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Loading... Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology (edition 2020)by Adrienne Mayor (Author)
Work InformationGods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology by Adrienne Mayor
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) Gwendydd | Apr 30, 2023 |  Talos is the obvious example, but apart from that I found myself going 'well, maybe, sort of' more often than with her other books. (  ) Robertgreaves | Mar 23, 2022 | ) hissingpotatoes | Jan 17, 2022 | Mostly a look at greek myth, there's also a bit of middle eastern and asian myth in there too. It's also made me more interested in Medea and Daedalus who were just really cool. There's some great creepiness that I love also - take the myth of the mortal Tithonus, whose immortal lover Eos asked the gods to grant him eternal life but forgot to ask for eternal youth as well. "When loathsome old age begins to weigh upon Tithonus, Eos despairs. In sorrow, she places her aged lover in a chamber behind golden doors where he remains for eternity. There, devoid of memory or even the strength to move, Tithonus babbles on endlessly. In some versions, Tithonus shrivels into a cicada, whose monotonous song is a never-ending plea for death." (  ) katebrarian | Jul 30, 2020 | MarthaJeanne | Jul 16, 2020 |
In Gods and Robots, Adrienne Mayor analyses ancient evidence for artificial life, creatures “made, not born” (2), and the art of creating them, which she terms biotechne. Mayor concentrates on Greek, Roman, and Etruscan textual and material culture, with frequent comparisons to Indian, Chinese, and Babylonian sources, among others. For example, she compares the Pygmalion myth to a Buddhist story about a mechanical woman used to seduce a painter, who retaliates by creating a tromp l’oeil of his own suicide (111). Mayor weaves together this ancient material with stories from SF (science/speculative fiction) and the current science of artificial life to make a vigorous case for how we should interpret artificial life in ancient cultures. Rather than being “animated by magic or divine fiat,” she argues, “these special artificial beings were thought of as manufactured products of technology, designed and constructed from scratch using the same materials and methods that human artisans used” (2). This puts Mayor at odds with a number of other scholars, including myself (as she acknowledges, 22), who contend that at least the earliest automata, including the self-moving tripods and golden maids created by Hephaestus in Homer’s Iliad, were probably understood as magical. On Mayor’s reading, these automata are much closer to modern robots, androids, and replicants than scholars have so far recognized. Belongs to Publisher SeriesAwards
The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. More than 2,500 years ago, long before medieval automata, and centuries before technology made self-moving devices possible, Greek mythology was exploring ideas about creating artificial life--and grappling with still-unresolved ethical concerns about biotechne, "life through craft." In this compelling, richly illustrated book, Adrienne Mayor tells the fascinating story of how ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese myths envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices, and human enhancements--and how these visions relate to and reflect the ancient invention of real animated machines. As early as Homer, Greeks were imagining robotic servants, animated statues, and even ancient versions of Artificial Intelligence, while in Indian legend, Buddha's precious relics were defended by robot warriors copied from Greco-Roman designs for real automata. Mythic automata appear in tales about Jason and the Argonauts, Medea, Daedalus, Prometheus, and Pandora, and many of these machines are described as being built with the same materials and methods that human artisans used to make tools and statues. And, indeed, many sophisticated animated devices were actually built in antiquity, reaching a climax with the creation of a host of automata in the ancient city of learning, Alexandria, the original Silicon Valley. No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing AuthorAdrienne Mayor is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing. Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)930History and Geography Ancient World Ancient HistoryLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.75)
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