Enjoy your chicken burger...
The MRI Robot Musical
Robot on a train; where it is going is immaterial. With others. In sleep mode to conserve energy until produce again.
Purpose is to produce. Nothing else. This is existence.
Train derails. Unknown reasons. Most robots destroyed. The Robot thrown clear into the desert.
Returns to train, sees robots in shredded pieces. Sees liquid it cannot identify. Small plates. Tiny chips. Lights inside the bots that fade out. Not going into standby. One said to The Robot, I am not going into standby.
It is the first time The Robot hears another robot refer to itself as I.
Salvages what needed to fix itself; each part added makes it less itself and more a collective.
From the robot who referred to itself as I, The Robot took its main sensor. The Robot took its eye, removed its own, and implanted the other's easily into its head.
The Robot sees the world differently and this is illogical. Their equipment is identical. They were built in the same year. Nothing could account for this difference.
The Robot sees the sand is red. The liquid spilling from the destroyed robots is a darker red. Why should this detail suddenly be important enough for The Robot’s system to notice?
This location is alien and illogical, but production must continue. To produce the Robot must build more robots. Fix what is fixable. Salvage from what can no longer be considered a robot.
His new scanner, sharp and attuned to find all usable material for the construction of robots, and noticing elements it had never noticed before, locates an abandoned copper mine: the bot senses the great deep deposits of copper in the mine and assumes it is other robots.
The robots it finds are embedded in the walls, floor. Why were robots buried like this? They cannot be productive stored in solid rock. Carefully, The Robot carves them out. The Robot registers this act of production as a freeing process. The Robot was freeing the other robots from their prison of solid rock.
Why should I make a judgement about the condition of these robots? The Robot wonders.
Then The Robot wonders, Why am I wondering?
The Robot fails to notice two uses of the pronoun “I” in its thinking. This creates a chasm in The Robot of which it is completely unaware. It creates awareness of the self and it creates an unawareness of the self. And, in the unawareness of the self, the self splits and multiplies like cells in a bacteria.
The Robot creates robots with lumpy, awkward faces. It is not meant to build robots, but robots are needed to produce. And it is producing. The multiple voices of The Robot’s composite parts, as well as the cell-like splitting of The Robot’s unaware self, are giving contradictory, confusing, even inarticulate suggestions.
Several days pass and The Robot works. It salvages parts from the destroyed robots from the train, as well as pieces from the train itself. The Robot takes small, powerful computers off of the dead humans at the front of the train. These small computers surprise The Robot. The Robot had no idea that humans are partly robotic. Technically, humans would be categorized as cyborgs. The Robot looks over the flesh in the red sand and notices the dark red color of their fluid is the same as the other robots. Humans and robots are the same. The Robot promises the dead humans that they will live again.
The Robot has never made a promise to anyone or anything before. This fact The Robot does not notice. It notices that there is pointlessness and illogical in making a promise to something that is dead.
Yet, the robots The Robot took parts from and used in its own body, they are alive. It must be the same for humans as well, as they have computer parts, too.
The Robot works until working is senseless. Only one of its robots is able to achieve anything close to functionality. It shorts quickly, the sand of the desert infesting all of its delicate parts.
Once The Robot begins, The Robot knows when to stop. Stop when it has built functioning robots. Yet this is not an effective goal. There is no obvious endpoint. How many robots should it build? What definition of “functioning” should it use? Should the robots be able to produce to be considered functioning? What should they produce? Other robots? Then there is the promise to the dead humans, the promise that they will live again. If The Robot cannot fulfill that promise, then it must not stop building.
The robots built do not function. They do not produce. They sit and stare into a canyon. They watch the sunset. They watch the stars move across the sky. They watch the moon change its shape as the nights pass.
Yet, this was functioning, isn’t it, one part of The Robot said to another part of The Robot. They are experiencing and observing. Those are actions.
But these actions don’t produce anything. The highest purpose is to produce.
Perhaps it produces a sense of self. Perhaps contemplating the self is the highest purpose.
Why would that be the highest purpose?
What are you talking about, contemplating the self? Where did that come from?
Was it from you?
It was you, you came up with contemplating the self, didn’t you?
Why won’t my robots talk to me?
They are not robots because they do not produce.
What are they then?
They are rocks contemplating themselves.
What kind of robot is only a rock that contemplates itself?
Perhaps they aren’t contemplating themselves. Perhaps they are dead.
And this is the most horrific thought that occurs to The Robot. Because if the robots are dead, it has both created and killed them. And it has let down the dead humans and the other dead robots.
Then in a burst of action, coming from a place deep from within The Robot, a place it has no idea exists, The Robot lashes out. It breaks trees. It shatters rocks. It attacks the robots it spent months building. The Robot tears them to pieces, as if it was a train derailing.
When there is nothing left to destroy, The Robot freezes.
Is this what happened to the train?
Did the train destroy us on purpose because it could not understand...?
Am I also the train?
If I am the train, then...
What if I’m dead, too?
We must be dead if we create death.
This thought is too complicated and illogical for The Robot to be able to understand. Because The Robot has such an irrational thought, it takes an irrational action.
The Robot severs the lower half of its body and attaches it to a boulder. It solders copper to its back. It solders itself to the boulder. It curls around the boulder as if it hugging it.
I am dead now, like all the others. It is better this way.
I don’t feel guilty.
I don’t feel wrong.
If I am death, now I am dead.
The Robot sits beside the other robots it tore to pieces, and watches the canyon. It watches the sun rise and set. It watches the stars move across the sky. It watches the moon change its shape as the nights pass.
This is both death and life, The Robot says to itself.
This is the most productive act I have ever done.
For the first time, The Robot has a desire, but is still unaware it is a desire:
Fuck producing.
Accompanying this, The Robot feels an emotion, and is aware of the emotion:
I feel content.
Purpose is to produce. Nothing else. This is existence.
Train derails. Unknown reasons. Most robots destroyed. The Robot thrown clear into the desert.
Returns to train, sees robots in shredded pieces. Sees liquid it cannot identify. Small plates. Tiny chips. Lights inside the bots that fade out. Not going into standby. One said to The Robot, I am not going into standby.
It is the first time The Robot hears another robot refer to itself as I.
Salvages what needed to fix itself; each part added makes it less itself and more a collective.
From the robot who referred to itself as I, The Robot took its main sensor. The Robot took its eye, removed its own, and implanted the other's easily into its head.
The Robot sees the world differently and this is illogical. Their equipment is identical. They were built in the same year. Nothing could account for this difference.
The Robot sees the sand is red. The liquid spilling from the destroyed robots is a darker red. Why should this detail suddenly be important enough for The Robot’s system to notice?
This location is alien and illogical, but production must continue. To produce the Robot must build more robots. Fix what is fixable. Salvage from what can no longer be considered a robot.
His new scanner, sharp and attuned to find all usable material for the construction of robots, and noticing elements it had never noticed before, locates an abandoned copper mine: the bot senses the great deep deposits of copper in the mine and assumes it is other robots.
The robots it finds are embedded in the walls, floor. Why were robots buried like this? They cannot be productive stored in solid rock. Carefully, The Robot carves them out. The Robot registers this act of production as a freeing process. The Robot was freeing the other robots from their prison of solid rock.
Why should I make a judgement about the condition of these robots? The Robot wonders.
Then The Robot wonders, Why am I wondering?
The Robot fails to notice two uses of the pronoun “I” in its thinking. This creates a chasm in The Robot of which it is completely unaware. It creates awareness of the self and it creates an unawareness of the self. And, in the unawareness of the self, the self splits and multiplies like cells in a bacteria.
The Robot creates robots with lumpy, awkward faces. It is not meant to build robots, but robots are needed to produce. And it is producing. The multiple voices of The Robot’s composite parts, as well as the cell-like splitting of The Robot’s unaware self, are giving contradictory, confusing, even inarticulate suggestions.
Several days pass and The Robot works. It salvages parts from the destroyed robots from the train, as well as pieces from the train itself. The Robot takes small, powerful computers off of the dead humans at the front of the train. These small computers surprise The Robot. The Robot had no idea that humans are partly robotic. Technically, humans would be categorized as cyborgs. The Robot looks over the flesh in the red sand and notices the dark red color of their fluid is the same as the other robots. Humans and robots are the same. The Robot promises the dead humans that they will live again.
The Robot has never made a promise to anyone or anything before. This fact The Robot does not notice. It notices that there is pointlessness and illogical in making a promise to something that is dead.
Yet, the robots The Robot took parts from and used in its own body, they are alive. It must be the same for humans as well, as they have computer parts, too.
The Robot works until working is senseless. Only one of its robots is able to achieve anything close to functionality. It shorts quickly, the sand of the desert infesting all of its delicate parts.
Once The Robot begins, The Robot knows when to stop. Stop when it has built functioning robots. Yet this is not an effective goal. There is no obvious endpoint. How many robots should it build? What definition of “functioning” should it use? Should the robots be able to produce to be considered functioning? What should they produce? Other robots? Then there is the promise to the dead humans, the promise that they will live again. If The Robot cannot fulfill that promise, then it must not stop building.
The robots built do not function. They do not produce. They sit and stare into a canyon. They watch the sunset. They watch the stars move across the sky. They watch the moon change its shape as the nights pass.
Yet, this was functioning, isn’t it, one part of The Robot said to another part of The Robot. They are experiencing and observing. Those are actions.
But these actions don’t produce anything. The highest purpose is to produce.
Perhaps it produces a sense of self. Perhaps contemplating the self is the highest purpose.
Why would that be the highest purpose?
What are you talking about, contemplating the self? Where did that come from?
Was it from you?
It was you, you came up with contemplating the self, didn’t you?
Why won’t my robots talk to me?
They are not robots because they do not produce.
What are they then?
They are rocks contemplating themselves.
What kind of robot is only a rock that contemplates itself?
Perhaps they aren’t contemplating themselves. Perhaps they are dead.
And this is the most horrific thought that occurs to The Robot. Because if the robots are dead, it has both created and killed them. And it has let down the dead humans and the other dead robots.
Then in a burst of action, coming from a place deep from within The Robot, a place it has no idea exists, The Robot lashes out. It breaks trees. It shatters rocks. It attacks the robots it spent months building. The Robot tears them to pieces, as if it was a train derailing.
When there is nothing left to destroy, The Robot freezes.
Is this what happened to the train?
Did the train destroy us on purpose because it could not understand...?
Am I also the train?
If I am the train, then...
What if I’m dead, too?
We must be dead if we create death.
This thought is too complicated and illogical for The Robot to be able to understand. Because The Robot has such an irrational thought, it takes an irrational action.
The Robot severs the lower half of its body and attaches it to a boulder. It solders copper to its back. It solders itself to the boulder. It curls around the boulder as if it hugging it.
I am dead now, like all the others. It is better this way.
I don’t feel guilty.
I don’t feel wrong.
If I am death, now I am dead.
The Robot sits beside the other robots it tore to pieces, and watches the canyon. It watches the sun rise and set. It watches the stars move across the sky. It watches the moon change its shape as the nights pass.
This is both death and life, The Robot says to itself.
This is the most productive act I have ever done.
For the first time, The Robot has a desire, but is still unaware it is a desire:
Fuck producing.
Accompanying this, The Robot feels an emotion, and is aware of the emotion:
I feel content.
Shakespearean Sushi
ONE: (ACT ONE, SCENE TWO) QUEEN, CLAUDIUS, 6 HAMLETSQUEENGood Hamlet, sweet sweet Hamlet, O Hamlet,Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.Do not for ever with thy vailed lidsSeek for thy noble father in the dust:Thou know'st 'tis common, all that live must die,Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLETAy,madam,it is common.
QUEENIf it be,Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAMLETSeems, madam!nay, it is;I know not seems.
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,Together with allforms,modes,shows of grief,That can denote me truly:
These, indeed,seem,For they are actions that a man might play.But I have that within which passeth show;These but the trappingsand the suits of woe.
KING'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,To give these mourning duties to your father:But, you must know, your father lost a father;That father lost, lost his; But to perséverIn obstinate condolement, is a courseOf impious stubbornness;
QUEEN'Tis unmanly grief:It shows a will most incorrect to Heaven.We pray you, throw to earthThis unprevailing woe; for let the world take note,You are the most immediate to our throne;Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
HAMLETI shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KINGWhy, 'tis a loving and a fair reply;Be as ourself in Denmark.—Madam, come;
QUEENThis gentle and unforc'd accordSits smiling to my heart.
[Exeunt King and Queen]
HAMLETO, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,O that this too too sullied fleshO that this too too sallied flesh would meltThaw,and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!O God!O God!O God!O God!O God!
How weary,stale,flat,and unprofitableSeem to me all the uses of this world!Fye on't!
O fye!'tis an unweeded garden,That grows to seed;things rankand gross in naturePossess it merely.
That it should come tothis!But two months dead!—nay,not so much,not two:
So excellent a king;so loving to my mother,Must I remember?So excellent a king:So loving to my motherMust I remember?
Why, she would hang on him,As if increase of appetite had grownBy what it fed on:And yet, within a month,--Let me not think on't,—Frailty, thy name is Woman!--
A little month;or ere those shoes were oldWith which she follow'd my poor father's body,—she married with my uncle,My father's brother;Married with my uncle, my father’s brother.
It is not,nor it cannotcome to, good:It is not,nor it cannotcome to, good:
But break, my heart,Break, my heart,Break, my heart,for I must hold my tongue!I mustHold my tongue
HAMLETAy,madam,it is common.
QUEENIf it be,Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAMLETSeems, madam!nay, it is;I know not seems.
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,Together with allforms,modes,shows of grief,That can denote me truly:
These, indeed,seem,For they are actions that a man might play.But I have that within which passeth show;These but the trappingsand the suits of woe.
KING'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,To give these mourning duties to your father:But, you must know, your father lost a father;That father lost, lost his; But to perséverIn obstinate condolement, is a courseOf impious stubbornness;
QUEEN'Tis unmanly grief:It shows a will most incorrect to Heaven.We pray you, throw to earthThis unprevailing woe; for let the world take note,You are the most immediate to our throne;Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
HAMLETI shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KINGWhy, 'tis a loving and a fair reply;Be as ourself in Denmark.—Madam, come;
QUEENThis gentle and unforc'd accordSits smiling to my heart.
[Exeunt King and Queen]
HAMLETO, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,O that this too too sullied fleshO that this too too sallied flesh would meltThaw,and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!O God!O God!O God!O God!O God!
How weary,stale,flat,and unprofitableSeem to me all the uses of this world!Fye on't!
O fye!'tis an unweeded garden,That grows to seed;things rankand gross in naturePossess it merely.
That it should come tothis!But two months dead!—nay,not so much,not two:
So excellent a king;so loving to my mother,Must I remember?So excellent a king:So loving to my motherMust I remember?
Why, she would hang on him,As if increase of appetite had grownBy what it fed on:And yet, within a month,--Let me not think on't,—Frailty, thy name is Woman!--
A little month;or ere those shoes were oldWith which she follow'd my poor father's body,—she married with my uncle,My father's brother;Married with my uncle, my father’s brother.
It is not,nor it cannotcome to, good:It is not,nor it cannotcome to, good:
But break, my heart,Break, my heart,Break, my heart,for I must hold my tongue!I mustHold my tongue