Skip to main content

Reading Notes Week 5 Part B: Bierce

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?)
·      Born in Ohio
·      Came to California after Civil War
·      Had many different attributes to literature

Moxon Master
·      Nature of life and intelligence
·      An isolated system
·      Moxon is developing a sentient conscious machine, one that can think and possesses intelligence.
·      Moxon is developing a machine which he believes will be capable of thinking, acting and possessing consciousness- a robot or automaton which will be able to perform actions independent of its creator.
·      The idea of a humanoid robot 
·      Quote: “you know well enough that when I say “machine” I do not mean a man, but something that man has made and controls.” 
o   The story reminds me of Frankenstein. A creation made by a mad scientist, whose interest was to explore artificial life and it ends up exploring the madness of science. 
o   Quote: “…definition of ‘life’ the activity of a machine is included – there is nothing in the definition that is not applicable to it. According to this sharpest of observers and deepest of thinkers, if a man during his period of activity is alive, so is a machine when in operation.”


Labels:

Comments

  1. GraceCarcotMarch 8, 2019 at 10:13 AM

    Hello again Samuel, You did a good job on this reading note. I think you brought up a good idea and something I did not think of while I read this story but you are right this story does remind me of Frankenstein as well. That is a good barrel to draw off two similar but different things being made from their creator.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, in a small town called Daly City. It is the largest city in San Mateo with population of 100,000 people (City of Daly City). Hence, it was a tightly knit community where I spent most of my early childhood. In the early 2000’s, I moved to the East Bay along the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta in a small town called Antioch. I spent my formative years in the area and was studying in high school called the Deer Valley. I felt the environment at Deer Valley and extra-curricular activities were conducive to study. What is more, it is one of the best state schools in California, with  good academic structure, teachers, staff, and facilities. I finished my studies there and went on to pursue my dream of a career in sales. Upon assessing my strengths and consulting with my teachers, I understood that I have strong communication skills and can find approach to most of people. For this reason, I suppose I would be able to success in the sales and ...
9 comments
Read more

Reading Notes W15 : Moten, Part B

Fred Moten Born in 1962 and raised in Las Vegas Focuses on black studies, poetry, and critical theory The Salve Trade The poem of Fred Moten is hard to understand, the reader should look at it in a different way. This poem is about the idea of the slave trade and Fred Moten just rearrange the letters and come up with slave trade. The poem also uses the technique it which it jumps from thoughts to thoughts which makes it interesting to read because it does not really show what the real issue it discusses. There are also a lot of things that occur in the poem which makes it really hard to understand the poem. It mostly shows the idea of black people which was not directly quoted but   Moten uses the phrase “I started reading my paper and ash flew from their big ol’” which describe the skin color of the black people.
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 5 Analysis: The Humanoid Robot

“Moxon’s Master” is a story written by Ambrose Bierce which tells the story of Moxon, the master, who creates a chess-playing robot. Moxon is developing a sentient conscious machine, one that can think and possesses intelligence. Although the narrator states that robots have no brains or source of thinking, he is trying to create a which he believes will be capable of thinking, acting and possessing consciousness- a robot or automaton which will be able to perform actions independent of its creator – the idea of a humanoid robot. Moxon seems to live an isolated life and the representation of the robot is what he wishes. The robot represents human cognition and social interaction, that Moxon may be experiencing.  In the story, Moxon plays a game of chess with the robot and wins. It is apparent the robot is mad, and kills Moxon. This part of the story is very interesting because Moxon states, “ definition of ‘life’ the activity of a machine is included – there is nothing in th...
4 comments
Read more