eight years old.

Gog was my first robot. And I prayed it would be my last.

My second was Robbie, “Robbie the Robot.” He (or it) crept into my consciousness as part of the cast of the 1956 film, Forbidden Planet. Ten years old this time, but still spooked by the thought of the dangerous Metal Men. To me Robbie looked like a mechanical, ink-black Michelin Man, and more than just a tad too stranger-danger for preadolescent me.

Despite the discomfort Robbie engendered in me, however, the concept (primitive as it was back then) of what someday would be known as artificial intelligence was intriguing. Anyway, at least Robbie wasn’t anywhere near as terrifying as Gog though, and by ten I pretty much knew what everybody knew in those days: in reality, robots were never ever going to amount to anything more dangerous than that clunky old Wizard of Oz Tin Man.

Robbie the Robot

Still though. You never… really knew, did you.

My third (and, nostalgically speaking, my forever favorite of all time) was the one simply and unimaginatively known as “Robot,” or “the Robot.” He (well, it spoke with a man’s voice) was one of the main characters in the ensemble cast of the Lost in Space series, which aired from 1965 through ‘68.

“Robot” functioned both as the bodyguard for the crew and the on-board technician most responsible for completing the mission of finding the crew’s way back to earth. Although endowed with superhuman strength and futuristic weaponry, he also exhibited such comfortably human trappings as laughter, singing, an occasional sadness, and an entertainingly snide sarcasm that often bordered on mockery.

But most endearing of all was the manner with which “Robot” went about executing his third assignment, being the protective “nanny” for Will, the youngest member of the crew.

His frenetic “Danger, Will Robinson!” accompanied by his flailing arms, still remains a familiar iconic echo in today’s pop culture.

And if Will Robinson loved him, then he was OK in my book.

But it was those outwardly human characteristics that gave me my first real inkling of what a creative artificial intelligence might, or could, actually look like… or be like someday, in the impossibly faraway future. 

And finally, I must give a tip of my hat to all the robots featured in Isaac Asimov’s 1950 collection of short stories titled I, Robot, which I discovered later as a young adult. What a read, what a hoot that book was, and perhaps still is. As it was for me with Lost in Space, Asimov’s not-taking-himself-or-his-premises-too-seriously was such a delight.

Plus, as the budding sci-fi aficionado I was becoming by then, I was fascinated by the three, fail-safe, Universal Laws of Robotics Asimov came up with.

֍First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

֍Second Law:  A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law

֍Third Law:  A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws

My opinion? All artificial intelligences in real life should only be allowed to be created with these safety protocols required. Of course, we all know that’s never going to happen, don’t we, since we can never trust our scientists and technicians to actually have the common-sense-wherewithal to do that. If we could, then such a fate as The Terminator’s “Rise of the Machines” could be completely avoided.

What? Don’t think something like “The Rise of the Machines” is a realistic possibility? Wow. And Mom nicknamed me “The Doubting Thomas.”

Ever hear of Stephen Hawking, probably the most respected and eminent physicist the world has known this side of Einstein? Well, guess what: after he died, he left us with the following dire warning: “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”

I take his warning to heart. Not just because of his reputation as a genius in physics, but because I see our human race as a hollow species of sheep who’ll complacently allow the biggest, greediest, most unthinking monsters-in-charge to run, and ruin, everything. I mean, hey, if there’s quick money to be made by allowing an army of sentient, self-replicating machines free-reign, then… Jesus H, it’s time we go looking for a Sarah Conner.

But hey, listen, I’m no Paul Revere here. No, what’s on my mind has much more to do with the idea of our own inner (I’m gonna call it) ‘programming.’Our inner biological programming (think gut feelings) that’s always on the alert for threats to our personal danger.

Like this scenario: OK, I just know the ice on this pond is probably way to too thin to be safe. You know what?  I’m taking my skates and going home. Or Jeez, this one:. This too-overly-friendly dude is creeping me out. I know it may sound crazy, but I’m kinda getting the vibe he could be a serial killer or something. Gonna end this conversation now. I’m so outta here!

Alright, here’s a personal example. From me:

Another weird little phenomenon has gotten my attention off and on ever since I was a kid. It happens whenever I’ve somehow managed to find myself perched up on some extremely high place, somebody’s roof, say, a really tall ladder or, God forbid, the edge of a steep cliff. Especially when, against my better judgement, I can’t help myself from looking down! Because that’s when something very peculiar always happens. Sure, there’s the terror, pure and simple. Hair standing up on the back of my neck. Muscles freezing up in a full-body lockjaw as I imagine myself in an arm-pin-wheeling freefall with the ground rushing up at me at E=MC². And vertigo? Of course, every time.

But there is something else, a very peculiar “something else” going on a little embarrassingly… (Man, I can’t believe I’m actually going to try to describe this thing.) Oh, let’s just say that… down below…down there… down there in my…you know, “nether region?” Alright: my groin. OK, OK! My gonads. Whenever I’m teetering on a high perch of any kind, I always get this uncomfortable and urgent sensation, a physical feeling. Think…pressure. A buzzing pressure. Down there. A slightly nauseating, invisible-hand squeeze of the scrotum that’s got a subliminal, joyless, joy-buzzer buzz to it that dizzies me, leaving me weak the knees.

Yup. That’s my old nads haranguing me with THE ALARM! They don’t speak English, so of course they communicate in biological “language.” I’ve experienced it often enough over the years, that I can easily translate it for you. Here it is:

“Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!  Stop lookin’ down, fool! Whattaya think you’re doin’? Back up right NOW! Get us off this diving board! Get us off the edge of this cliff!

Listen! The two of us? Down here? OK, we got this one job, see? It’s called PROCREATION PROTECTION, alright? It’s called tryin’ to save your sorry-ass species from extinction, is all!

What, you never heard of a little somethin’ called “The Darwin Awards?”

Yeah. My nads can be very sarcastic…

And what’s that but the “voice” of ‘programming‘ talking? All living things are ‘programmed’ like this for the survival of the individual so that the survival of future generations of the species can be guaranteed. My gonads are obviously wired up and always on the ready to trigger that extreme, automatic, Darwinian fear of falling… the same way a common house cat’s programmed to be terrified of cucumbers.

Oh, what, didn’t know about cukes and cats?  Well… apparently cats have a vestigial fear of snakes, whose rather cylindrical bodies are similar, in a way, to cucumbers. I’m no expert, but it’s apparently due to an embedded leftover memory burned into their DNA from generations long ago, back when snakes preyed upon their ancestors in the jungle. However, what I am an expert on is YouTube videos, so I can expertly advise you that, for a good time, go straight to YouTube and key in “cucumber and cat.” Then sit back and marvel at dozens of videos featuring prankster cat owners sneaking a cucumber onto the floor directly behind their cute little fur balls. You won’t believe the acrobatic conniption-fit responses.

(OK, actually I’ve put a great link for this down at the end of this post. So when you get there, go ahead. Knock yourself out.)

But furthermore, my nads’ Fear-of-Falling programming also includes the additional strategy of flooding my brain with a rush of irrational delusions. Like… ok, gravity isn’t satisfied with just sucking me down, no, but like some Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea giant squid, I’m become positive it’s roped its invisible tentacles around my ankles and has begun tractor-hauling me forward as well as downward! Yes, gravity tugging me horizontally! I’m sure of it!

Gravity (with a capital G) is Evil Incarnate. It just can’t wait to reward me with a Darwin Award toe-tag. And yeah, I can get how crazy that sounds, but…

Gravity is not our friend, boys and girls.

But OK. Back to my thesis here, my big message: Instinct Equals Biological Programming.

Instincts are the products of our digital cerebral clockworks, controlling all living things’ behaviors. The ones and zeroes behind bears hibernating. The ones and zeros behind new-born ducklings “imprinting” on the first biological entity they encounter. The ones and zeros behind Killdeer just knowing to lead predators away from its nesting eggs with its comically-feigned, broken-winged limping. Or the cicada nymphs knowing to climb down that tree trunk to burrow into the earth and suck the liquids of plant roots for exactly seventeen years. Or the fun-to-watch, high-stepping mating dances of the Blue-Footed Boobies, where the Boobies with the biggest and bluest feet get the girl every time.

Cats purring to manifest contentment, dogs wagging tails to manifest happiness, and human males…? Well, human males haplessly manifesting sexual interest in a way that once made the iconic 1940’s movie star Mae West ask, “So, is that a rocket in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

(sorry…)

But you know, these behaviors don’t get learned in school. You ask me, the universe is just one colossal, highly engineered cuckoo clock…

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So anyway, thanks for reading; and here’s your reward: just one af many, many YouTube cat-cucumber videos out there. Enjoy.