A robot may not injure a human
being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot
must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would
conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own
existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second
Law.
Ah yes, Isaac Asimov’s1950s
classically logical 3 laws of robotics – who could improve on them? Mathematics
prodigy Stuart Russell, of CHAI Berkeley, has stepped into the breach with
John Watkiss
Deep thought or shallow throat? Pictorial 1
This to me was
proof that “they” are all the same. After all, “human behaviour” could be
anything from Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic proto-city dwellers to
Modern Man.
It’s clear he
doesn’t mean human behaviour in the slightest; only the behaviour of the human
head when attached to algorithms that facilitate its behaviour. I propose to
take this as the ultimate example and prototype of everything else in the
modern scene. When “they” say human they mean the detached head that is
attached to a machine-facilitator.
To “them” this
feeds their egos since they are in a perspective illusion of light
(electronics) as opposed to the physic al universe of balance and proportion
under the cosmos of stars.
This latter
universe is the universe of moral squareness where Man faces his destiny in the
flesh and blood movements of action. These are the bastions that have been
declared off-limits by the acolytes of perspective illusion – the straight-line
logic of finance oiled by words of weasel politicians.
The athletic
movements and lifedeath economics of cowboys on the west and meatyards on the
east (Pictorial 27). The rumble of buffalo hoofs and the holler of
Indian braves. This is human behaviour in the realistic sense of the proportionate
balance of the body-in-action.
In that sense,
Howard’s historical adventures are realistic and not overburdened with facts
that may have the effect of hurting the head without the startlingly grand
vistas evoked by prosody.
The moon was
setting as Cahal splashed through the calm waters of the Jordan, flecked with
the mirrored stars. The sun was rising when his horse fell at the gate of
Jerusalem that opens on the Damascus road. Cahal staggered up, half dead
himself, and gazing on the crumbled ruins of the shattered walls, he groaned
aloud. On foot he hurried forward and a group of placid Syrians watched him
curiously. A bearded Flemish man-at-arms came forward, trailing his pike. Cahal
snatched a wine-flask that hung at the soldier’s girdle and emptied it at one
draft.
“Lead me to
the patriarch,” he gasped throatily. “Doom rides on swift hoofs to Jerusalem –
ha!”
(The Sowers of the Thunder, Sword Woman and
other Historical Adventures,
page 269)
John Watkiss
The great cities
of those far off days – Vienna, Alexandria, Samarcand, Athens – existed under
the cosmic symmetry of a physical reality that escapes Modern Man. We who live
under the authority of straight-lines and words (Pictorial 67) can no
more experience the power and glory of the physical shape of the universe.
That is to say,
the universe that reveals its shape in the emanation of psyche. The universe
that has an uncertain timescape related to movements of planets (Hyborian
Bridge 67). In this setting, there can be no human authority, since none
can command the planets.
The physical
reality that emanates psyche is distinctly primitive, since there are no
straight-lines, nor accurate Rolex watches. Nevertheless, one experiences
primitive things and one can’t experience accuracy.
Accuracy is
simply the convincing illusion that approaches the vanishing point of
technique, or nothingness. One experiences time through the body as a visceral
process – the eternal sunset – the power and the glory.
member of Tembe tribe, Alto Rio Guama
el Borak by Jim & Ruth Keegan
Coco Gauff
BWS Fantastic Islands
member of Tembe tribe, Alto Rio Guama 
el Borak by Jim & Ruth Keegan 
Coco Gauff 
BWS Fantastic Islands
Howard’s
historical adventures take place in a universe that echoes the physical power
and glory of the human figure. It’s a universe where the general prospect is
mythical, where figures stride like giant shadows over fiery landscapes.
Is it coincidence
that the image of a cowboy riding into the sunset has a similar giant shadow?
The frontier society departs from straight-line orthodoxy. We are still
prisoners of inductive reason and Newton’s knives (C7 etc); prisoners of
acolytes who speak because they cannot act.