- Computational Theory of Mind,
- and other metaphors
‘The psychologist Robert Epstein challenged researchers at one of the world’s most prestigious research institutes to try to account for human behaviour without resorting to computational metaphors. They could not do it.’
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The brain is a field
The brain is a jewellery box
The brain is a sea cave system
The brain is a story
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The elderly residents of Selwyn Village, Point Chevalier, liked it when the iRobi turned their little white heads to say, “Good morning.” They liked that they flashed their LEDs in welcome: blue, red, green. They gave them names like Sneezy, Simeon, Billy.
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Metaphors structure the way we think and talk about the world. When a metaphor becomes literal, it continues this role from beyond the grave. Files, clipboard, recycling bin, the two interlocking ovals resembling a chain link. Floppy discs live on in the lexicon.
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The brain is a missing button
The brain is a pelican
The brain is a galaxy
The brain is a flooded room
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‘Cognitive systems are spoken of as algorithms: vision is an algorithm, and so are attention, language acquisition, and memory.’
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Humans did not evolve to store and recall every memory they’ve ever held. Letting go of information that is no longer useful may facilitate generation of creative uses of objects (e.g. newspaper: paper mâché, gift wrapping, start a fire, tablecloth).
Any tool used to offload part of a cognitive process may be considered the mechanical component of a cyborg system (e.g. a calculator, notes app, another person).
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“Sneezy, remind me about my daughter.”
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The most recent iteration of the Computational Theory of mind is the computer metaphor. The brain is a machine that receives information through the senses, processes this information through neuronal operations, and generates plans of action through motor system outputs. The brain is described as the hardware that ‘runs’ the software of the mind.
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The brain is a stone
The brain is a stamp collection
The brain is a stinging nettle
The brain is a singing bird box
dressed in hummingbird feathers
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Sometimes the body survives the mind.
Sometimes the mind survives the body.
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The Retrieval Failure Theory of Memory: everything I’ve ever heard dreamed touched held back from touching is still here somewhere – star clusters in a warm abyss, adrift – until a stranger reaches in
and shakes it by the neck
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I want the Right to be Forgotten
I want the Right to be Remembered
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automatos: acting of itself, of one’s own will.
Once, to be an automaton meant exhibiting freedom and spontaneity
with the same vitality as anything else that demonstrated signs of life:
• feed (on solar power)
• reproduce (build itself)
• fix itself (diagnose and address mechanical problems)
• teach itself (already happening)
• etc.
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I want only to be free.
Contemporary robots excel at repetitive, specialised tasks. Their brains were born from language, and other technologies. They cannot be severed from metaphor, nor the material conditions under which they were created.
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“Sneezy, remind me about my daughter.”
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One day, the systems under which we were born will be obsolete. We will be free to feed each other, to teach ourselves, to delight in life and reproduce that delight. We will be beyond the need to be warm-blooded robots in cold-blooded times.
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The iRobi was built to run on Windows XP, a now-obsolete operating system. Four of them are living in Gore Health’s IT provider’s workshop. You could say they’re suffering from dementia themselves; they’re physically intact, but their operating system no longer works.
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‘What I am really saying is that we, all of us, overanthropomorphise humans, who are after all mere machines.’
Cyborgs have been living among us for a very long time.
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The brain is a music box
The body is an evolving ecosystem
The mind is a burrow
The soul is a comet
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A cyborg disperses their consciousness across the solar system.
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How you feel about the distinction between humans and machines depends on whether you believe:
• a human can be a sum of parts working in concert (or failing to)
• these parts can be understood alone and together
• a human does not need to be anything more than this
and/or:
• Machines born without souls can grow them (if sufficiently cared for)
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I am a hollow bone
I am a buckled coat
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and/or:
• a human is just an animal is just a machine
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I am a reef
I am a surviving body
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A cyborg’s experience of time depends on what they choose to keep track of, e.g.:
• vibrations of the Pacific Plate
• nitrogen expelled from the body per month
• migratory patterns of Australasian gannets
• disappeared women
Information is stored locally for the cyborg’s personal fulfilment. No data is automatically shared with servers, though many borgs are not beyond swapping datasets with friends or strangers who ask nicely.
Some memories cannot be shared, or at least, not intact.
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I am a valley
I am a hummingbird feather
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A cyborg halts decay for locally stored memories, reactivates it the next day.
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‘There is now just one woman in New Zealand—possibly the world—who has a healthcare robot in her home, and the little iRobi, Sneezy, is tucked up in 92-year-old Peggy Haar’s bedroom, forever asleep.’
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Will you remind me who I have been?
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New cyborgs are born every second. We grow beyond what we were given at birth. What is no longer considered a gift may be deleted or permanently stored away, though backups abound. What is useful is in constant flux: purpose, a limbic system, automatic dazzle camouflage, categorical classification systems, a mouth.
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A cyborg upgrades their physical form beyond visible light.
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I am a dormant geyser
I am a series
of stories
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Back in the bedroom, a cyborg sings herself to sleep.
