I was raised Catholic. I should know the answer to this. But somehow it just never came up, in catechism. If you asked me what various theologians would have to say on the issue, I might be able to speculate (Augustine would likely say no, on the grounds that robots have no soul to save; […]
Can the Church baptize robots? Read More »
It’s strange, the things I hold onto. I remember my mother’s voice climbing steadily into the fog-wreathed ridges of panic as she gripped some bauble between thumb and finger, asking “Why do you keep these things?” and gesturing helplessly at the sherpa paths trodden so delicately by my little feet in between the papers, the books,
Moving: an archaeological memoir Read More »
“Do you remember your bad dream, from this morning?” “…No. No, wait, yes I do. I dreamed you were a robot. A Von Neumann!” “That’s right. You were shaking all over, and you kept saying, ‘They’re taking over! They’re taking over!’ I reached over to wake you up, and you were terrified of me.” A pause.
I sometimes dream my own story. Read More »
“We are evolving every year, every decade. That’s a fact, whether it is to the intensity of the sun, whether it is to, as a chiropractor, walking on cement versus anything else, whether it is running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment….” —Canadian Science Minister Gary Goodyear, responding to
Why we should teach evolution: Read More »
This is my Ad Astra schedule: Friday, 9pm, Salon 434: Science, Fantasy, and Horror in Anime Saturday, 9pm, Salon 241: Move Over, Meatbrains! (a panel about robots, why they’re useful in fiction, and recent advances in robotics/AI) Sunday, 2pm, Ballroom Centre: Tesseracts Anthology Panel (I appeared in No. 11, and will likely be sitting next
My Ad Astra schedule: Read More »
Since writing more SF, I pay more attention to science. Doing so allows me to examine global conflict and development from another angle, one more intimately connected to reason and research than strained appeals ethics that we are all only presumed to share. My interest in and appreciation for the field consequently makes me twice
Science can be lame, too. Read More »
I had a good weekend. It involved learning Japanese, visiting The ROM, and learning how to play Crokinole from Karl Schroeder, who is enough of a crack shot that he can manipulate the board such that you might feel a little bit better about your total lack of hand-eye coordination, until you realise what he’s
A weekend well spent Read More »
we discussed the discourse of gender. This led to conversations about: Jeremy Bentham Henry Jenkins’ bibliography Twin Peaks (I used the phrase “before your time” with a total lack of irony) Who Killed Amanda Palmer (a Freudian slip) Why you might need a woman’s touch when dealing with government agencies Online mating rituals (involving ukuleles)
Light blogging alert. If you have my number, please call me, then berate me for not: packing marking studying (Japanese) In the meantime, please enjoy ????801???:
Today while writing about my VN, I realised I would have to dismiss a cool-but-unlikely feature. It’s the kind of feature that would have looked great on film but bad on paper — the sort of thing one of my workshop members calls “The Refrigerator Problem”: namely, a plot device whose problematic elements don’t occur