Why robots will never be philosophers

[suergaz]

:D I'm just his interpreter. I am fluent in over 6 billion forms of communication.

His nevers and always's are only his opinions, to which he cannot be held ultimately responsible.

[Jason]

:D I'm just his interpreter. I am fluent in over 6 billion forms of communication.

It appears we have an AI on our hands! A highly advanced protocol droid with 1000 times the language capacity of normal C-3 units(or perhaps a malfunctioning memory module).

His nevers and always's are only his opinions, to which he cannot be held ultimately responsible.

Unless I do hold him ultimately responsible. Then he would most certainly be held ultimately responsible.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Jason wrote:

Why do you believe that bacteria are alive but computers aren't?

you will not find computers listed as a type of species that interacts with its biological ecosystem so perhaps this is a hint of why bacteria are living and computers are nonliving.

Pye wrote:

One doesn't need fret or romance to reject robotic equivalency to humans. One simply need look to the complexity of relationships one experiences with all existing stimuli. They come in through more than the mind and from more than one inputter.

Incredibly Intelligent point.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

he just has to create circumstances for self-awareness to arise in complex life.

Oh okay, now I understand, since you make it sound so easy I believe you.

Question: look around at the world, rather complex eh? Infinite number of causal relationships interacting and intermingling.

And the human body reacts to billions of external stimuli every second, geese! And then to top it off, it filters out and responds to them accordingly. And this feat was accomplished over millions of years of evolution and periodically scientists have documented random bursts of macroevolutionary changes that remain unexplainable to this very day.

Now I don’t even trust doctors to give me a prescription when I have a cold, and the last dvd player my brother bought, he had to take it back because it was defective.

Do you really think science has what it takes to create an intelligence equal to humans?

Everything man touches turns to feces, look at the world, we are 100 years away from global starvation.

Men’s agricultural methods are failing, fresh water reserves are being lost, the atmosphere is being filled with smog and toxic chemicals, we have drastically overpopulated the earth and are consuming resources faster than the earth can regenerate.

Now do you think a robot will help solve this problem in any way? Isn’t this the only problem to solve?

If anything robots are one of the causes of all this, men’s preoccupation with technological expansion is destroying the planet.

Forget the women, technology has become man’s new feminine attachment, and the earth is suffering deeply for it.

The genius is an extreme minimalist, he negates so much of life that there is nothing left to do, but return to nature and live a sustainable existence. Robots are not needed for this.

Future communities will be sustainable eco villages based on permaculture type designs. Perennial vegetables, grains and fruit trees/bushes will transform the land.

Robots will play no part in this, they are a part of civilization which is a disease, we are a slave to sustain civilization the way it exists now.

Surely you people are not advocating that we remain a slave to civilization?

Think of how many slave children in China will need to work at assembling robots so that families in the west can have their “ROBO-MAID” that does all their household chores.

It’s sick and disgusting! and yes there is emotion there, but justified emotion.

It seems negating attachments such as unecessary technology is necessary to ease the global suffering of the planet.

[Leyla Shen]

Jason: What makes "life" is our definition of it. We decide what is life and what isn't. It isn't objectively "out there". Why do you believe that bacteria are alive but computers aren't? What exactly differentiates them in your mind?

cosmic_prositute: First of all, if you take a biology class, you will not find computers listed as a type of species that interacts with its biological ecosystem so perhaps this is a hint of why bacteria are living and computers are nonliving, but maybe I’m just way out to lunch on this one.

Well, that flew right over his head.

zag: Cos has vision. (Not being sarcastic)

zag? You call believing in life after death, vision? I’m surprised you were not being sarcastic, being the greatest non-believer in God that you know.

[David Quinn]

I agree with Jason that certain people here are projecting limits on the future progress of science in the most speculative and arbitrary manner imaginable. If truth be told, none of us knows how far science can go with AI technology. We might be able to artificially create conscious life in the future or we might not. Who knows? Certainly none of us here.

This is an obvious point. So one has to ask why cosmic-prostitute and suergaz are being so dogmatic in their insistence that it cannot possibly happen. What inner attachments do they have which lead them to engage in this little piece of insanity?

-

[suergaz]

So one has to ask why cosmic-prostitute and suergaz are being so dogmatic in their insistence that it cannot possibly happen. What inner attachments do they have which lead them to engage in this little piece of insanity?

Not if you read me correctly. For instance, I have not insisted it cannot possibly happen. I have also mentioned that I support the development of A.I. Like you say, who knows? Can I not have doubts?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Do you really think science has what it takes to create an intelligence equal to humans?

Possibly. There might be practical issues though and perhaps they will settle on enhancing currently evolved organic based intelligence. Movies or books like Frankenstein, I Robot and Animatrix express our deep lying fears on this subject quite well.

Everything man touches turns to feces, look at the world, we are 100 years away from global starvation.

Dust to dust, feces to feces. Even if so, maybe a few men will survive, reaping some of the benefits of the messy industrial and knowledge revolution. Feces make good fertilizer!

Now do you think a robot will help solve this problem in any way?

If you define ''robot" as merely that what could reach beyond what's all too human: yes.

Forget the women, technology has become man’s new feminine attachment, and the earth is suffering deeply for it.

Existence itself is deeply suffering, when one is consciousness enough to suffer. Look further, beyond cheap morality and projection.

The genius is an extreme minimalist, he negates so much of life that there is nothing left to do, but return to nature and live a sustainable existence. Robots are not needed for this.

Unless robots would replace men altogether. Why do you think it really must be mankind that has to survive against all costs?

Future communities will be sustainable eco villages based on permaculture type designs. Perennial vegetables, grains and fruit trees/bushes will transform the land.

I'm all for it. But the smartest or wisest lifestyles often do not become the most popular, I'm afraid. And in the end it will be about who owns the land, who rules it. As usual.

[David Quinn]

cosmic-prostitute wrote:

DQ: We are fortune that evolution programmed an ego into us, and there is no intrinsic reason why we can't program an ego into a machine.

cp: Science may program what they think is ego into a machine, but then all the robot will amount to is a structure based on humanities logical knowledge of what a ego is. It will not represent the complete essence of life because the robot's program is based on human knowledge, and human knowledge cannot create actual consciousness.

Leaving aside the fact that you cannot possibly know this, the ego is simply the belief that one inherently exists and possesses inherent value. Whether it be a human or machine, if a being believes in its own existence and value then it has an ego. The basics of the ego is identical in both cases.

I suspect science will be able to create robots that are basically actors; meaning they seem to feel like humans, but when you have a conversation with them, you realize that they are nothing but a limited program written by humanities knowledge.

My point is that the hand of man doesn’t have what it takes to create living breathing, feeling sentient beings, they will always come up short.

This may or may not be so, we can only speculate at this stage. It may be that we will one day stumble upon the knowledge of how to create consciousness by accident. So much of what is discovered in science is through accident. Again, we don't know. None of us knows enough about consciousness to know whether it can be artificially created by humans or not.

They’ll never capture the essence of life, IE: what is it in a bacteria that makes it alive? They’ll never find it, it is an unknowable thing.

It is current unknowable to you, and that is all you can say. It could well be that it will be very easy to discover the "essence of life" (i.e. consciousness) once other theories are in place.

DQ:Humour is basically a reaction to feeling insecure.

cp: This is just one angle to humor Quinn, for example: why is it funny when you call someone a bozo that has invested a great deal of energy into defending romantic love?

There was no humour involved here. It was a serious summing up of the man.

it is because you have experienced romantic love and suffered as a consequence. And only because you suffered do you now feel that it is funny. Robots will never be able to live in paradox, living with the tragedy and comedy of life in every moment. This is what makes the human animal unique.

This is a very conventional point of view. Most people like to think that the human race is intrinsically special. Even Christians think that humans are unique and occupy a special place in God's creation.

Nietzsche once said, "God may be dead, but his shadow lives on."

I’ve read many articles on robotic research, and when asked about the ethical implications of their research, the scientists always react the same way.

They respond by saying “I have no opinion on the matter, I’m not a philosopher, I’m a scientist”

I find it quite ironic that the people who invest great amounts of energy into creating immortal A.I are among some of the most feeble thinkers of our age.

I agree that scientists can be very feeble once they step outside of their specialized disciplines. But in this instance they are commenting about something within their own specialized field and they are speaking the truth that they really do not know whether consciousness can be created artificially or not. No one knows - except cosmic_prostitute, it would seem.

DQ: "I experience emotion, therefore no one, not even Buddhas, can ever escape the emotions", is not a very convincing argument. It just sounds like emotional hand-wringing to me.

cp: I’m not referring to emotional hissy fits or things of that nature. I’m referring to actually feeling the tragedy of another’s life, which is the essence of compassion, and it’s not a choice.

I didn’t choose to wallow in it, I felt it simply because I observed her for over forty minutes, I felt what she felt.

And how does that help her? How does it help anyone? Did you take her to your home and feed and dry her? Are you helping her to get off the drugs? Are you vowing to eliminate the root causes of all suffering by weeding out the ego and becoming wise? Has anything productive come out of this at all?

-

[Ryan Rudolph]

Quinn wrote:

None of us knows enough about consciousness to know whether it can be artificially created by humans or not.

I don’t claim to be absolutely certain that robots could evolve to possess sage-like intelligence, but I’m incredibly skeptical and doubtful of the idea.

This series of arguments was expressing that doubt, it is not to be taken as dogma.

However if one examines history intelligently all evidence points to the fact that as humans grow wiser, more and more technology will be abandoned because we’ll realize that it was never needed in the first place.

Man’s technological progress is like a man stressfully climbing to the top of a mountain only to discover that he has nothing to look forward to but the climb back down.

Civilization is the history of humanity performing functions that they hate to go buy products and services that they don’t need.

Robots are one of those products that humanity doesn’t need. They are only needed because we live an a grossly sick and overpopulated feminine civilization that demands more from the earth then what it can give.

There is a much more holistic way to live and robots will not be part of it, Wise individuals do not see a use for them, they do nothing but enslave the masses.

However Quinn has made a valid point, in the end it is unknowable to know for certain what intelligence they may or may not possess.

However here are some rhetorical questions I been wondering about…

Will a robot ever be able to watch a beautiful sunset and feel its beauty? Or take in the smell and color of apple blossoms this time of year? or play with a puppy and be completely absorbed in the moment?

Perhaps, perhaps not. In the end, all that matters is that one is taking advantage of life to the fullest to feel and take in this beauty with all ones being.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

Why do you think it really must be mankind that has to survive against all costs?

Well I suppose we could wait and see if robots will solve all our problems, but it seems like a cope out, the earth could be destroyed by then. If one is ethical, one sees what needs to be done now, there is an urgency to act you see, one sees the personal responsibility each individual has to the world and works towards that vision.

vision: Living a minimal sustainable existence. Why wait for robots to do it when we can do it ourselves?

for some individuals in this forum, they are solely concerned with understanding the psyche which is great, but eventually one needs to act in the world and sustainable minimal living in the new revolution.

if 10% of the population could combine a life long devotion to understanding the nature of the mind with a complete return to nature using sustainable living techniques, civilizaiton would crumble, and the earth would slowly transform into a paradise.

[Jason]

Why do you believe that bacteria are alive but computers aren't?

First of all, if you take a biology class, you will not find computers listed as a type of species that interacts with its biological ecosystem so perhaps this is a hint of why bacteria are living and computers are nonliving, but maybe I’m just way out to lunch on this one.

So do you base your judgements on what is alive, on what is taught in biology?

They’ll never capture the essence of life, IE: what is it in a bacteria that makes it alive? They’ll never find it, it is an unknowable thing.

It seems that you think biologists already know what life is. So it's not unknowable after all. Just the fact that you think you can point to one thing that is alive and another thing that isn't, shows that you think you know what constitutes life. If biologists decided to list computers under the umbrella of "life", would you then agree that a computer was alive?

[Ryan Rudolph]

Jason:

you are comparing two different things here, for example one can accurately describe the qualities of something that constitutes it as alive, but he couldn’t ultimately know what is the essence inside that thing that makes it alive.

Without biology, one can observe qualities of a computer that indicates it lacks life.

1. Inability to reproduce.
2. Inability to regenerate on its own, nature regenerates without human aid, computers do not.
3. computers are only able to take in a limited number of external stimuli at one time, creatures in nature take in billions and have a much more complex relationship to the environment.
4. computers are like women, you can’t leave them outside, they’ll malfunction if they get wet, but nature is rugged, strong, adaptive, infinitely complex and intelligent. A computer is a lame imitator of the power of the natural world. Man’s technology is pathetic compared to nature.

And based on these observations, it seems safe to suggest that a computer lacks life, lacks that magical organic quality one observes when he watches a robin feeding on a worm, or watches rose just beginning to open its pedals, or two seagulls flying together over a sandy beach shore…

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Cosmic, you might not be aware that there's a discussion about the definition of life ongoing in various academic fields with no consensus reached. Your points 1,2,4 are very weak in the face of computer viruses or evolutionary programming in general. Yes, software depends on hardware depends on silicium and electricity and so on. But for humans (esp small babies which are alive too you know!) a similar chain of dependency can be defined!

As for your #3: limited external stimuli and relations, yes, that's a difference. But since we're talking about 'life' now you'd have to compare an amoeba or bacteria to IBM's Deep Blue or a large mainframe controlling a stock exchange, or a cluster of equipment of a major Internet hub. I don't think the argument survives here. Bacteria might be more flexible but that's only because their purpose is less defined, less exact than solving a chess game. And had some more time to develop on a more effective scale.

And based on these observations, it seems safe to suggest that a computer lacks life, lacks that magical organic quality one observes when he watches a robin feeding on a worm, or watches rose just beginning to open its pedals, or two seagulls flying together over a sandy beach shore…

Luckily you weren't around then when all there was at Earth were dull RNA molecules drifting in some soup. You'd have eaten the soup, burped and moved on to the next excitement, unaware of ravaging the future of a whole planet!

[Jason]

Jason:

you are comparing two different things here, for example one can accurately describe the qualities of something that constitutes it as alive, but he couldn’t ultimately know what is the essence inside that thing that makes it alive.

I think this previous post of mine addresses this:

The point as I see it is that if it appears real, then for all intents and purposes it is real. All we have is appearance. At the end of the day there is no way to know that even other people are really conscious like us, all we can do is make inferences from appearances.

Our decision concerning whether something is alive is based on external appearances. Why the need to tack on the idea that an unknown essence is necessary? Your idea of an essence is at odds with the reality of how you actually decide what is alive.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

Cosmic, you might not be aware that there's a discussion about the definition of life ongoing in various academic fields with no consensus reached. Your points 1,2,4 are very weak in the face of computer viruses or evolutionary programming in general. Yes, software depends on hardware depends on silicium and electricity and so on. But for humans (esp small babies which are alive too you know!) a similar chain of dependency can be defined!

Jason wrote:

Our decision concerning whether something is alive is based on external appearances. Why the need to tack on the idea that an unknown essence is necessary? Your idea of an essence is at odds with the reality of how you actually decide what is alive.

Valid points, I’m gonna have to give this some thought.

[suergaz]

This part of the discussion recalls to me 'moxons master' by Ambrose Bierce

[MKFaizi]

Most of this forum draws my mind to Ambrose Bierce.

Good ol' Ambrose.

Faizi

[MKFaizi]

Well, I love my robots. Cute as hell. I love how they get on my nerves. Fucking blockheads. Press this, say that.

Sometimes, I try wolf howling. Just for fun. Burping is good. Hissing. Cussing. Does not matter much what you do.

I think AI must be interesting. I think AI will progress to the point that humanoids will not be required for rudimentary tasks. The more that AI replaces humans, the less that humans will be required.

Given that fact, should babies be sterilized at birth? They would not know the difference.

This is partially why I think the dead should be required to work. What makes them think they can get off the hook? Fucking bums.

I say, embalm 'em and put 'em back on the line. Make 'em earn their keep. What makes them think they deserve special treatment? I say, out of the hole and into the cubicle. Imagine the money saved in employing the dead.

The dead don't need insurance benefits. To hell with illegal immigrants! I say, dig up the dead and put 'em to work. The dead do not care about overtime. The dead do not care about benefits or hourly wages.

Screw the living. Long live the dead.

Faizi

[suergaz]

Moxon's Master

by Ambrose Bierce



"Are you serious?—do you really believe a machine thinks?"

I got no immediate reply; Moxon was apparently intent upon the coals in the grate, touching them deftly here and there with the fire-poker till they signified a sense of his attention by a brighter glow. For several weeks I had been observing in him a growing habit of delay in answering even the most trivial of commonplace questions. His air, however, was that of preoccupation rather than deliberation: one might have said that he had "something on his mind."

Presently he said:

"What is a 'machine'? The word has been variously defined. Here is one definition from a popular dictionary: 'Any instrument or organization by which power is applied and made effective, or a desired effect produced.' Well, then, is not a man a machine? And you will admit that he thinks—or thinks he thinks."

"If you do not wish to answer my question," I said, rather testily, "why not say so?—all that you say is mere evasion. You know well enough that when I say 'machine' I do not mean a man, but something that man has made and controls."

"When it does not control him," he said, rising abruptly and looking out of a window, whence nothing was visible in the blackness of a stormy night. A moment later he turned about and with a smile said:

"I beg your pardon; I had no thought of evasion. I considered the dictionary man's unconscious testimony suggestive and worth something in the discussion. I can give your question a direct answer easily enough: I do believe that a machine thinks about the work that it is doing."

That was direct enough, certainly. It was not altogether pleasing, for it tended to confirm a sad suspicion that Moxon's devotion to study and work in his machine-shop had not been good from him. I knew, for one thing, that he suffered from insomnia, and that is no light affliction. Had it affected his mind? His reply to my question seemed to me then evidence that it had; perhaps I should think differently about it now. I was younger then, and among the blessings that are not denied to youth is ignorance. Incited by that great stimulant to controversy, I said:

"And what, pray, does it think with—in the absence of a brain?"

The reply, coming with less than his customary delay, took his favorite form of counter-interrogation:

"With what does a plant think—in the absence of a brain?"

"Ah, plants also belong to the philosopher class! I should be pleased to know some of their conclusions; you may omit the premises."

"Perhaps," he replied, apparently unaffected by my foolish irony, "you may be able to infer their convictions from their acts. I will spare you the familiar examples of the sensitive mimosa and those insectivorous flowers and those whose stamens bend down and shake their pollen upon the entering bee in order that he may fertilize their distant mates. But observe this. In an open spot in my garden I planted a climbing vine. When it was barely above the surface I set a stake into the soil a yard away. The vine at once made for it, but as it was about to reach it after several days I removed it a few feet. The vine at once altered its course, making an acute angle, and again made for the stake. This manoeuver was repeated several times, but finally, as if discouraged, the vine abandoned the pursuit and ignoring further attempts to divert it traveled to a small tree, further away, which it climbed.

"Roots of the eucalyptus will prolong themselves incredibly in search of moisture. A well-known horticulturist relates that one entered an old drain-pipe and followed it until it came to a break, where a section of the pipe had been removed to make way for a stone wall that had been built across its course. The root left the drain and followed the wall until it found an opening where a stone had fallen out. It crept through and following the other side of the wall back to the drain, entered the unexplored part and resumed its journey."

"And all this?"

"Can you miss the significance of it? It shows the consciousness of plants. It proves they think."

"Even if it did—what then? We were speaking, not of plants, but of machines. They may be composed partly of wood— wood that has no longer vitality—or wholly of metal. Is thought an attribute also of the mineral kingdom?"

"How else do you explain the phenomena, for example, of crystallization?"

"I do not explain them."

"Because you cannot without affirming what you wish to deny, namely, intelligent cooperation among the constituent elements of the crystals. When soldiers form lines, or hollow squares, you call it reason. When wild geese in flight take the form of a letter V you say instinct. When the homogenous atoms of a mineral, moving freely in solution, arrange themselves into shapes mathematically perfect, or particles of frozen moisture into the symmetrical and beautiful forms of snowflakes, you have nothing to say. You have not even invented a name to conceal your heroic unreason."

Moxon was speaking with unusual animation and earnestness. As he paused I heard in an adjoining room known to me as his "machine-shop," which no one but himself was permitted to enter, a singular thumping sound, as of some one pounding upon a table with an open hand. Moxon heard it at the same moment and, visibly agitated, rose and hurriedly passed into the room whence it came. I thought it odd that any one else should be in there, and my interest in my friend—with doubtless a touch of unwarrantable curiosity—led me to listen intently, though, I am happy to say, not at the keyhole. There were confused sounds, as of a struggle or scuffle; the floor shook. I distinctly heard hard breathing and a hoarse whisper which said "Damn you!" Then all was silent, and presently Moxon reappeared and said, with a rather sorry smile:

"Pardon me for leaving you so abruptly, I have a machine in there that lost its temper and cut up rough."

Fixing my eyes steadily upon his left cheek, which was traversed by four parallel excoriations showing blood, I said:

"How would it do to trim its nails?"

I could have spared myself the jest; he gave it no attention, but seated himself in the chair that he had left and resumed the interrupted monologue as if nothing had occurred:

"Doubtless you do not hold with those (I need not name them to a man of your reading) who have taught that all matter is sentient, that every atom is a living, feeling, conscious being. I do. There is no such thing as dead, inert matter: it is all alive; all instinct with force, actual and potential; all sensitive to the same forces in its environment and susceptible to the contagion of higher and subtler ones residing in such superior organisms as it may be brought into relationship with, as those of man when he is fashioning it into an instrument of his will. It absorbs something of his intelligence and purpose —more of them in proportion to the complexity of the resulting machine and that of his work.

"Do you happen to recall Herbert Spencer's definition of 'Life'? I read it thirty years ago. He may have altered it afterward, for anything I know, but in all that time I have been unable to think of a single word that could profitably be changed or added or removed. It seems to me not only the best definition, but the only possible one.

"'Life,' he says, 'is a definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external coexistences and sequences.'"

"That defines the phenomenon," I said, "but gives no hint of its cause."

"That," he replied, "is all that any definition can do. As Mill points out, we know nothing of effect except as a consequent. Of certain phenomena, one never occurs without the other, which is dissimilar: the first in point of time we call the cause, the second, the effect. One who had many times seen a rabbit pursued by a dog, and had never seen rabbits and dogs otherwise, would think the rabbit the cause of the dog.

"But I fear," he added, laughing naturally enough, "that my rabbit is leading me a long way from the track of my legitimate quarry: I'm indulging in the pleasure of the chase for its own sake. What I want you to observe is that in Herbert Spenser's 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. As an inventor and constructor of machines I know that to be true."

Moxon was silent for a long time, gazing absently into the fire. It was growing late and I thought it time to be going, but somehow I did not like the notion of leaving him in that isolated house, all alone except for the presence of some person whose nature my conjectures could go no further than that it was unfriendly, perhaps malign. Leaning toward him and looking earnestly into his eyes while making a motion with my hand through the door of his workshop, I said:

"Moxon, whom do you have in there?"

Somewhat to my surprise he laughed lightly and answered without hesitation:

"Nobody; the incident that you have in mind was caused by my folly in leaving a machine in action with nothing to act upon, while I undertook the interminable task of enlightening your understanding. Do you happen to know that Consciousness is the creature of Rhythm?"

"O bother them both!" I replied, rising and laying hold of my overcoat. "I'm going to wish you good night; and I'll add the hope that the machine which you inadvertently left in action will have her gloves on the next time you think it needful to stop her."

Without waiting to observe the effect of my shot I left the house.

Rain was falling, and the darkness was intense. In the sky beyond the crest of a hill toward which I groped my way along precarious plank sidewalks and across miry, unpaved streets I could see the faint glow of the city's lights, but behind me nothing was visible but a single window of Moxon's house. It glowed with what seemed to me a mysterious and fateful meaning. I knew it was an uncurtained aperture in my friend's "machine- shop," and I had little doubt that he had resumed the studies interrupted by his duties as my instructor in mechanical consciousness and the fatherhood of Rhythm. Odd, and in some degree humorous, as his convictions seemed to me at that time, I could not wholly divest myself of the feeling that they had some tragic relation to his life and character—perhaps to his destiny—although I no longer entertained the notion that they were the vagaries of a disordered mind. Whatever might be thought of his views, his exposition of them was too logical for that. Over and over, his last words came back to me: "Consciousness is the creature of Rhythm." Bald and terse as the statement was, I now found it infinitely alluring. At each recurrence it broadened in meaning and deepened in suggestion. Why, here (I thought) is something upon which to found a philosophy. If consciousness is the product of rhythm all things are conscious, for all have motion, and all motion is rhythmic. I wondered if Moxon knew the significance and breadth of his thought—the scope of this momentous generalization; or had he arrived at his philosophic faith by the tortuous and uncertain road of observation?

That faith was then new to me, and all Moxon's expounding had failed to make me a convert; but now it seemed as if a great light shone about me, like that which fell upon Saul of Tarsus; and out there in the storm and darkness and solitude I experienced what Lewes calls "The endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought." I exulted in a new sense of knowledge, a new pride of reason. My feet seemed hardly to touch the earth; it was as if I were uplifted and borne through the air by invisible wings.

Yielding to an impulse to seek further light from him whom I now recognized as my master and guide, I had unconsciously turned about, and almost before I was aware of having done so found myself again at Moxon's door. I was drenched with rain, but felt no discomfort. Unable in my excitement to find the doorbell I instinctively tried the knob. It turned and, entering, I mounted the stairs to the room that I had so recently left. All was dark and silent; Moxon, as I had supposed, was in the adjoining room—the "machine shop." Groping along the wall until I found the communicating door I knocked loudly several times, but got no response, which I attributed to the uproar outside, for the wind was blowing a gale and dashing the rain against the thin walls in sheets. The drumming upon the shingle roof spanning the unceiled room was loud and incessant.

I had never been invited into the machine-shop—had, indeed, been denied admittance, as had all others, with one exception, a skilled metal worker, of whom no one knew anything except that his name was Haley and his habit silence. But in my spiritual exaltation, discretion and civility were alike forgotten and I opened the door. What I saw took all philosophical speculation out of me in short order.

Moxon sat facing me at the farther side of a small table upon which a single candle made all the light that was in the room. Opposite him, his back toward me, sat another person. On the table between the two was a chessboard; the men were playing. I knew little about chess, but as only a few pieces were on the board it was obvious that the game was near its close. Moxon was intensely interested—not so much, it seemed to me, in the game as in his antagonist, upon whom he had fixed so intent a look that, standing though I did directly in the line of his vision, I was altogether unobserved. His face was ghastly white, and his eyes glittered like diamonds. Of his antagonist I had only a back view, but that was sufficient; I should not have cared to see his face.

He was apparently not more than five feet in height, with proportions suggesting those of a gorilla—tremendous breadth of shoulders, thick, short neck and broad, squat head, which had a tangled growth of black hair and was topped by a crimson fez. A tunic of the same color, belted tightly to the waist, reached the seat—apparently a box—upon which he sat; his legs and feet were not seen. His left forearm appeared to rest in his lap; he moved his pieces with his right hand, which seemed disproportionately long.

I had shrunk back and now stood a little to one side of the doorway and in shadow. If Moxon had looked farther than the face of his opponent he could have observed nothing now, excepting that the door was open. Something forbade me either to enter or retire, a feeling—I know not how it came—that I was in the presence of imminent tragedy and might serve my friend by remaining. With a scarcely conscious rebellion against the indelicacy of the act I remained.

The play was rapid. Moxon hardly glanced at the board before making his moves, and to my unskilled eye seemed to move the piece most convenient to his hand, his motions in doing so being quick, nervous and lacking in precision. The response of his antagonist, while equally prompt in the inception, was made with a slow, uniform, mechanical and, I thought, somewhat theatrical movement of the arm, that was a sore trial to my patience. There was something unearthly about it all, and I caught myself shuddering. But I was wet and cold.

Two or three times after moving a piece the stranger slightly inclined his head, and each time I observed that Moxon shifted his king. All at once the thought came to me that the man was dumb. And then that he was a machine—an automaton chessplayer! Then I remembered that Moxon had once spoken to me of having invented such a piece of mechanism, though I did not understand that it had actually been constructed. Was all his talk about the consciousness and intelligence of machines merely a prelude to eventual exhibition of this device—only a trick to intensify the effect of its mechanical action upon me in my ignorance of its secret?

A fine end, this, of all my intellectual transports—my "endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought!" I was about to retire in disgust when something occurred to hold my curiosity. I observed a shrug of the thing's great shoulders, as if it were irritated: and so natural was this—so entirely human—that in my new view of the matter it startled me. Nor was that all, for a moment later it struck the table sharply with its clenched hand. At that gesture Moxon seemed even more startled than I: he pushed his chair a little backward, as in alarm.

Presently Moxon, whose play it was, raised his hand high above the board, pounced upon one of his pieces like a sparrowhawk and with an exclamation "checkmate!" rose quickly to his feet and stepped behind his chair. The automaton sat motionless.

The wind had now gone down, but I heard, at lessening intervals and progressively louder, the rumble and roll of thunder. In the pauses between I now became conscious of a low humming or buzzing which, like the thunder, grew momentarily louder and more distinct. It seemed to come from the body of the automaton, and was unmistakably a whirring of wheels. It gave me the impression of a disordered mechanism which had escaped the repressive and regulating action of some controlling part—an effect such as might be expected if a pawl should be jostled from the teeth of a ratchet-wheel. But before I had time for much conjecture as to its nature my attention was taken by the strange motions of the automaton itself. A slight but continuous convulsion appeared to have possession of it. In body and head it shook like a man with palsy or an ague chill, and the motion augmented every moment until the entire figure was in violent agitation. Suddenly it sprang to its feet and with a movement almost too quick for the eye to follow shot forward across table and chair, with both arms thrust forward to their full length—the posture and lunge of a diver. Moxon tried to throw himself backward out of reach, but he was too late: I saw the horrible thing's hands close upon his throat, his own clutch its wrists. Then the table was overturned, the candle thrown to the floor and extinguished, and all was black dark. But the noise of the struggle was dreadfully distinct, and most terrible of all were the raucous, squawking sounds made by the strangled man's efforts to breathe. Guided by the infernal hubbub, I sprang to the rescue of my friend, but had hardly taken a stride in the darkness when the whole room blazed with a blinding white light that burned into my brain and heart and memory a vivid picture of the combatants on the floor, Moxon underneath, his throat still in the clutch of those iron hands, his head forced backward, his eyes protruding, his mouth wide open and his tongue thrust out; and—horrible contrast!— upon the painted face of the assassin an expression of tranquil and profound thought, as in the solution of a problem in chess! This I observed, then all was blackness and silence.

Three days later I recovered consciousness in a hospital. As the memory of that tragic night slowly evolved in my ailing brain I recognized in my attendant Moxon's confidential workman, Haley. Responding to a look he approached, smiling.

"Tell me about it," I managed to say, faintly—"all about it."

"Certainly," he said; "you were carried unconscious from a burning house—Moxon's. Nobody knows how you came to be there. You may have to do a little explaining. The origin of the fire is a bit mysterious, too. My own notion is that the house was struck by lightning."

"And Moxon?"

"Buried yesterday—what was left of him."

Apparently this reticent person could unfold himself on occasion. When imparting shocking intelligence to the sick he was affable enough. After some moments of the keenest mental suffering I ventured to ask another question:

"Who rescued me?"

"Well, if that interests you—I did."

"Thank you, Mr. Haley, and may God bless you for it. Did you rescue, also, that charming product of your skill, the automaton chess-player that murdered its inventor?"

The man was silent a long time, looking away from me. Presently he turned and gravely said:

"Do you know that?"

"I do," I replied; "I saw it done."

That was many years ago. If asked today I should answer less confidently.