WSC Lecture: Words to Light the Darkness

by Gregory Anderson

We are aiming…

…to explore how these two stories are nodes for provocative ideas on morality, truth, and authenticity.

We are aiming

To explore how these two stories are nodes for provocative ideas on morality, truth, and authenticity.

Questions from our Special Area

What is a crime, and who decides how serious a crime is? What acts are considered crimes in some countries but not in others?Can a criminal be a hero?Is anyone who breaks the law a criminal?Should all countries follow the same legal code?

Questions from A History of Cheating

What is cheating? How is it different from lying?Is cheating ever justified?What are the advantages and disadvantages cheating?How should cheaters be punished?Are we morally obligated to report any cheaters we encounter?Under what circumstances is cheating a crime?Is cheating simply about “breaking the rules”? Or is it about exploiting them?Do certain institutions encourage cheating?Are people born with a sense of fairness?Should cheating disqualify a politician from winning elected office? How about lying?Lip Syncing, Autotune, and the Limits of the Authentic

Questions from Social Studies

What are the “best” and “worst” states you can think of? How are you measuring them?Are democracies better states than non-democracies? How much of state failure can be attributed to politics? If you were the leader of a failed or fragile state, whom would you ask for help? Are some states doomed to failure?Is the traditional concept of the state outdated in an age of globalization and the Internet?

Very basic plot outline

LttS – A housewife murders her husband with frozen leg of lamb: investigating officers eat the evidence.

- Can a criminal be a hero?

Very basic plot outlineEvidence – A politician is considered to be a robot, but this is never proven.

Should cheating disqualify a politician from winning elected office? How about lying?

More Detailed Plot

Wife sits at homeHusband reveals he will divorce wifeWife kills husbandWife creates false alibiWife secretly laughs at inspectors eating lamb

More Detailed Plot

Quinn and Lanning discuss whether Byerley is a robot – never eats. Robot morality is discussed. Quinn attempts to get Byerley x-rayed: Byerley lawyers him. Byerley punches a man in the face on live TV during a political rally to prove he is not a robot. Byerley laughs at the possibility he is a robot.

More Detailed Plot

1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

A diversion… A tool for analysing: Formalism

Defamiliarisation.

Visual thesaurus: interconnections of language.

https://www.visualthesaurus.com/

Connotations vs

Denotations

A tool for analysing: Formalism

Intended connotations and possible connotations. Does meaning exist independently of our discovery of it?

Matrix Albino fight: ‘ghosts’ of meaning – become tangible upon belief or recognition.

Should all countries follow the same legal code?

Intention and Meaning

Does intention matter when we interpret a text?

Swearing in Wolverhampton…

Death of the Author

Should a person be held responsible for breaking laws he or she doesn’t know about?

Intention and Meaning

Is anyone who breaks the law a criminal?

What is the purpose of defamiliarisation?

Being familiar with things is not always a bad thing.

We need routine and first impressions in order to... Otherwise our minds will…

Primary recency effect.

Word-Level Analysis in LttS…

We are invited to sympathise with a murderer. This is an increasingly common genre in popular fiction and film.

Where in this story do we defamiliarise expected connotations (especially as we know the ending?).

Tired/told/knew

Can a criminal be a hero?

Word Level Analysis in Evidence

We are invited to consider not only if L is a robot, but also whether this matters.

Where in this story do we defamiliarise expected connotations (especially as we know the ending?).

man./human 61 times: robot/robots 81 times.

Do we want to place ethics in the hands of a robot, who can be blind to justice?

To Kill a Mockingbird – equality can only exist before the eyes of the law, rather than other

things. (World War Z)

Evidence and Being Authentic

In Evidence, we are called upon to question what it is to be authentic.

Are we morally obligated to report any cheaters we encounter?

Evidence and Being Authentic

How important is authenticity to us? How important is being original? Lampstand idea...

Does Authenticity Matter in Politicians?

https://youtu.be/XQPy88-E2zo?t=2m44s - it he a robot or not?

Whirling Top: if it stays spinning, his experience is a dream. If it falls, he is in reality.

Does it fall or stay spinning in this video?

Does free-will really exist? Matter?

The zombie question.

Psychopathology in CEOs.

Profit Morality.

Is it innately human to cheat?

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/prove-youre-not-a-robot-with-the-bot-or-not-poetry-challenge

Robots in Japan; talk to a robot ai. Googlebot.com

Is cheating part of surviving in the real, flawed, fallen world?

Do we believe that truth matters? What is more important: truth or effect?

What is cheating? How is it different

from lying?

Both stories ending with ‘laugh’ ‘chuckled’ – purposefully playful.

Light for hope and release?

Or…

Light for joy and irreverence?