Connections - Chapter Seven: We are Machines
When Billy Pilgrim described his father-in-law as a machine, it made me think of the Terminator movies. Billy Pilgrim says that "Earthlings are offended by the idea of being machines." Just like in the movies, the people are scared of the Terminator so they try to hunt him down and kill him. The Tralfamadorians say that every creature is a machine. If you think about it, our bodies are organic machines that work in such a meticulous way so that we can live and function.
Yes Joey, we are machines, but we do not THINK like a machine does. A machine will follow the same program every day depending on the function of the machine. Billy did describe his father-in-law as a machine, but he was probably so far into his life that he was looking toward death.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting. I passed over this quote when I was reading, but the machine/human comparisons are great. People do generally think of robots as wrong, or inferior, or even frightening, but your comment that humans are "organic machines" gave me insight to how humans follow habits. Some habits, like war, should not be followed, but humans seem to continue repeating their paths like quasi machines.
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