Post by XT-421 on Oct 16, 2010 23:19:01 GMT
So, while I may be spread thin in story material, I think I found another story to write... (And this thread's intentions are to build on it and discuss it.)
Before I tell you the story's ideas, I will tell you the basis of the idea.
I am in three classes that, combined, are life changing. AP Physics, Psychology, and Anatomy. These three things are fusing together in my mind to create a new perception of life itself. I found that there is absolutely nothing "alive" about a cell, and that every element within one can be completely replicated by machine, (everything is action reaction, and simple programming.) Therefore, what are humans? If we are just built of a trillion cells, objects that can be replicated by programming, what the hell are we? Are we degradable to machine too?
I am beginning to think so. (But perhaps, I begin to realize, this is not such a bad thing after all?)
I took this idea one step further, and combined it with my new knowledge of psychology, there, I learned that a good portion of the mind is fairly mechanical, more action reaction. That everything is based off of initial reactions, programmed into your head in your genetic code, and that the rest is built off of it.
I redefined my take on "consciousness". Perhaps it is not thought persay, but rather, ongoing observations about your environment and past self, and relating your past self to your past self longer ago in attempts to forsee the future to avoid peril or distaster, unpleasant consequences that you do not want repeated.
Therefore, I wanted to do something brash. I wanted to build a thinking robot. I wanted to do this as a career, but I have a feeling that bureaucrats and other thumb-twidlers wouldn't find that as profitable as I would, (for my wealth is knowledge, not paper.)
So, I could not build my thinking robot in real life, so I was going to write my hypothetical future, as accurately as I could. This thought appealed to me.
Now for the story.
We have a scientist, (unnamed as of yet,) who seeks the answers to the questions I just asked, and a group of cohorts, superiors and inferiors, all dedicated to building a robot, to see if they can, to see what it will think, how it will think, and possibly, if it can derive the meaning of life from a perspective a human cannot.
So they build it. Little mechanisms permit the arms and legs to move very quickly, though it cannot lift more than 100 pounds due to human safety concerns. It can walk, talk, respond to every stimuli a human can. It can differentiate a gentle touch from a grip, and can recognize a chair from a collection of wooden pieces.
It's mind is complex, (my idea is to have it based off of the main scientist's deceased daughter's brain, using the cells to replicate a new metal mind, this would explain future events.) It runs on a variety of parts of computing power, constantly analyzing everything, yet knowing what is to be focused on most.
In short, they succeed, and the robot, Quasar, (it is to act like a she,) is born.
The main character scientist takes her home with a group of scientists overseeing her assimilation into the world. She is monitored constantly, and they watch as she develops, taking notes and and making inefrences. Eventually, they leave, and give the girl time to grow by herself, (from either the scientist's reccomendation or her own.)
Time passes, and it is the time of a science convention where Quasar is to reveal what she has learned over the past month. In this month, she has a series of misadventures, comical yet insightful. She learns to write like a human, and begins to touch on the topics of emotion and herself, learning when an appropriate time is to let a smile show, and when it is wrong to show much emotion. At the convention, emotion is not to be shown.
She reveals one truth that she has learned that shakes perceptions of scientists and gives her a break from them for a little while. While noting that her body was functioning before she was conscious, she states that she cannot remember this slightest of details before her present programming was installed, and therefore, "I am who I am because of the way the wires came together." Meaning for humans, that the slightest changes in the way we were born can mean our very individuality. Scientists contemplate this, and Quasar is allowed to return to her home, to indulge in activities that she finds interesting. (Piano, Art, and industry.)
Later, she asks the professor whom she's been living with if she can be a human. His response is no, that sadly, she would never be a human. She asks if she can pretend to be one, to try to be a human, and argues that it would better help her understand human nature. He relents, and together, they fix up Quasar to look like a human, and send her to the nearby high school with a made up story describing her appearance there. She is now known as (Julie? I am out of names, but I do like Julie.)
Initial reactions with unsuspecting members of the human race are strange and awkward, but Quasar adapts, and becomes less and less quirky with each day. She sets limitations on herself, as to not disturb the class that she can write a page long paper in a matter of seconds.
This is kind of where the story gets too strange to really continue. Not for me, by any stretch, but by the populace. Most dislike the idea of robots with emotions, and, with robots having emotion, human/robot relationships would become possible. Part of this story was created because of the merging of these themes.
Quasar is to find a boy, and unconditionally like him. She does not know why, and this bothers her. Ultimately, she relents to try to befriend him, and the friendship takes flight.
Her affection for him grows over time. Eventually, her drawing takes flight because of him, able to draw a picture that she has never seen before by splicing in a background and modifying faces to create a picture of the two together in various regions of the world.
They kind of get friendlier, and Quasar invites him to her "house" one day. Hillarity ensues. One day, however, when the boy is getting closer to Quasar, she hesitates and tells him the truth about herself, seeing that it would logcailly be unfair and unrealistic to live a lie.
He is traumatized, and leaves. Quasar is upset, but they remain friends, and still hang out every so often. Quasar then makes the commitement to come out of hiding in the school, and slowly reveals her true nature to the school she has mostly befriended. Life is good, she takes up a sport, Archery.
Eventually the boy will get a girlfriend, and Quasar will be devastated. She will come home in emotional shambles unaware of why she is the way she is. She asks the proffessor why she was created. "If I could get a robot to have a soul, then I could have one too." Is the reply. This comforts her, as she feels she has a soul, able to explain why she feels emotion. The combined programming allows her to feel powerfully.
An event occurs, perhaps the boy and the girl break up, but it is later now all the same.
The government is frighted about Quasar's ability to shoot a bow perfectly, and finds reason to impound her and everyone she has associated with. (I want something really bad to happen to the boy, you'll see why in a moment,)
Quasar's basic, primative programming kicks in: ESCAPE. She flees, and evades capture. (The people are interrogated as to where she went perhaps?) She thinks heavily in her favroite spot outdoors to think, pondering the most logical course of action.
She cannot however, and somehow knows that they are doing bad things to the guy she likes. She runs back into the facility and breaks the boy out of the interrogation area. He is weak. She runs past her mechanical limits, and starts to break. She gets to a clearing, and the boy thanks her, she tells him she loves him, and he is dumbstruck. He gives her a hug, maybe a kiss, she is overwhelmed.
The government appears to give chase, and she begins running too fast again, helping the boy get somewhere.
Something happens to her related to the past, she makes an attempt to swim, perhaps? She cannot make it. The math proves that she will fail. She defies the math, and places the boy in a safer place, but she herself falls back into the water, never to be seen again.
(The whole story is in the perspective of the robot, by the way.)
We see the end of the story with Quasar refleting on death. How everything seemed to fade away and she was left only with the feeling of love for the boy in her mechanical heart. She claims she never vanished. She just sat on the hill over looking the town below, watching the people bustle around merrily. (Basically describing robot heaven.)
So what do you think? Too crazy? Too boring? What should go? What should stay? I'd really love some opinions other than my own.
~Joe
Before I tell you the story's ideas, I will tell you the basis of the idea.
I am in three classes that, combined, are life changing. AP Physics, Psychology, and Anatomy. These three things are fusing together in my mind to create a new perception of life itself. I found that there is absolutely nothing "alive" about a cell, and that every element within one can be completely replicated by machine, (everything is action reaction, and simple programming.) Therefore, what are humans? If we are just built of a trillion cells, objects that can be replicated by programming, what the hell are we? Are we degradable to machine too?
I am beginning to think so. (But perhaps, I begin to realize, this is not such a bad thing after all?)
I took this idea one step further, and combined it with my new knowledge of psychology, there, I learned that a good portion of the mind is fairly mechanical, more action reaction. That everything is based off of initial reactions, programmed into your head in your genetic code, and that the rest is built off of it.
I redefined my take on "consciousness". Perhaps it is not thought persay, but rather, ongoing observations about your environment and past self, and relating your past self to your past self longer ago in attempts to forsee the future to avoid peril or distaster, unpleasant consequences that you do not want repeated.
Therefore, I wanted to do something brash. I wanted to build a thinking robot. I wanted to do this as a career, but I have a feeling that bureaucrats and other thumb-twidlers wouldn't find that as profitable as I would, (for my wealth is knowledge, not paper.)
So, I could not build my thinking robot in real life, so I was going to write my hypothetical future, as accurately as I could. This thought appealed to me.
Now for the story.
We have a scientist, (unnamed as of yet,) who seeks the answers to the questions I just asked, and a group of cohorts, superiors and inferiors, all dedicated to building a robot, to see if they can, to see what it will think, how it will think, and possibly, if it can derive the meaning of life from a perspective a human cannot.
So they build it. Little mechanisms permit the arms and legs to move very quickly, though it cannot lift more than 100 pounds due to human safety concerns. It can walk, talk, respond to every stimuli a human can. It can differentiate a gentle touch from a grip, and can recognize a chair from a collection of wooden pieces.
It's mind is complex, (my idea is to have it based off of the main scientist's deceased daughter's brain, using the cells to replicate a new metal mind, this would explain future events.) It runs on a variety of parts of computing power, constantly analyzing everything, yet knowing what is to be focused on most.
In short, they succeed, and the robot, Quasar, (it is to act like a she,) is born.
The main character scientist takes her home with a group of scientists overseeing her assimilation into the world. She is monitored constantly, and they watch as she develops, taking notes and and making inefrences. Eventually, they leave, and give the girl time to grow by herself, (from either the scientist's reccomendation or her own.)
Time passes, and it is the time of a science convention where Quasar is to reveal what she has learned over the past month. In this month, she has a series of misadventures, comical yet insightful. She learns to write like a human, and begins to touch on the topics of emotion and herself, learning when an appropriate time is to let a smile show, and when it is wrong to show much emotion. At the convention, emotion is not to be shown.
She reveals one truth that she has learned that shakes perceptions of scientists and gives her a break from them for a little while. While noting that her body was functioning before she was conscious, she states that she cannot remember this slightest of details before her present programming was installed, and therefore, "I am who I am because of the way the wires came together." Meaning for humans, that the slightest changes in the way we were born can mean our very individuality. Scientists contemplate this, and Quasar is allowed to return to her home, to indulge in activities that she finds interesting. (Piano, Art, and industry.)
Later, she asks the professor whom she's been living with if she can be a human. His response is no, that sadly, she would never be a human. She asks if she can pretend to be one, to try to be a human, and argues that it would better help her understand human nature. He relents, and together, they fix up Quasar to look like a human, and send her to the nearby high school with a made up story describing her appearance there. She is now known as (Julie? I am out of names, but I do like Julie.)
Initial reactions with unsuspecting members of the human race are strange and awkward, but Quasar adapts, and becomes less and less quirky with each day. She sets limitations on herself, as to not disturb the class that she can write a page long paper in a matter of seconds.
This is kind of where the story gets too strange to really continue. Not for me, by any stretch, but by the populace. Most dislike the idea of robots with emotions, and, with robots having emotion, human/robot relationships would become possible. Part of this story was created because of the merging of these themes.
Quasar is to find a boy, and unconditionally like him. She does not know why, and this bothers her. Ultimately, she relents to try to befriend him, and the friendship takes flight.
Her affection for him grows over time. Eventually, her drawing takes flight because of him, able to draw a picture that she has never seen before by splicing in a background and modifying faces to create a picture of the two together in various regions of the world.
They kind of get friendlier, and Quasar invites him to her "house" one day. Hillarity ensues. One day, however, when the boy is getting closer to Quasar, she hesitates and tells him the truth about herself, seeing that it would logcailly be unfair and unrealistic to live a lie.
He is traumatized, and leaves. Quasar is upset, but they remain friends, and still hang out every so often. Quasar then makes the commitement to come out of hiding in the school, and slowly reveals her true nature to the school she has mostly befriended. Life is good, she takes up a sport, Archery.
Eventually the boy will get a girlfriend, and Quasar will be devastated. She will come home in emotional shambles unaware of why she is the way she is. She asks the proffessor why she was created. "If I could get a robot to have a soul, then I could have one too." Is the reply. This comforts her, as she feels she has a soul, able to explain why she feels emotion. The combined programming allows her to feel powerfully.
An event occurs, perhaps the boy and the girl break up, but it is later now all the same.
The government is frighted about Quasar's ability to shoot a bow perfectly, and finds reason to impound her and everyone she has associated with. (I want something really bad to happen to the boy, you'll see why in a moment,)
Quasar's basic, primative programming kicks in: ESCAPE. She flees, and evades capture. (The people are interrogated as to where she went perhaps?) She thinks heavily in her favroite spot outdoors to think, pondering the most logical course of action.
She cannot however, and somehow knows that they are doing bad things to the guy she likes. She runs back into the facility and breaks the boy out of the interrogation area. He is weak. She runs past her mechanical limits, and starts to break. She gets to a clearing, and the boy thanks her, she tells him she loves him, and he is dumbstruck. He gives her a hug, maybe a kiss, she is overwhelmed.
The government appears to give chase, and she begins running too fast again, helping the boy get somewhere.
Something happens to her related to the past, she makes an attempt to swim, perhaps? She cannot make it. The math proves that she will fail. She defies the math, and places the boy in a safer place, but she herself falls back into the water, never to be seen again.
(The whole story is in the perspective of the robot, by the way.)
We see the end of the story with Quasar refleting on death. How everything seemed to fade away and she was left only with the feeling of love for the boy in her mechanical heart. She claims she never vanished. She just sat on the hill over looking the town below, watching the people bustle around merrily. (Basically describing robot heaven.)
So what do you think? Too crazy? Too boring? What should go? What should stay? I'd really love some opinions other than my own.
~Joe
