Kicking things off with a few words on some concepts that have been floating around my head for a long while now. This is a first part of many, because I quickly realized all that I wanted to talk about got really big really fast.
Lately I've started giving more thoughts about the work I’m currently pursuing and how to fully step into it as a tool of reflection and the thoughts on the subjects that interest me which have been compounding since childhood.I’m nowhere close to a definite answer, as the more I dig, the more shiny little nuggets of self-realization keep turning up, so I’ll try to keep it brief and introduce some thoughts and concepts.
So what about robots? In our contemporary collective unconscious they are mostly portrayed in a negative light, and one could agree it’s for good reason.
The surge of AI programs being utilized by companies in order to undercut artists and writers has been at the forefront of everyone’s mind for the past couple years. Books and movies and TV shows are rife with the trite subject of the robot uprising, and set on replacing humans though mostly at the fault of the creator’s design or as a response to an existence of slavery.
Whether in a positive or negative light, it’s safe to say that in our collective unconscious, one of the symbols for “the future” is embodied by the figure of the robot.
In my eyes, they’re a symbol of the future that could be.They evaluate human shortcomings, and are an objective reflection of our best and worst qualities. They reflect human ingenuity and our innate drive to create things and scratch the ancestral itch of problem solving and playing God.
I’d argue it’s the same drive that prompted our ancestors millions of years ago to make the first stone tool.
A few months ago, as I started focusing in getting to the bottom of my fascination with robots, I ended up delving deeper into Animism. Being a worldview focused on acknowledging the spirit of organic and inanimate objects, the link it made to robots was almost a no brainer. At the same time, I came across two very interesting reads; “Man and his Symbols” by Carl Jung and Penguin’s “Dictionary of Symbols” and I was surprised to find a hefty amount written about stones.
Thanks to them, I discovered some interesting links between the concept of souls and stones, which is so ubiquitous to many (if not all) Human cultures.
Stones are seen as symbols of Mother Earth. Menhirs and standing stones are both one’s ancestors and their resting place. Meteorites have divine connotations.
The precious stones and metals found within are seen as their offspring, and the stone becomes a living being which passes on life.
No matter the interpretation, there's a Human tendency of recognizing a energy and connection between the inorganic and organic. Personifying and/or acknowledging something unspoken and undefinable, though very much felt.
Being the offspring of stones, metal is also seen as taking on a spirit of its own. With the advent of metalwork, blacksmiths would often recognize something akin to a soul or personality in a sword, or anything else that would be coming out of the forge and out of their hands and efforts.
Later, Alchemists would elaborate the concept of a spirit in and behind inanimate objects as “spirit in matter” or “the secret soul of things".
If someone were to prefer thinking about it in more scientific terms, recent findings in the neurology field on the topic of bioelectricity, the electrical current present in all life (and about which I am most certainly going to be write a few things about) seems to very well mirror even older ideas of rock magnetism.
Seeing bioelectricity and electromagnetism as two sides of the same coin, was the one key needed to bridge the symbolism of stones and metals to modern sci-fi ideas which are often so far removed from ancestral values and thought patterns of humanity.
Holding into account the two ends of the scale, and the very ancient and ubiqutous symbolism of inanimate objects when it comes to futuristic storytelling, could play an interesting part in envisioning a more sustainable future relationship with the land and other non-humans with whom we share this planet with.
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