@HistoPol@the_etrain Not offense intende, but Friday was a genetically enhanced person, not a robot. 😀 Have you checked out Glasshouse by Charlie Stross?👍
...however an #android, which would classify her to be, is for me a "biorobot" of sorts.
Wiki says "..."artificial person", the eponymous Friday, genetically engineered to be stronger, faster, smarter, and generally better than normal humans. 👉Artificial👈 humans are widely resented..."*
I take artificial as "made from scratch" / "produced" and not just "enhanced," e. g. like...
...repairing a gene that causes, say #Down's syndrome.
Of, course, you could then argue that the humans "mass-produced" in #Huxley's #BraveNewWorld should be considered androids, too.
The deviding line is maybe becoming more fluent every month.
In essence, IMO, regardless of the material that creates an "artificial person", in particular if that person's genes have been altered so dramatically as to endow her with superhuman abilities,...
...(s)he (it?) is not a human being anymore but #humanoid or, at best, an #android.
(Despite her good looks. 😉)
This shows that we will run into all kinds of ethical troubles in the next decades before #overshoot will render these musings mute.
And, no, I gave not read
"Glasshouse" by Charlie Stross, but I should look into it.
(Presently reading "The Origins of Totalitarianism," and am quite dismayed about reality/history.)
Thanks.
@HistoPol@the_etrain So firstly, you obviously remember quite a bit, as “artificial person” is the term Heainlein used for the genetically manufactured people in that book. Shortened to “AP”. 🥹
I’m also going to disagree slightly in terms of classification, as English SF has a certain lexicon,
I feel.
Granted, all of these are generalities but :
Android : a completely synthetic being that simulates a living being - generally no organics
Wow, @cautionwip, I was going to do other stuff now, but this needs a rebuttal. ;)
Granted, ever since the late 2000's the term "#android" has become more "mechanical" in meaning, maybe owing to #StarTrek's #Data who first appeared in 1987, being a "synthetic life" form with a "positronic brain". (1)
...#SciFi aficionados, one swallow does not make a summer.
According to Oxford Avanced... and Webster's dictionaries, the term "#android" are defined as: "(in science fiction) a robot in the shape of a person" and "mobile robot usually with a human form," respectively. Both not 100% correct.
Etymology gives us: Greek:
anḗr (genitive: andrós) = man, human being and -id < Greek -eidḗs = -shaped, pertaining to: eĩdos, Eidos - shape, form, appearance.
...To sum up: a being in the shape of a human. This is much better.
That does not determine any way of manufacturing.
Granted, when Gabriel Naudé used the term for a speaking column of Albertus Magnus around 1740 (1), as well as Ephraim Chambers' 1728 in English in the Cyclopaedia (2), all they had then were "mechanics". The same holds true for the 19th century and the 20th in RL.
...it gets interesting, as we were and still are talking about the usage of the term #android in #ScienceFiction.
One of the best summaries on the term #android, can be found in @wikipedia:
"Although Karel #Čapek's robots in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal #Robots) (1921)—the play that introduced the word #robot to the world—were organic artificial humans, the word "robot" has come to primarily refer to mechanical humans, animals, and other beings.[3]
The term...
..."#android" can mean either one of these,[3]
while a cyborg ("cybernetic organism" or "bionic man") would be a creature that is a combination of organic and mechanical parts...
The term made an impact into English pulp science fiction starting from Jack #Williamson's #TheCometeers (1936) and the distinction between mechanical #robots and fleshy #androids was popularized by Edmond #Hamilton's [very popular]..."
All the #SciFi I have read or seen from the 2,000 can be explained by this dichotomy.
We agree completely with the definitions for #cyborg and #mutant, the latter being used in this way pretty much in (evolutionary) biology as well. However, what is missing here, is that it a variation of the original being and the..."
Getting back to #Friday.
By using the term #ArtificialPerson and describing the aspects of her genesis, this #android is clearly created "at the bottom of a long glass tube" (In The Year 2525 ;)). Therefore, she is (definitely not a robot, as she is not mechanical at all, so also no #cyborg) and also not a mutant. Apart from that, the aforementioned definitions of #android fit her..."
"here was some sort of intentional & directed intervention in their creation, but with a focus on making the resulting being an enhanced human rather than an “other”"
Yes, this is how I remember #Friday after all these years. And for me, therefore, she is a n #android of the biological variant.
Now, let's verify what the book says:
Page 251
"Instead, when creation of artificial persons became possible, their genes..."
...were used selectively.
Yours was the only successful design; other attempts at including them were either not viable or had to be destroyed.
A good genetic designer works the way a good photographer does: A perfect result derives from a willingness to discard drastically any..."
"...attempt less than perfect. There will be no more attempts using the Greens; Gail’s ova are gone and Joe’s sperm is probably no longer useful....
...is equivalent to something between granddaughter and great-granddaughter, the rest of you being from many sources but you can take pride in the fact that all of you was most carefully selected to maximize the best traits of H. sapiens.
This is your potential; whether or not you achieve your..."
"...remembered them from #Heinlein's novel which I had read long ago) in mind, when I wrote my statement against Nikola #Kesarovski's #FifthLawOfRobotics, "A robot must know it is a robot."*--Meaning, it must know it subordinate role to human beings.
Why did I spent so much time on this? For one thing, it was fun. For another, IMO the "in science fiction" will all to soon have to be deleted in the dictionaries...
@HistoPol@the_etrain@wikipedia You seem to have a proscriptive rather than prescriptive approach to the matter, so I don’t think we’re going to be able to come to a common ground on this. :) Fun chat either way.
@HistoPol@the_etrain@wikipedia Also, I’m not a linguist, I just to be hardcore about preserving languages as they are, an attitude I have let go of in the last decade or so.
A proscriptive approach to language is one that seeks to maintain the earliest meaning of a word as precisely as possible (E.G., you’re ascribing the Greek roots to what was a neologism, not the actual meaning it was created for) It is a static view.
Descriptive accepts constant evolution of language & describes it in its current usage(s) use.
Ah, thanks. Got you.
Well, I am aware that language is always #descriptive. It evolves constantly.
On the other hand, I always loved the "high-frequency word list in the #Barron's SAT Study Guide, with its prefixes, suffixes, word stems, etc. Learning them from ancient #Greek and #Roman. This methodology still works nicely. For instance, I new right away what was meant by #agrivoltaics.
@HistoPol@the_etrain@wikipedia Oh, there’s no argument that theees value in looking at the root meanings of the words used to create new words, but I feel that usage far supecedes that, including when that usage is perhaps not perfectly described by the meanings of said roots.
E.G., the word “homophobia” is a bit of a misnomer, I feel, as hatred /= fear.
Personally, I prefer “heterosexist”, as it places it more obviously within the kyriarchy.
There is no argument in that at all.
"#Descriptive rules," so to speak.
I'm just saying that in particular, in the 2nd half of the 20th century, there were quite a few #organic#androids in #SciFi, as this informative @wikipedia entry states:
"...androids being made to look like humans on the outside but with #robot-like internal mechanics. In other stories, authors have used the word "#android" to..."
Coming to think of it: how about #FrankensteinsMonster? 😉
(Though my first association would've been #homunculus, but for that, he's obviously too huge. 😉)
I agree that organic androids have not been as frequent as their mechanical counterparts, but they do exist in #SciFi.
"...the clearest example of this is John #Brunner's 1968 novel Into the Slave #Nebula, where the blue-skinned #android slaves are explicitly shown to be 👉fully human👈.[35]..." might be another example.
I haven't read this book, but it review on #Goodreads sounds intriguing: "It was carnival time..."
"...on Earth. Prosperity was at its peak; science had triumphed over environment; all human needs were taken care of by computers, #robots and #androids. There was nothing left for humans to do but enjoy, themselves . . . to seek pleasure where they found it, without inhibitions and without thinking of the price."
Seems like it describes mostpresent-day human societies. Quite sad:
". It is an intersectional extension of the idea of patriarchy beyond gender.[1] Kyriarchy encompasses sexism, racism, ableism, ageism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Catholicism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, xenophobia, economic injustice, the prison-industrial complex, colonialism,..."
"...militarism, ethnocentrism, speciesism, and other forms of dominating hierarchies in which the subordination of one person or group to another is internalized and institutionalized."
@HistoPol Please don’t think of understanding the kyriarchy as sad. The fact that power imbalances exist and that some people suffer because of it is what is sad, AFAIC. Using the concepts of the kyriarchy & intersectionalism as lenses & guides allows different groups of marginalized people to find common ground & connection. It informs & activates individuals to challenge the status quo & work towards something better. That is to say, it’s a tool for societal r/evolution 👍😀
Ah, having gotten to know you a bit, I had the gut feeling that "sad" by itself wouldn't cut it when pressing "send". My apologies.
What I really meant to say is that the quote very much describes the sad world we live in. Quite the opposite of what you thought I had said is what I meant: it seems to be a very useful concept.
s/: That said, I would suggest applying it for people currently suffering from a depression./s
The insights gained might be too painful.
@HistoPol I’m not familiar with the s/ functionality, but I’m pretty sure you meant to say that you wouldn’t suggest. Hooray for autocorrect. :)
Depression is a pretty variable experience. I’ve been dealing with it all my life. I’d say it’s a situational sort of thing. Apply as needed, as it were.
That’s why I wear a button that says “My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit”. It causes terrific conversations. 😀
You meant, "A better way of saying it, actually, is DEscriptive rather than PREscriptive."?--Seems to make more sense with what you write below in the post and in an earlier toot.
BTW, I have thus edited issue from time to time, too.
Solution: two apps. #Tusky and #Fedilab. #Tusks doesn’t permit #AltText edits, which for me is awful, as I prefer posting 1st with a pic and then add the image description, as I've experienced quite a few app crashes. Now, I just use the (slower) #Fedilab instead.
@HistoPol Check out Mona if you’re on an iOS/MacOS interface. It’s pretty feature rich, and is updating all the time. Also, I just tested, and it allows you to edit alt-txt. 👍😀
@HistoPol@the_etrain@wikipedia I apologize, I left out the terms “genetically modified” or “genetically enhanced; both of which have been used to describe the controlled modification of genes to achieve a specific breed of a given organic being with special abilities.
@HistoPol@the_etrain@wikipedia My amended definition would be a fully mechanical entity (with some level of autonomous behavior) that is shaped to resemble an existing living being - default form is human but such things as “Android dogs” or “Android sheep” would fit within the category.
I see. This is the current standard dictionary definition then, that IMO should be amended to include purely biological beings that are genetically engineered.
b) how would you classify the beings (experiments) generated by the High Evolutionary in #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy 3, in particular the humanoid children from the final scenes?
High Evolutionary, I would say likewise, or perhaps “genetically modified” as his creations are all of basic creatures that have their genomes altered.
@HistoPol@the_etrain Also, I totally get what you mean by “biobot” and to me that summons an idea of a creature that has minimal to no sentience which has been “manufactured” entirely out of organic materials to perform a relatively specific task/form of labour.
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