Rorschach, We Have a Problem! The Linguistics of First Contact in Watts's Blindsight and Lem's His Master's Voice.
In Peter Watts's Blindsight, a super-intelligent but non-conscious artifact calling itself Rorschach imitates human speech and thus fakes linguistic communication with people. I question the validity of this idea and use Stanis»aw Lem's His Master's Voice as a counter-example. Problems with "Rorscha...
| Publicado en: | Science Fiction Studies Vol. 41; no. 2; pp. 364 - 392 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Literary Criticism |
| Publicado: |
University of California Press
Jul2014
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| Sumario: | In Peter Watts's Blindsight, a super-intelligent but non-conscious artifact calling itself Rorschach imitates human speech and thus fakes linguistic communication with people. I question the validity of this idea and use Stanis»aw Lem's His Master's Voice as a counter-example. Problems with "Rorschach-as-fake-speaker" are discussed in the light of findings in linguistics, with the overarching argument that Rorschach would need to obtain access to the semantic and symbolic sphere of language for this to be possible. I maintain that a being without consciousness cannot do this. |
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