smiled. "My owner's children picked it, Dr Riley."
"I recall the original had three levers. One for living, one for thinking and one for talking. It's interesting that even a writer of children's fiction couldn't imagine an automaton without getting into deep philosophical waters—existence, cogitation, communication. In my opinion the very concept of an automaton or robot is a philosophical concept, giving rise to questions about life, thought, and language—and much more. Yes, I sometimes wonder whether robots were not invented in order to answer philosophers' questions. Do you follow?"
"How do I know?"
"Well said. I wonder if you'd like to come out to the University and talk to my seminar. The kids are wrestling at the moment with a few problems relating to robots; I think they'd like to interview you."
Somewhere inside me I felt a warning buzzer. "What kind of problems?"
"Oh, you know. Creativity, reality, perception. What do you say, Tik-Tok?"
"I accept." What harm could it do? Words are only words, I thought, and there was no better example of their weightlessness than the monologue of Colonel Cord. As Dr Riley left, I turned to listen.
Cord was still speaking to no one in particular, with some vehemence, of the world backdrop situation. "Once Brazil has cut down a critical percentage of her rain forest," he said, "she ceases to deserve a place at the world brunch table, agreed? Likewise any taggable thrust of experts from Southeast Asia has to inmeld within the Sino-Japanese corral, agreed? And in an exactly identical mode, we have the Egypto-Libyan community hugged into Europe, you see where I'm at? You see the patternification in and on all theaters of movement? A kind of glaciatizing effect, where . . ."
Hornby drifted through carrying his cat and wearing a green cashmere suit-robe and a crown of mirrors. The effect was only to emphasize his ugliness, the gangster's blue jaw and broken fighter's nose. Maybe that's what he wanted— Hornby was not vain in the ordinary way. The woman with him wore a black tube with a gold collar, and an unusual bread mask with a salt glaze. After pausing to listen for a moment to Cord's backdrop, they drifted in my direction.
"Tik-Tok, like you to meet Neeta Hup, the President's Special Advisor on Communications—what was it?"
She laughed. "Special Advisor on Leisure Communications, Media Aesthetics and Bong."
"Bong?" I asked, as Hornby drifted away again.
"I felt the word Art didn't belong on the end of a string of syllables like that, so I changed it to Bong ," she said. "The President was furious, but so far no one else official has noticed. Maybe I'll try introducing bong into the language. People are tired of art, give them bong."
"For bong's sake," I murmured. " How do you advise?"
"I buy, I make acquisitions for the President's collection. He wants to be the biggest bong collector since Goering. He's heard what a good investment it is, isn't that pathetic?"
"Oh, I don't know. Money is real, money endures. All the noblest sentiments can be beautifully expressed in money. If everyone showered artists with money whenever they saw them, wouldn't this be a finer world?"
"Are you sex-equipped?" she asked. "I've got two minutes to spare."
As we moved towards the hall closet, I saw Colonel Cord reach out to put his glass on the mantel, and miss. The glass shattered on blue hearthstones, a nice effect.
I was preoccupied with explosions lately. A few days earlier, I'd been down at the rohobo jungle watching two gargantuan factory robots smash each other into junk.
It was common enough, that kind of death-struggle: Two fairly broken-down specimens would decide to scavenge the same scrap of wire at the same, and move on to scavenging each other. I understand boa constrictors in zoos create a problem like this: zoo keepers have to be very careful that every snake in the cage gets its own rat, because if two start to swallow opposite ends of the same rat, the larger
"I recall the original had three levers. One for living, one for thinking and one for talking. It's interesting that even a writer of children's fiction couldn't imagine an automaton without getting into deep philosophical waters—existence, cogitation, communication. In my opinion the very concept of an automaton or robot is a philosophical concept, giving rise to questions about life, thought, and language—and much more. Yes, I sometimes wonder whether robots were not invented in order to answer philosophers' questions. Do you follow?"
"How do I know?"
"Well said. I wonder if you'd like to come out to the University and talk to my seminar. The kids are wrestling at the moment with a few problems relating to robots; I think they'd like to interview you."
Somewhere inside me I felt a warning buzzer. "What kind of problems?"
"Oh, you know. Creativity, reality, perception. What do you say, Tik-Tok?"
"I accept." What harm could it do? Words are only words, I thought, and there was no better example of their weightlessness than the monologue of Colonel Cord. As Dr Riley left, I turned to listen.
Cord was still speaking to no one in particular, with some vehemence, of the world backdrop situation. "Once Brazil has cut down a critical percentage of her rain forest," he said, "she ceases to deserve a place at the world brunch table, agreed? Likewise any taggable thrust of experts from Southeast Asia has to inmeld within the Sino-Japanese corral, agreed? And in an exactly identical mode, we have the Egypto-Libyan community hugged into Europe, you see where I'm at? You see the patternification in and on all theaters of movement? A kind of glaciatizing effect, where . . ."
Hornby drifted through carrying his cat and wearing a green cashmere suit-robe and a crown of mirrors. The effect was only to emphasize his ugliness, the gangster's blue jaw and broken fighter's nose. Maybe that's what he wanted— Hornby was not vain in the ordinary way. The woman with him wore a black tube with a gold collar, and an unusual bread mask with a salt glaze. After pausing to listen for a moment to Cord's backdrop, they drifted in my direction.
"Tik-Tok, like you to meet Neeta Hup, the President's Special Advisor on Communications—what was it?"
She laughed. "Special Advisor on Leisure Communications, Media Aesthetics and Bong."
"Bong?" I asked, as Hornby drifted away again.
"I felt the word Art didn't belong on the end of a string of syllables like that, so I changed it to Bong ," she said. "The President was furious, but so far no one else official has noticed. Maybe I'll try introducing bong into the language. People are tired of art, give them bong."
"For bong's sake," I murmured. " How do you advise?"
"I buy, I make acquisitions for the President's collection. He wants to be the biggest bong collector since Goering. He's heard what a good investment it is, isn't that pathetic?"
"Oh, I don't know. Money is real, money endures. All the noblest sentiments can be beautifully expressed in money. If everyone showered artists with money whenever they saw them, wouldn't this be a finer world?"
"Are you sex-equipped?" she asked. "I've got two minutes to spare."
As we moved towards the hall closet, I saw Colonel Cord reach out to put his glass on the mantel, and miss. The glass shattered on blue hearthstones, a nice effect.
I was preoccupied with explosions lately. A few days earlier, I'd been down at the rohobo jungle watching two gargantuan factory robots smash each other into junk.
It was common enough, that kind of death-struggle: Two fairly broken-down specimens would decide to scavenge the same scrap of wire at the same, and move on to scavenging each other. I understand boa constrictors in zoos create a problem like this: zoo keepers have to be very careful that every snake in the cage gets its own rat, because if two start to swallow opposite ends of the same rat, the larger
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